DroppingDimes’ Alvin Lai takes a look at the candidates for fantasy basketball MVP. The candidates have been clear since about halfway through the season, really. It was just a matter of whether LeBron, Kobe, or CP3 would suffer an injury that would derail their fantasy season. So far, even with Kobe’s hanging ligament, they are all still in the race. Alvin wants you to take a look at Amare, too, though.
JE Skeets is kind of like me in that he doesn’t really follow college ball. So, he’s done all of non-NCAAB-heads a favor by picking out who to watch for in the Final Four games this weekend. I watched OJ Mayo and Michael Beasley turn in rather tepid performances in their first-round matcup, so I’ll be interested to see what the rest of these guys (some of whom I do actually know by name) will bring.
It’s not often that one gets selected to host a Carnival. It’s certainly less often when Matt wants that Carnival to happen right around when your blog is celebrating it’s Blogiversary. So, without further Ado, Happy 3rd Blogiversary to Give Me The Rock!
Oh, and a Carnival too… Let’s see what we gots…
I have voluntarily submitted for Matt his post regarding BlogABull’s 4th Blogiversary. Yeah, he beat me out by just over a year. In the comments on that post, he points out that Desipio has been around in one form or another for 10 years. I’m tempted to argue that if it’s not called the same thing it doesn’t count, but I was over at Blogspot for a good 8 months, and I’m not going to easily give that up, so here’s to GMTR making it to 10 years!
Next up, from NBA Glue, something that fantasy heads can appreciate: Starting 5s for teams for which you might not know the starting 5s. Or if you’ve been taking the summer off like the guys at Fantasy Basketblog, this is an easy way to catch up on what’s been going on. The NBA Glue is also holding things together with a preview of the Atlantic Division teams. Another good way to catch up in case you’ve been frozen in carbonite.
Kind of looks like he got hit with the NBA Glue.
Speaking of NBA Glue, Ryan McNeill from HoopsAddict brings together Matt Kolsky from the Chicago Sports Review (holla!) and D-Wil from The Starting Five for a Podcast about the Eastern Conference teams at the Vegas Summer League. For those of you that aren’t podcastingly inclined, you can also read a summary of the audio file. I, myself, listen to several podcasts, but I have been holding out from making one for at least 2 of GMTR’s 3 years on the web. Everyone says I’m a bit of a low-talker and/or I mumble when I’m not really making a point, so I don’t think I’d make the best podcaster unless I pretended to be someone I’m not.
Speaking of someone I’m not, I’m not a Sports Agent. Nor do I want to be one. But Paul Shackman and Darren Heitner and a bunch of other guys do. In their submissions, they talk about what to do with Yi Jianlian now and Kevin Durant’s shoe deal with Nike, which is evidently the second largest endorsement deal ever [citation needed].
Speaking of endorsement deals, Give Me The Rock recently signed Rachel for $1 to tell people “If you like basketball, it’s pretty good. It’s really not that dorky or anything.” I think we might have overpaid for that one.
Speaking of Rachel, I’m sure that many visitors here wish she was the one running this Carnival, even though I’m sure those same visitors don’t actually realize they wish she was the one running the Carnival. If you can imagine the referrals to this site, the majority of which come from Google Images, then you can come to some understanding of what I mean.
Speaking of ways to sneak in posts with cool segues out of 8th grade, here’s Steve - with no experience with the Carnival - taking it to the rack strong! By rack, I was going for something related to Nenad’s girl or something attached to a dancer, but I’m not sure that it came across clearly enough for those of you who don’t have your mind in the gutter. So, just so you know, I was going for “taking it to the rack.”
Speaking of other things the NBA shouldn’t do is: allow players to make more rap albums. Of course, the WolvesWatch says that Troy Hudson’s new album isn’t too bad. I got a little hyped up for Ron Artest’s album, but T-Hud isn’t going to even get me to think about going to iTunes, let alone Amazon or something.
Speaking of holding out, I am holding out on posting a review of the book authored by a guy who is interview here because I haven’t had time to finish it. But since I grew up in Portland, and now live in Chicago, I am 100% sure that the 1984 draft was the most important draft in my personal NBA history. Read an interview with the guy who wrote a whole book about it, and you’ll see how it changed not just Portland and Chicago, but the entire NBA forever.
NOTE: This was written before I heard about the Garnett trade. So, now I guess it’s the Twolves’ fans who will have to wait for their young stars to bud, while the Celtics dominate the East.
So there’s your Carnival of the NBA #47, aka stealing everyone’s thunder to celebrate GMTR’s 3rd Blogiversary. Want to celebrate your own blogiversary by hosting the Carnival? Or maybe you don’t have an upcoming blogiversary, but want to host the Carnival anyway? Just click on over the the Carnival of the NBA group on BallHype and you can have your cake and eat it too.
And in completely unrelated, but maybe interesting to someone news: There a sort-of MMORPG basketball game called Cyberdunk. It’s kind of like those old school drug baron games you’d play online, except with a basketball player instead of drugs. I’ve created a player, but so far haven’t played in any games. I see a whole bunch of Joe Npc Smith type characters meaning that the game needs more real players. If you’re into that sort of thing, come on over and see if you can get in the UK league with me (yeah, I tried for the US, but it could be worse).
or: We thought about throwing something down lightning fast, but GMTR has always been about quantity over quickness over quality, so I’m just here to tell you that the summer will once again be filled with Team Previews! It’s going to be wicked fun!
Just to recap:
Best image from the Playoffs:
Best image from the Draft:
So, yes, Patrick and I are already communicating via Email about the Team Previews to come this Summer. And as I’m sure anyone reading this knows, there was a lot of move making on June 28th, so a lot of fantasy analysis that needs to be done. I can only hope that you are looking forward to having it brought to you as much as we are looking forward to bringing it to you. Cause that’s a lot of looking forward.
NBA Bloggers Mock Draft (one of several hundred). Thanks to The Hype for posting it. I think it’s on other sites like CelticsBlog.com, but they were getting so much traffic earlier in the week that their server couldn’t handle it.
Not sure if I can make it this year since I’ll be having these chumps staying at my house. I plan on watching the draft, but don’t know if I can go to Union Park since it’s a lot farther from my place than, say, Paddy Mac’s. UP does have 4 stars from 55 reviews on Yelp, though, and that’s pretty dang good. Paddy Mac’s has a 4.5, but only 7 reviews (including my clearly biased 5 star review). Thursday night they have a taco and chips for $1.75. That’s easily worth 5 stars on draft night.
