Russia is playing Canada right now in the world championships. Russia brought a bunch of studs (Ovie, Malkin, Semin, Datysuk, Kovalchuk) and Canada is playing a bunch of guys I've never heard of.
OMG OMG John Clayton said the Bears offense is the best thing he's seen in training camp so far! (2007) Jay Cutler is throwing bullets all over the field, he's making Devin Hester look like an all pro receiver (2009) Yeah, I bought that pretty hard. Here are some choice quotes of Bears training camp 2007. http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/trainingcamp07/columns/story?columnist=clayton_john&id=2956884 That whole John Clayon article would be hilarious if it weren't so sad.
The fluffier the off season fluff pieces are the worse the Bears play. I'll never forget how the media made Rex and the offense look All-World going into 2007.
The Angels are not an LA team. They're an Orange County team. There's a huge difference demographically and OC is so big that they didn't have to siphon off one potential Dodgers fan to become a big market franchise.
I really don't see Tennessee or Chicago being in the bottom of the league like King suggests. Tennessee is going with Young from day 1 and the Bears should almost be better by default no? Of course it's the NFL and they could end up being horrible.
Harris has been an average point guard for most of his career, really. He couldn't get past Jason Terry in the rotation in Dallas and he had one legitimately great year in NJ. He's had two years where he's played in more than 70 games. Plus there's been an influx of really good point guards in the league the last few years. He's a top 10-15 PG, not a championship piece.
That's where I point to their near-record awfulness this year and question whether Wall/Turner alone puts them even in the top 10 in the East. You'd really take the Nets roster with Wall/Turner over Chicago's? I wouldn't.
These last few posts just got me thinking that there the media market factor for NJ is completely overblown. I think the Clippers, Nets, and even the White Sox have proven you can be in a major media market and be utterly irrelevant nationally.
I thought the Hawks were pretty lucky. Niemi was unbelieveable. Nabokov was ok but the Sharks had way more juicy chances. Chicago also lost too many draws in its own zone. A few power plays would be nice too. How unusual is it for a team not to get one power play for a whole game?