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Nope, I was thinking of a position player, I remember he was supposed to be super fast. I'm getting worried I have been thinking of Hak Ju Lee this whole time, which kinda pisses me off and makes me feel old. Yeah, you might be thinking of Pin-Chieh Chen. Can't think of anyone else fitting the Asian middle infield description besides Hak-Ju Lee or Chen. Maybe he's thinking of Kyung-Min Na? He isn't a middle infielder (CF mostly), but he was supposed to be fast when he was signed, got a pretty big bonus, and there were several other Asian signings that year (including Chen for a lesser amount that year). He also was in 2009 so a little closer to the stated timeframe. If it is him, Na was traded to San Diego in the Rizzo deal, and San Diego released him this year.

well, Billy should have given more consideration to the very real possibility of his coach being canned or of leaving for another job. Just one part of the decision-making process. Of course Johnny could always be considered culpable for being a terrible judge of character himself, but his coach blatantly misled in him in selling him what he thought was a dream. Johnny's coach is a pathological scumbag that can never be trusted and will do the same thing over and over and over at the same school. The coach that cuts Billy only does so once or twice, whenever he moves. Once or twice, huh? Interesting. In Groce's first (full) off-season as coach, Illinois already has had four players transfer. In Crean's five (full) off-seasons, so far Indiana has had four transfers (five if you want to count Matt Roth; heck, six if you want to count Ron Patterson). So which program is doing a worse job fulfilling its obligations to student-athletes? of course you have to count roth and patterson. you're also being disingenuous when you talk about the transfers in Groce's first full year. yeah, of course that's when the kids he didn't recruit are going to leave. when else are they going to leave? what i'm saying is that this serial overrecruiting isn't going to happen under his watch. Patterson has admitted he didn't make grades even in his second chance summer school situation. He had to average a 2.0, which he wasn't quite able to do. He thinks that he didn't get a 3rd chance because of the scholarship situation (and he might be right), but if he had just made good enough grades in either of his chances he would be on the team right now. Could the basketball team have fought a little harder for him? Probably...it wouldn't be the first situation where a sports player got special treatment. Are they obligated to do that though?

That's a good question and one I'm not sure what the answer is. My thoughts are that if he's guaranteed money through 2018, the cap hit would go through that season (meaning two years of cap hits and the second being worse than the first). If I'm wrong, though, it makes the contract a bit more palatable, though it doesn't make Flacco any better. The cap hit is a 1 time thing. The 24 million is a result of his remaining pro-rated signing bonus accelerating onto that year's cap. Of course, that would still make it a 3 year/62 million year deal (with the cap hit over 4 years). I could see that being an argument for keeping Flacco that long, but I'm guessing they'll end up extending rather than cutting, even if he doesn't get any better.

Maybe, maybe not. I mean, if he's as bad as dew says, cutting him won't be all that painful. If he's still good though, they can extend him and manipulate the cap hit. If they cut him in 2016, they would have a dead cap hit of around 24 million. That's pretty prohibitive. So they either cut him after year 3 and still have 24 million on their cap, or they have Flacco on their cap for 29 million. Neither option is all that appealing, so they'll have to work out an extension. Flacco will have them over a barrel. It may be 7-9 years before they truly feel the pain from this contract, but it has set a chain of events into motion that most of the time will end up with a bad result. This is of course all irrelevant if Flacco has turned the corner as a QB. We'll have to see on that one.

lol, yep. We can talk about Flacco's contract in overall dollars, but truth is that those last couple of years are unlikely to be paid out as-is. As-is, no. But that's not a positive point for the Ravens. Flacco will be the perfect age to demand another large money extension then. And the Ravens can't really get out of the deal easily even at that point. The guarantees make cutting him after year 3 pretty unpalatable, and just going forward with that contract if Flacco demands a ridiculous amount isn't really workable either. They'll be in pretty terrible negotiating position.

What's your solution dew? Let them walk and trade for Colt McCoy? You aren't making any sense. I'm not sure what dew's solution is, but here is one option. If the QB isn't willing to come down, slap the non-exclusive franchise tag on them. If they sign a deal with another team, you can always match and be not much worse off than you were before, or if it's still crazy high, you can take the two first round picks. You then either have extra draft picks to move up to take a QB (if it's a good QB year) or you can try to find a talented backup that hasn't had a chance somewhere else. Either way you will also have extra money available to lose less talent than Baltimore ended up losing. Is it risky? Absolutely. But so is losing other parts of your team because you paid your QB 120 million. Both strategies are viable, but it's going to be harder for QB's to keep setting record contracts with a cap that is going to remain stagnet for a few years, which has not been the norm in the past.

ESPN had just decided yesterday to televise Heat/Bobcats on the 5th (bumping Thunder/Pacers) and Heat/Sixers on the 6th. So now they're stuck with two terrible games, and who knows if the Heat start resting early at this point. I understand needing time for production to get there, but that seems a bit early to be locked into games.

Apparently they have 3 open without considering early entrant players. So they would only need 3-5 early entrants. I count 13 on the roster with 2 seniors, any walk ons in that group? Lanter is a walk on. And apparently Polson is a former walk on who had a scholarship this year, so maybe Calipari doesn't intend to renew that for next year? Edit: Wow. Apparently Kentucky only has 8 players on their roster who started as scholarship players. One of those is one of the seniors, and then of course the four potential early entrants. So there are only 3 starting as scholarship players that are almost certainly coming back next year. Four of their current scholarships are former walk ons, and then of course they have an open scholarship as well. So they have tons of flexibility.

Apparently they have 3 open without considering early entrant players. So they would only need 3-5 early entrants.

I know there's a lot of alarmism going on and I know concussions are a significant issue, but this is getting ridiculous. How in the world is this enforceable without really dragging down the games? It depends on how far it gets out of hand. The NFL reviewed a week of games and found 5 times that it was worthy of penalty. It is only for plays outside the tackle box and only on obvious situations (so it's not as strong as the QB rule where even inadvertent contact is called). If it's only happening in 1 out of 3 games even before the RB's start adjusting for it, it shouldn't be getting called all that often. If it's only happening that often, why the need for the rule change? Well, that's still 80 times a season. If they can get that down to 20-30 by calling it a penalty, I'm sure the NFL will think that's a success, even if 5-6 times it's called wrong over the course of the year.

I know there's a lot of alarmism going on and I know concussions are a significant issue, but this is getting ridiculous. How in the world is this enforceable without really dragging down the games? It depends on how far it gets out of hand. The NFL reviewed a week of games and found 5 times that it was worthy of penalty. It is only for plays outside the tackle box and only on obvious situations (so it's not as strong as the QB rule where even inadvertent contact is called). If it's only happening in 1 out of 3 games even before the RB's start adjusting for it, it shouldn't be getting called all that often.

That's a very strange article. He is hardly beloved among IU fans. From what I've seen, the majority of IU fans respect his coaching quite a bit and are very glad to have him, but that's about it for Crean. Maybe that changes if he stays another 10 years, but right now I can't think of a single part of his style that is celebrated among IU fans. His energy on the sideline is accepted, his postgame handshakes are shrugged off, his tendency to keep recruiting is met with a mix of excitement and trepidation. His success in recruiting is rarely questioned, but his in game coaching is questioned constantly. If he left tomorrow, people would be concerned about being able to get another coach that can do as much as Crean has done for Indiana, but other than that they would have no special type of affection for him like loved coaches tend to have (for example, the portion of the fanbase that were that way with Knight).

They're all driving in from the 3 point line and taking whatever shot close to the basket they can, even if they're off balance with defenders around. It looks like a majority of them didn't even hit the rim (they were either stripped on the way up, at least one airball, and a couple that just hit backboard).

The bracket and game times are set months in advance. Pretty sure the time slots for seeds/games have been consistent for years (ever?). The only one I can remember getting changed (other then the obvious addition of a 4th game on Thursday) is that the 4/5 game was switched with the 1/8-9 game last year. The 4/5 game used to be the early game on Friday since that was the only game where neither team had played on Thursday. Now since there is no game like that the number 1 seed gets the earliest slot.

That is weird stuff. What time did the game end? How long we're the speeches? The final buzzer was IIRC somewhere between 11:05 and 11:15. Then I'm sure the speeches didn't start immediately, and from looking at a video someone put up it looks like they averaged about 12 minutes apiece (probably with some small amount of transitional time also needing to be added in). So it doesn't surprise me that it would be after midnight before the speeches were done. I hadn't heard they were also planning on cutting down the nets after that.

http://nba.si.com/2013/03/01/lou-amundson-bulls-sign-contract-10-day/?sct=hp_t2_a11&eref=sihp Lou could give the Bulls some more depth. He's an activity player who just shouldn't be relied on to be the primary rim protector or have any offense. He is pretty athletic for his size which helps a little bit. Of course, he might not end up playing any minutes for the team.

In this case they would have to be though to find what several other organizations haven't (since Heyman is referring to Edwin Jackson and not Brett Jackson).

Exile thought you meant Yogi. I don't see how Oladipo doesn't fit in as a 2. Size is about right. He certainly has the athleticism to guard 2's. His ball handling is only average, but his rebounding and steals should be above average for that position. It remains to be seen if he can continue to shoot so well from the perimeter, but he has the athleticism to be at least a solid 3rd/4th option offensively, being good to very good defensively, and having upside for better than that.

They'd be the 6th seed in the West. Part of that was the fact that Granger was shut down the day the season started, and the Pacers started off really badly because of it. Since Paul George made the leap in early December they've been really good. And then of course adding a close to All Star level player on top of that should help them quite a bit. I do agree that I would give them very low odds for the title because they are both less talented and match up poorly with the Spurs/OKC. They have a solid shot of getting out of the East though. The only team that is more talented then them in the East is Miami. The Pacers probably have the best shot of anybody in the East of knocking off Miami because they match up so well with them. They dominate them on the boards, have three wing defenders to chase LeBron/Wade, and the Heat don't have anybody to match up with West. Obviously still underdogs because of the LeBron factor, but that will be quite a series if it happens. There's a couple teams in the East that match up well with the Pacers that could knock them off before that series ever would take place though.

That's why I included field goal percentage which isn't influenced so much by pace. But you're right, points per game (and to a lesser amount free throws) are both heavily pace influenced. I should have included this one to more properly account for pace. Here is the offensive rating (essentially points per 100 possessions) of each of those years: 1988: 107.8 1992: 108.0 1996: 106.7 2004: 106.1 2008: 108.3 2012: 105.5 So more variation, but still overall less for LeBron's era. And the biggest reason that it's even close is that 3 point shooting has gotten so much better in the last 10 years, which was never a big part of Jordan or LeBron's game (96 of course fits in with the last 10 years in that regard because it was one of the years where the 3 point line was shorter). Also, I wouldn't completely dismiss pace. Players who play in a faster pace environment still have the ability to rack up more raw stats. So even if this was just as efficient of an offensive environment as 20 years ago, Jordan may not have put up quite as large statistical numbers just because of an average slower pace.

I picked out 3 random years in different parts of Jordan's career, and then compared it to 3 different parts of LeBron's career. NBA 1988: average PPG: 109.2 average FTA: 2363 average FG%: .477 NBA 1992 average PPG: 105.3 average FTA: 2273 average FG%: .473 NBA 1996 average PPG: 96.9 average FTA: 2078 average FG%: .455 NBA 2004 average PPG: 97.2 average FTA: 2137 average FG%: .447 NBA 2008 average PPG: 100.0 average FTA: 2029 average FG%: .459 NBA 2012 average PPG: 97.8 average FTA: 1807 (this is a projection based on the games so far) average FG%: .450 So while Jordan might have had some disadvantages with the rules in his day, he also had some major advantages. Defenses were simply not very good in the majority of his career. It wasn't until he came back to basketball that all the offensive statistics started plummeting. Free throws were also way up in Jordan's day compared to LeBron's. In fact, earlier this year one of the ESPN columns had a stat that was something like each of the last 5 years have been setting records for the lowest amount of free throws in a game. That's probably due to a variety of factors, including defensive coaches coming in the league with better access to video and tendencies and also many more bigs that are primarily asked to play defense than there used to be. Obviously the league has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, some of which has helped the offense and some has helped the defense. I simply don't buy the argument that Jordan would have done better in this era than in his. The statistics all seem to point to LeBron's era actually being the more defensive one with less foul calls than Jordan's was.

Even if Felix is worth a 7 for 175 deal if he hit free agency this year (which he might be) why do the Mariners do this now? They already had him for his age 27 and 28 seasons at 39.5 million total. So they lose the protection they had in case he gets injured in the next two years. What did they get out of the deal in return? Did they get a discount? It certainly doesn't seem so as they are paying an average of 27.1 million over the length of the extension. I guess the only thing they got was certainty that a healthy Felix wouldn't leave, but what are the chances of that if they were willing to pony up the money later? And if they knew they weren't going to give the money, they always had the option of trading him after they got another year or year and a half of his production. It seems like they are taking on a massive risk for little reward. And when you consider that the contract is questionable on top of that, it doesn't make much sense to do this now. If Felix was a free agent right now and he agreed to sign for 2 years 39.5 or 7 years 175, which would you choose?

The NBA rescheduling this game at the last minute has not been good for either team. The Bulls are even more shorthanded then they would have been then (I think they were only possibly without Deng back in December) and would have loved to have the four days of rest that the original schedule had. The Pacers now become the only team in the NBA to have to play a back to back to back, and none of them are gimme games where they can easily get rest.

I believe it was the same series in early '04. Think the Cubs were up in the 9th inning and Dusty let Wood pitch the 9th, promptly gave up the lead after questionable calls, and then boom-goes Dusty and Wood. The day before. Eric Cooper. http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=240417116 wtf... i remember everyone being pissed at cb bucknor Different games in the same series. Dusty got ejected because he double switched and then they called Ramon Martinez out after he doubled for batting out of order, and that was C.B. Bucknor. That was also the game referenced earlier where Sosa and Alou went back to back in the 9th. That was the Friday game. The Saturday game when Wood got ejected for arguing balls and strikes with Eric Cooper.

There should be another word in there (in). Skin in the game is an expression that they're applying to Cutler. Basically, since they weren't responsible for bringing him to Chicago, they have no incentive to keep him around just to save face. Giving up 2 firsts for Flacco would be pretty bad for any team, and horrible for the Bears who already have average QB play. It's a very big price for a marginal upgrade.