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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.

Gonna be tough. I don't buy that the Bulls (or any team) needs an all star just because their record is good. Bulls didn't get an all star the year they were a win away from the 2nd seed (06-07) and they had a similar situation with multiple borderline candidates (Gordon and Deng). I would love for the Bulls to get an all star but none of the 3 candidates has obvious all star numbers and none of them has really distinguished themselves from the other 2. Noah seems to get the most rep but there's no center spot and several quality centers to choose from. Boozer is playing like a legit all star but may have come on too late to get the nod. His numbers are still less than other candidates and he still has a negative reputation defensively, so bad that another coach mockingly voted him for all defensive team. Maybe another week of great play and might turn enough heads. Deng is probably the best overall player and has the best all star looking stats plus has broken the all star barrier before, but in terms of SFs he's still behind pierce who will get a spot. I'd guess that Noah is probably the best shot at an all star because hes getting the most pub and is having a great year but it could go either way Who are you going to pick over him as a PF in the East, though? David West? Boozer has definitely been better than Garnett this year... Well, Garnett is already in as a starter, so that doesn't matter. And the coaches won't go strictly by PF, but they'll probably follow the starter's vote method by just picking frontcourt players. Boozer is stuck in the middle of a bunch of options. Bosh, Chandler, Lopez, Boozer, West, Horford as PF/C type players. And then of course Pierce, George, Deng and the two Smiths also. Varejao getting hurt helped this a little bit, but it's still a major logjam in the frontcourt for the East.

http://espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/story/_/id/8858984/sources-chicago-cubs-arizona-diamondbacks-discussed-justin-upton-trade The Cubs asked about Upton recently, the Diamondbacks asked for Castro, and that's where the talks ended.

He also interviewed for the vacant Oregon head coaching position. He goes from having an official title of "Andrew Luck Director of Offense" to becoming Andrew Luck's offensive coordinator again. The deal is done according to sources. Something tells me the Colts aren't going to give him that title though.

http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/081797/1c1rice_.html That doesn't jive with what Tim Brown said a bit ago on ESPN 1000. Brown didn't like Trestman because he made Rice the #1 receiver over Brown, who thought he was better at that point. Sounds like there was some serious WR ego issues going on there. That is because the article is from the mid 90's when Trestman got fired from San Francisco. Trestman and Rice worked together again in Oakland several years later, which is where the Rice/Brown issue happened. It's also possible that Rice and Trestman developed a better relationship in Oakland than they had in San Francisco, so the quote on the website might not be that strange.

It's because Minnesota has been pressing and gambling the whole second half. It's led to many good things for Minnesota, but also led to lots of fouls. Indiana shot 4 free throws in the first half.

Smart timeout call by Crean a couple minutes back when Indiana was about to get the 10 second call. I really don't like that rule though that it resets on a timeout.

They had the highest weighted DVOA this year and ranked 4th in both offense and defense and 3rd on ST. Dvoa is for people who think they are smarter than they are, and Seattle needed extreme ref help to even qualify Even if they lost to Packers, they still get in the playoffs right? Since they had the tiebreaker over the Bears... They beat both the Vikings and Bears so they would have had the 5 seed even with a loss to the Packers.

Luck is actually quite good in late game situations. But it has less to do with clutchness IMO and more how the offense/defense changes in that scenario. He is trying hard to be a pocket passer the rest of the game, but uses his legs more when the game is on the line. He buys time even behind the line of scrimmage more often, which gives him the ability to find the uncovered receiver. And throwing on all three downs helps him quite a bit, because he tends to complete long passes but is decently inaccurate. I trust Luck quite a bit in those scenarios, even though he has been relatively average overall this year. However, the easy schedule has helped keep the Colts in these games and allowed Luck to do that because they don't have a whole lot going for them other than that. The Baltimore matchup is the best they could have hoped for, but we'll see if that's enough. Next season will be tough to project the Colts. They'll have been overrated because of their record this year, but they'll have had an infusion of talent since they have so much cap space this offseason.

It was the 40 mile per hour winds that were causing problems more than the amount of snow, but it had settled down at the time they cancelled it. I don't know why they were still ok with playing when it looked like it was going to be bad all day, and then cancel it right after the storm moved through earlier than expected. The Pacer fans were kind of annoyed too because it was the perfect time to catch the Bulls. The Pacers had 3 days off, the Bulls were on a back to back, Deng's sprained ankle, etc. It's possible both teams will be at full strength (Granger for the Pacers, Rose for the Bulls) by the time that game is rescheduled.

That's not true. I disagree. Go look at Football Outsiders. They have the number one ranked defense in terms of efficiency, the 4th ranked ST, and the 24th ranked offense. Basically this means that if the defense isn't damn near perfect they're screwed. I realize history will show that some teams can win this way (2000 Ravens come to mind), but I'd venture to say that it's the exception rather than the rule. Also, the Bears SOS has been tough, but not as hard as it might look on paper. Again according to Football Outsiders, Detroit's has actually been a bit tougher, as has Minnesota's, Seattle's, and San Fran's. Football Outsiders also has an estimated win tool to figure out how their ratings should correspond to record. They have the Bears at 10.6 estimated wins so far. Considering they are 6th in their overall ratings, that seems pretty consistent with where they think the Bears are.