Transmogrified Tiger

What team has been optimizing its roster around LeBron for the last five years? Because it's not the Cavs. Okay, 7 years.

I'm sure a team like that would win a lot of games, just not as many as a team that has been optimizing its roster around LeBron for 5 years.

Mizzou's class is scary good, assuming they all qualify. I'm pretty jealous. Scary good? They're 17th (per Rivals) with no 5-stars and mostly 3-star commits Mizzou won back-to-back North titles with recruiting classes that didn't crack the Top 25. A couple weeks ago their class was like 13th. It's a significant improvement even if there isn't a headline player like Gabbert was(or Richardson will be).

Varejao and probably Williams are more valuable than Rose would be on a team with LeBron. i have no idea how you can say this. noah is better than verajao and williams is nowhere near rose, unless you're saying lebron prefers playing with inferior players. I'm saying LeBron prefers playing with guards that can shoot better than 25% from 3, because so much of his game is predicated on getting to the lane.

Varejao and probably Williams are more valuable than Rose would be on a team with LeBron. I think Varejao's very good and pretty underrated but the Bulls have Noah. And he's already getting more love than Varejao. They're very similar with the weird name, hair, and style of play. Mo Williams isn't in the same universe as Derrick Rose. He's nice but he's just another guy ultimately. Noah and Varejao are similar, although that wasn't really my point. You're right that Williams isn't on the same plane as Rose, if you swapped the two the Bulls would be much worse. However, Rose and LeBron have only one ball to share. That's why a borderline all-star guard like Williams that can shoot means more on a team with LeBron than Rose. Without that spacing the offense loses effectiveness(see Eric Snow's time as a Cavalier for an extreme example).

Varejao and probably Williams are more valuable than Rose would be on a team with LeBron.

They're getting an IKEA soon. I'm biased, but I'd have to think that right now Cleveland is the best spot for LeBron. They can give him the same salary, the best supporting cast, and it's hometown. I guess he could get marginally more recognition as a Knick, but I don't know why you'd take that gamble with a much worse team around him. More recognition and better supporting cast in Chicago. Done. I don't think that'd be the case. Especially the supporting cast.

They're getting an IKEA soon. I'm biased, but I'd have to think that right now Cleveland is the best spot for LeBron. They can give him the same salary, the best supporting cast, and it's hometown. I guess he could get marginally more recognition as a Knick, but I don't know why you'd take that gamble with a much worse team around him.

How many all-star games have been on cable? Is the NBA ASG on TNT? Or do they just have the rookie challenge/dunk contest/skills challenge/etc.? I think you're right, it is on TNT. It was on NBC for years though, much like the Pro Bowl and ABC I believe.

Explain this one to me. Do you think there's a tipping point where adding teams becomes a negative to the tournament? 64 creates a rapid fire atmospher dropping it from 64 to 16. There's going to be burnout with this number of games, especially with so many crappy games to start things off. You can duplicate that atmosphere though. Have the play in games on Saturday/Sunday then have the tournament proceed on the schedule it is now. Bit of a layoff for the teams with byes, but I don't think it's that huge a deal. I don't see how that duplicates the atmosphere. You think the 9-16 seeds playing the NIT teams is going to draw any sort of audience? Nobody's going to care about those games except for fans of those teams. The majority of first round matchups in a 64 team tournament aren't all that compelling. You can use NIT teams as an insult, but there's a bunch of teams that get snubbed that were a few bounces from a 7-10 seed

How many all-star games have been on cable?

A 30 game season in a division with as many teams as D-1(or even BCS) isn't quite enough for there to be a sure-fire best team. Especially considering the teams they needed to beat to win the title, when's the last time a team that won it all wasn't considered one of the best teams in the country?

Explain this one to me. Do you think there's a tipping point where adding teams becomes a negative to the tournament? 64 creates a rapid fire atmospher dropping it from 64 to 16. There's going to be burnout with this number of games, especially with so many crappy games to start things off. You can duplicate that atmosphere though. Have the play in games on Saturday/Sunday then have the tournament proceed on the schedule it is now. Bit of a layoff for the teams with byes, but I don't think it's that huge a deal. I think that layoff is also a problem. Right now, the tournament starts on the Thursday after Selection Sunday, right? (that's how I remember it.) And Selection Sunday is at the end of the conference tournament week. So when do you hold this initial play-in round? The weekend after selection sunday (when we'd normally be into round two of the tournament)? If you do that, teams with a first round bye wouldn't start until the Thursday after that. That's almost two weeks off. So not only do these teams have to find a way to stay sharp during an 11 or 12 day layoff, but it's all so I can watch the 9th place team in the ACC face off with the second place team in the Big Sky? Sorry, that would suck. If the layoff is that big of a deal, make it a weeklong event, adding the two extra days on Tuesday and Wednesday. There's space in Championship week to keep Sunday open(with selection on Saturday) if that's needed for travel purposes.

Explain this one to me. Do you think there's a tipping point where adding teams becomes a negative to the tournament? 64 creates a rapid fire atmospher dropping it from 64 to 16. There's going to be burnout with this number of games, especially with so many crappy games to start things off. You can duplicate that atmosphere though. Have the play in games on Saturday/Sunday then have the tournament proceed on the schedule it is now. Bit of a layoff for the teams with byes, but I don't think it's that huge a deal.

Explain this one to me.

You'd lose. Really? I'm going to use OPS+ and ERA+ because it'll be quick. Average of the last two years. Cubs Reds C SOTO 96 86 HERNANDEZ 1B LEE 126 140 VOTTO 2B FONTENOT 100 98 PHILLIPS SS THERIOT 88 85 CABRERA 3B RAMIREZ 128 112 ROLEN LF SORIANO 101 98 NIX CF BYRD 113 99 STUBBS RF FUKUDOME 96 99 BRUCE SP ZAMBRANO 118 102 ARROYO SP DEMPSTER 139 118 VOLQUEZ SP LILLY 128 97 HARANG SP WELLS 123 94 CUETO SP GORZELANNY 72 76 BAILEY And we have the better pen. They simply do not have the pitching unless like 7 things go right simultaneously.

It's like a billion times worse. Roughly. At least. There's really no point to it existing. And the point to the MLB ASG is . . . ? Seeing the best baseball players play baseball. The Pro Bowl is seeing the best football players jog around, with little chance of ever seeing anything cool happen. Football is too complex and team oriented to throw an all-star team together for 3 days with no motivation play hard and expect anything entertaining. Baseball, as a series of individual events, is much more suited to just throwing people on a field to play and still see great plays.

It's like a billion times worse. Roughly.

What exactly is it that would cause you to believe anything other than that we will be a mediocre team? Because we're going to have the best pitching and probably the best offense in the division.

Having only seen half, I got down to Slumdog, ROTK, and A Beautiful Mind. ROTK I don't think is great enough on it's own, but I'm really not sure which to choose between the other two. I guess A Beautiful Mind.

it has samardzija, silva and mitch atkins all getting a pretty good amount of playing time and doing terribly (~5.5 ERA), and projects patton to have a 6.79 ERA in 55 innings. if any of those guys are that bad, they won't get the kind of innings that PECOTA thinks they'll get, and they'll be replaced by someone (gaub, parker) who would probably do better. Atkins? Patton? That's really dumb. None of those guys mentioned should be starting beyond April(unless they're outperforming projections by quite a bit), and none of them are going to touch meaningful bullpen innings unless Samardzija is lights out. Even with injury there's Marmol, Guzman, Grabow, and Marshall that are entrenched, plus more talented guys like Gaub and Parker that could be breaking through.

I don't think Orlando is quite the nightmare for Cleveland like they were last year. The addition of Shaq and Parker/Moon and the subtraction of Turkeyglue remove a lot of the matchup problems between the teams. They've only played in the first week so far, but the Cavs torched them in Orlando. I think a healthy Boston is the only team really challenging Cleveland for the East, and the Cavs are well on their way to home court(especially over Boston).

Down 1 with a 5 second differential? I think you have to foul. Likely worst case scenario from fouling gives you enough time to give them 4 shots at missing a free throw and only needing a 2 in about 10 seconds to tie. You wait it out and the likely best case scenario is having 5 seconds to score a bucket, probably off a loose ball.

Texas loses to Baylor in Austin, they've lost 3 of 4 since being named number 1.

Yeah, just getting to the possibility is pretty unlikely. 5 straight road games is rare enough, 5 straight against winning records can't happen more than maybe once or twice a season. Not surprising no one has done it.