It was great to see this New York Times article yesterday. Well, maybe "great" is a strange word to use in this circumstance. How about "bittersweet" or "about time" or just plain "sad"? I'd agree with any of those.

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From Chad Ford ESPN insider today:

"I talked to three NBA executives who use various forms of statistical analysis to rank their players to get a feel for what they're seeing. The GMs agreed to share their statistically based top-10 lists as long as I didn't disclose the team and as I long as I didn't divulge the statistical methods they were using.

I then aggregated those lists, and here's a look at what they came up with:

Metric-minded GMs' Top 10

Draft prospects as ranked by our three stat-head GMs.

It appears that Johnson's age was a major factor. Players entering the league over the age of 22 have a "poor track record in the NBA"

This is just the stats evaluation, doesn't mean they would draft them in this order, but it certainly carries alot of weight for these stats-focused GMs.

Interestingly, #9 is exactly where Johnson fell on Hollinger's player rater as well.

Latest from Chad Ford on ESPN insider, worth the $3 a month (imho):

"Derrick Favors or DeMarcus Cousins

Favors and Cousins have now met in Sacramento and Philly, and they'll be in New Jersey together Monday. In Sacramento the two worked out on the court together but didn't actually play against each other. That changed when they went to Philly, as Favors' agent gave them the green light to bang.

Things are moving back to the Sacramento model for the N.J. workout. Apparently Favors' agent complained that the workout in Philly consisted of Cousins fouling Favors on every play, so we're back to two big guys in a gym shooting jump shots.

The stakes couldn't be higher for Favors at the moment. The general consensus in Sacramento and Philly was that Cousins was much better. That makes some sense. Cousins has 47 pounds on Favors and is much more polished on the offensive end. You would expect it to be that way.

But Favors seems to be suffering from more than that. Wolves GM David Kahn ripped Favors for his lack of conditioning and doubted that he was ready for the NBA. While that certainly could have been a David Kahn smokescreen (I haven't heard feedback he was out of shape in the other two workouts), it all contributes to the narrative that Favors is getting his butt kicked by Cousins at the moment."

Is Favors now more likely to be available at #4 than Cousins?

The always thoughtful Ed Weiland analyzes the Small Forwards.

Here is a small sampling:

Wesley Johnson

"I have to believe that this is the future for Johnson. That he’s not much more than a good supporting player. That he’s a 2nd banana at best and probably not even that good. He just never scored at the level star SFs historically have been at and there’s nothing else in his numbers to suggest he’s anything different. Normally a career like the one enjoyed by a player like George Lynch or Shane Battier would be a good thing, especially considering where Johnson was a year ago. The problem is that Johnson is currently ticketed to go as high as #4 in this draft."

Gordon Hayward

"So where does Gordon Hayward rank? That’s a tough question, because I’m still not sure after spending 3 paragraphs defending him. The truth is I still think the mocks that have him going in the lottery overrate him a little. Right now he’s a player who has great potential as a scorer, but is probably a little soft defensively. The problem is he hasn’t shown he can handle a big scoring load, just that he can be extremely efficient with a lighter load."

Devin Ebanks

"Ebanks just isn’t there yet as a prospect. He falls short in every important category and has yet to show any ability to hit a 3-pointer, which can always be sort of a saving grace for such a prospect. If anything he has shown some poor judgment shooting treys, hitting only 8 of the 70 he’s hoisted up in 2 seasons."

We didn't get one of the top two picks, which is disappointing, but something even better may have fallen in to our laps:

I was reading an article this morning about Philly shopping the #2 pick and the Brand contract (apparently somewhat aggressively - it's not just a pipe dream) and it occurred to me that we may have a rather golden opportunity.

I proposed that we do indeed trade Jefferson and spare change (low draft pick, players to make the cap work, etc.) for Brand and the #2 pick. 

Then use the #2 pick to draft Turner, and our own #4 pick on Cousins or Favors (hopefully it's Cousins).

Brand's contract is terrible, no doubt about it. But think of it this way: we have a hard time recruiting free agents to play in Minnesota (the weather and the losing history make it tough), but we have been able to keep players for a re-up on their contract after drafting them.

So think of Brand's contract as paying for the free agent acquisition of Turner.  An expensive rookie contract, no doubt. But would you rather pay Rudy Gay $15 million a year for 3 years or Evan Turner $18 million a year for 3 years?

Also, with Turner you have a couple of years after that 3 year period where he is much cheaper and we get the chance to re-sign him if he turns out to be excellent.

It's an expensive gamble on a college player, but if it were my money I'd put it in Turner over Gay.

I also think that if we're lucky enough to get Cousins at #4 then Turner is just the kind of leader to have a positive impact on his maturation. Turner would pretty quickly become our team leader.

Rubio, Turner, Love, Cousins

Yes, we'd still need a SG/SF, but that's a nice start, a very nice start. They won't all turn out, but if even 2 of the 4 become All Stars then it's a raging success and I think there is a good chance that happens.

What do you think?  Is there an even better way to acquire these assets?

You can hate Dana White, it's easy to do. He sticks his shiny dome in everywhere, at the weigh-ins, on his vlogs, after the fights to hand out the belts, at the post-fight press conference, on ESPN, on magazine covers. But one thing his omnipresence does is make it clear who is in charge. In the UFC he is the parent, in Strikeforce there is no parent, noone is clearly in charge.

Obviously the Diaz brothers and their camp are a special mixture of stupidity and violence. But without an environment where there is so little control I don't think what happened tonight would have occurred. A few points to consider:

1) Coker is never in the ring, never makes his presence felt and as a person has little force of personality. Especially in a sport with so much aggression and machismo, it matters whether the head of the organization commands respect from a fighter as a man. Dana does. He can be arrogant, homophobic, sexist and thin-skinned, but he does command respect. He's a tough negotiator and an intimidating presence.

2) Coker has continually been unable to plan ahead for fights, sometimes waiting weeks or even days in advance of a card before announcing who is going to fight (as with Lashley at the last event). Its a terrible business move as it means they're unable to promote storylines or build interest over time. And fans can't plan trips to see an exciting fight well in advance or plan their schedule around staying home. And tonight we saw another serious side-effect of the shoddy, amateurish way he promotes: planned in-the-cage post-fight face-offs to promote future fights can't happen, so an unplanned one does end up happening.

3) Coker has so little leverage with fighters like Fedor and Overeem that they walk all over him in terms of dictating who they fight and when and what else they can do with their time.  Whereas Dana takes two of his most talented champions (Lesnar and Silva) and gives them a verbal dressing down at the post-fight press conference and then takes them aside privately and reams them again for good measure. You can argue that it hasn't done much good with Silva, but I think it did have an impact on some of his fights, and who knows how much worse he would be were he fighting in an organization like Strikeforce.

When fighters know the promoter can make their life miserable it doesn't mean they will never act out, but it does make them consider the consequences and pulls them back from a pattern of getting worse and worse.

4) I don't think the UFC would have had so little security, or allowed so many people in the cage after the fight. One thing we sometimes underestimate is just how good the UFC has become at operations. I worked for a fortune 100 company that is renowned for their creativity and dazzling products, but once I was on the inside what I saw was a company that was perfect at execution and had some of the best operations people I've ever seen. The end product may be exciting or thrilling, but creating a setting where that product can sparkle requires a ton of grunt work and careful planning. Strikeforce has consistently exhibited a lack of planning and I wouldn't be surprised if they missed on several critical details tonight (like security or controlling who was in the ring).

Mayhem is one especially annoying human being, that whole Diaz crowd is volatile, but Coker created the place where it could all blow up. Blame him first and foremost.

Now that Eugene is gone, are we still continuing with the MMA Playground rankings/postings and prizes?

I've been a UFC fan for 5 years now, but it wasn't until I started participating in this through Bloody Elbow that I began to pay attention to the undercard fighters and even the 4th and 5th fights on the main card. I hope this doesn't go away. 

I now read the prediction thread on BE religiously before each event and do more research.

In short: more pageviews for BE, and made a fan into a die-hard fan. Surely that's got to be a good thing.

How about throwing in a Sam Hoger Memorial UFC beanie for the first place in picks and $$$?

We have a few more openings for owners. 

The live draft is next Saturday at 5 p.m. EST. 

General principles of the league:

- weekly roster adjustments only, so we can all have lives outside of the league :)

- respectful commentary and knowledgeable owners (ala Canis Hoopus)

- head to head each week in 9 categories

- live draft, snake order

Please email me at djzeaman@gmail.com and I'll send you an invite.

We have the Rubio and Flynn Conferences, please specify if you have a preference for which conference you want to be in. 

- Django

I doubt this is the whole story, but it certainly looks bad for Cable and I think he deserves whatever he gets:

Michael Silver with the Inside Story from Hanson

More than anyone else I think we have to blame Al. You don't put someone under your head coach like that, of course it's going to lead to problems. Though this level of felony assault is allllll Cable. What an ass.

Maybe jail time will help.

Anyone good at actuarial tables? How much longer does Al have? It's hard to root for the Raiders till he's gone.