Yes, it's that time of year again. The time of year when you actually start paying attention to basketball news from other teams. The time of year when you purchase huge tomes of stats and opinion, pore over them and discard them an hour after the draft. The time of year when you participate in that most joyous of activities, at the crossroads of Sports Fan Drive and Dweeb Boulevard.

That's right, suckas: fantasy basketball.

I've booted up last year's league for another year. The URL and password are the same as ever. All managers from last year's league have already been e-mailed. Otherwise, if you want in, leave a comment or send me an e-mail. At the moment I have a 12-team limit, but I will expand it if there's enough demand.

Let me know how I might better serve you in this capacity. Prepare to die. Commissioner Shums out.

(From the FanPosts...)

A recent post on Mountain West Connection got me thinking. The post simply asks the question: Would you root for your rival?

A lot of sports fans would consider this a stupid question. And depending on the sport, they could be right. In the NBA, for example, I am a loyal Utah Jazz fan. The good of any rival team, whether the Lakers, Spurs, Nuggets, Rockets, or anyone else, can only mean bad news for me. There is absolutely no benefit to another NBA team doing well. This is the way of it in pretty much all professional sports.

College is different. Especially in a smaller market like the Mountain West. Especially football. College football is subjective by nature. In football there are polls and formulas. Recruiting budgets and TV deals. Haves and have-nots. For us in the Mountain West, this means it's not just about winning. It's about making an impression. It's about proving people wrong. It's about getting noticed. And unfortunately, a lot of that is out of our hands. (Okay, technically all of it is out of our hands, since we're not actually out there with a Y on our helmets. You get the point.)

(Continued after the jump...)

Continue reading this post »

Okay folks: it's for real this time. The SLC Dunk Fantasy Football League is a go. Initial plan is for 10 teams (although I know I had more votes than that, but I really want committed teams, so let me know if you really want in and I'll expand the number), with a live online draft scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 30 at 6pm Mountain time. More specifics will be available in-league.

So. If you're interested, leave a comment here, or send me an email (you can find my email on my SB Nation user page), and I will send you the league ID# and password. You can see the rules and scoring once you're in the league, but a brief description: 1 QB, 2 RBs, 2 WRs, 1 TE, 1 Flex (W/R/T), 1 K, 1 DEF/ST, standard Yahoo scoring, no waivers, no transaction limit (sort of like I did with our basketball league: make as many moves as you want, whenever you want).

Any questions, hit me up; I'm more than happy to help. (And by the way, if you've been lurking here and not making any comments, this is the perfect way to get to know some of the regulars! We don't bite! Except UtesFan, but he's been better since he had his shots.)

So yeah. Let's do this. Commish out.

I'm always interested to hear about why people became fans of their favorite teams. In the case of the Cougars, there are three likely reasons: you're a student, you're from Utah, or you're a Latter-day Saint. The school's connection to the LDS Church is well known, as is the way BYU travels well for away games, since many Utah and LDS transplants show up in their Cougar blue.

Of course, those reasons also make it more difficult to be a BYU fan, especially these days. Inside the state, the BYU-Utah rivalry (I refuse to call it by that stupid nickname) has reached ridiculous proportions... and, let's face it, things didn't go our way this past year. Outside of Utah, BYU's connections to both the state and the LDS Church make the school and its athletic teams an easy (and unfunny) punchline for the ignorant and the belligerent. Sometimes it takes a special kind of fortitude to stay True Blue. But chances are, if you're here and you're reading this, I don't have to tell you that.

But maybe you're from out of state and adopted the team. Maybe your family used to live in Utah and you follow the Cougs from afar. I'm sure there are lots of different stories. So mark yourself in the poll, and tell your story in the comments.

So, last year's SLC Dunk fantasy basketball league was a success; we had ten solid players, no real dead teams, and a nice competitive spirit. Now, even though it's not the sport of choice for a true blue Jazz fan, the NFL season will soon be upon us, and with it, the delights of fantasy football. For those of you who haven't played, fantasy football is even easier to pick up than fantasy basketball, as there is less constant upkeep (just one game a week per player) and a little more drama in the scoring. Anyway, I'm only in one league right now, and I'm looking for more, so I just wanted to gauge interest in an SLC Dunk league, run by yours truly. I'll keep the poll open for a while, and if there's enough interest I'll start another official sign-up thread. Who's in?

This is just to play devil's advocate to my earlier comments, because I still think this deal isn't altogether unreasonable for Millsap, taken by itself, and it's not as bad as it could be. But taking a closer look at the numbers, I'm having second thoughts. My very-imperfect salary estimates follow. (Feel free to correct me if my numbers are off.) And be warned: it's ugly.

We know about what it will cost to keep Millsap this year, whether we move Boozer or not. And we also know that Korver's and Harpring's contracts are set to expire. But even after that, the Jazz are seriously BONED for the next two or three years if they match, due not just to Boozer, but also (even more so) due to Kirilenko. In 2010-11, he's scheduled to make $17.8 frakking million. Add in D-Will at $15M, Memo at $11M, and Millsap at $8M, and, well, that sucks. A lot. As in, we might not even be able to field a full roster.

Okay, that's an exaggeration, but here's what we're looking at:

AK: $17.8M
DWill: $15.2M
Memo: $11M
Millsap: $8M
CJ: $3.7M
Ronnie B: $3.8M just as qualifying offer, probably much more (he'll be a restricted free agent, like Millsap is now)
The Koof: $1.3M
Maynor: $1.4M
Knicks draft pick: $1.5-2M
Total: approximately $62-64M for 9 players
Estimated luxury tax level: $65-69M

Now we're looking at signing like four or five scrubs, at less than $500K each, just to field a full roster of 13 players and avoid the luxury tax again. OUCH.

It gets much better in 2011-12, once Kirilenko's giant millstone of a contract is gone:

DWill: $16.6M
Memo: $11M
Millsap: $8.6M
CJ: $3.7M
The Koof: $2.2M
Maynor: $1.5M
Knicks pick: $2M
Total: approx. $46M

Then we'd be well under the cap and have freedom enough to do whatever. But we'd also have only 6 or 7 players under contract (DWill, Memo, Millsap, CJ, The Koof, Maynor, Knicks pick).

As it stands right now, matching on Millsap and doing nothing else to cut salary will cost us the luxury tax this year, and, unless we manage to move AK, next year as well. All that, and we probably won't even have a very competitive team in 2010, as we'll have to get by with whomever we can sign for peanuts. Forget about trades/free agency -- we'll struggle to sign warm bodies at all.

I still want Millsap here, and I don't think, in a vacuum, this contract is too crazy for him as our starter. But if we match... well, I don't envy Kevin O'Connor. Or Greg Miller. Because they're gonna have to get used to being a lot poorer. And unless some other significant moves are made, we'll all have to get used to cheering for what will probably a much worse basketball team.