Goldberg:  THIS fight, scheduled for THREE!  FIVE! minute rounds, in which there will be fighting.  My partner as always: probably-high Joe Rogan.

Rogan:  Hamill is holding his lead left a little low, but you can see how his striking has improved, his chin is tucked, hands are high.  He's also added that front leg kick to his repotoire. 

Goldberg:  A HUGE sprinting while jumping punch by white deaf guy who is good at wrestlering!!

Rogan:  You mean Hamill - that was a superman punch.

Goldberg:  Precisely.  Just as you pointed out earlier Joe - he is deafly courageous. 

Rogan:  Grammatically not at all what I said.

Goldberg:  Mmm Hmm Indeed.  Improved has been the striking of one Hamill, Matt.  Thankful is he to his coaches of striking who taught him how to.

Rogan:  Munoz looks a little uncertain here.  His resume as a wrestler is incredible but his first takedown has been stuffed convincingly and he's just getting tagged over

Goldberg: AGGRESSION is KEY!!

Rogan:   ..... and over again, that's gotta shake his confidence.

Goldberg:  Such class acts these two fighters, you can tell just how much they respect each other by things I say.

Rogan:  ........

Goldberg:  Matt Hamill LOVES peanut butter Joe. 

Rogan:  Well he certainly has shown love of the sport.

Goldberg:  PEANUT.  Butter.  Our fight replay brought to you by Bud Light, the DIFFERENCE is drinkability!

Rogan:  The fight ended while you were plugging product Mike.

Goldberg:  IT IS ALL OVER!!!!

There are definitely more productive things I could be doing, but I just read this awesome article at Draftexpress that covers draft theory and what strategies work.  This Pabst is going down easy and will soon be followed by a Guinness sooooooo I guess I'm in for the night.

The article is a little numbery (still worth the read) so I just grabbed the most interesting portions:

#1  If a player is selected among the top quarter (currently the top 7 picks: we broke the round into “quarters” to control for the growth from 23 picks in 1980 to 30 this year) of first round picks in an average year (See Figure 1), the odds are about 60% he will be a solid starter or better by his fifth year. Those odds drop to 38% by the second quarter of the first round (i.e., picks 8-15 this year), and slip below 20% by the time you reach the bottom of the first round.

The odds of any player drafted between 16 and 30 this year becoming a star player, is about 1 in 13. In fact, you’re doing well if you get a guy who is even a solid bench contributor or a marginal starter once you get beyond the lottery picks. Nearly half the players drafted in the bottom half of the first round, are out of the league, or barely hanging on, five years after being drafted.

#2  Do Not Expect Immediate Return on Your Draft Day Investment

Long-suffering fans of lucky lottery teams dream of immediate release from their misery, a circa 1979 Larry Bird comes to Boston renaissance. Meanwhile, fans of contending teams crow about how their GM is going to grab a guy in the 20s (in this constantly hailed “deep draft”) who is immediately going to step into the rotation of their playoff team. Year after year we hear such claims, and year after year we see most of these expectations crushed.

The first two years of play of the first seven draft classes of this decade (2000 through 2006) demonstrate the rarity of immediate star impact. Of the 409 players drafted in that time, only four produced star numbers in their first season: Pau Gasol, LeBron James, Chris Paul, and (for the games in which he was not injured) Brandon Roy.  ( NICE! )

#3  Buyer Beware: That Big Man May Be a Big Bust

Of the 84 big men drafted in the top quarter of the round through 2003, 48% have been marginal starters or worse, 16% have become solid starters, and 37% have become stars.

Point guards and wings both give you a much better shot at solid contribution five years out from the draft. So a GM has to think long and hard about spending his team’s coveted lottery pick on a big man who does not look like a sure-fire superstar.

In Oden’s favor: almost all dominant (or potentially dominant) big men since 1980 – Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, Dwight Howard, Yao Ming – were garnered with the top pick in the draft. However, finding a dominant center beyond the number one pick is certainly rare.



Who’s a big nerd?  That’s right.

Obligatory link:

http://www.draftexpress.com/article/Eight-Rules-for-Draft-Night-Success-Let-History-Guide-2934/

I used to really enjoy speculating about who the Blazers could trade for to make us an unstoppable juggernaut of a team.  Now that's kind of gone.  I think Calderon would fit nicely.  But then again, I know KP probably has something better in mind.  Also, I never would have thought of it, and it's going to make sense in every way a basketball deal can.   He's got time-lines and contingencies all mapped out, and he knows things I don't.   He know who he wants, how to get them, who he doesn't want, and why. 

So now when I'm trying to enjoy some good-old-fashioned "what if" scenarios on this site, it feels like that base is covered.   We don't think outside of the box, he does.  We come up with wildly implausible scenarios and then argue about their plausibility.  It's like we all bring our little volcanoes to the science fair and KP is already there talking about his solution to global warming, oh and to cancer too.  With Nash and Whitsitt it felt like my drunk uncles were driving the car maniacally through pedestrian crosswalks.  With Pritch I can push the seat back and take a nap till we get home.

It's actually kind of lame, I felt smarter before.

BTW, it is my firm belief that Chris Paul is in New Orleans to stay, that if we'd drafted him we wouldn't have Oden, that you can't trade 4 of our scrubs + a lottery pick for a superstar, and that Rudy Fernandez is going to have to have to adjust to teams actually guarding his alley-oops with players who can jump as high as he can. 

 - and that we should enjoy the ride because this is awesome

PS - Hey KP, need a protégé?