ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Oct 28, 2007 -> 09:10 AM) The unauthorized Big Ten basketball writers' preseason poll for today's media day: Rk. School Pts. 1. Mich. St. (18) 237 2. Indiana (4) 218 3. Ohio State 188 4. Wisconsin 174 5. Purdue 146 6. Illinois 139 7. Penn State 94 8. Michigan 89 9. Minnesota 84 10. Iowa 51 11. Northwestern 32 NU is going to be REALLY bad while Coble takes a leave of absence to be with his mother (undergoing cancer treatment).

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Oct 29, 2007 -> 01:09 PM) Rex has already been evaluated. As much as it crushes me we have to see some Orton this year and then we'll realize that none of the 3 QB's are the answer. However, Griese's still the best of the lot. Where's that vomit smiley at? I wouldn't mind seeing Orton play now that we're essentially done, see if he's actually progressed any in the last two years. If we still have any intentions of trying to win though I agree, it's gotta be Griese. He's the only one that has looked competent in a while, and even he's average at best.

Sorry guys, I had to delete it, not enough people.

We could really use some players FAST. Draft starts soon, if you're killing time on this site you might as well play some fantasy hoops. League #2 League ID- 138011 password- soxtalk

Call me crazy, but I like Kansas quite a bit, maybe even #1 (toss-up between them and UNC IMO), but I can see why they're at #4 between the injuries to Rush and Arthur (that's obviously a big factor) and the choking in the tournament. If those two are healthy though they should be tough, eventually if you have enough talent you can overcome iffy coaching. Rush and Arthur are both lottery-type talents, Chalmers-Collins-Robinson is a pretty solid guard trio, Kaun and Jackson can both give you productive minutes, and then you still have Cole Aldrich, a very talented recruit, to add to the equation. I'm also personally not all that thrilled with Memphis. Sure, Roberts and Rose are impressive, but they often relied on jumpers last year even though they're not a great shooting team and don't seem to consistently get easy shots against better teams. Dozier and Dorsey are good but not great inside (well, at least on offense, D is pretty solid), and Anderson and Allen aren't exactly super-impressive either. I guess there's Mack and Kemp as well, though the latter needs to be more efficient. From what I saw last year, Rose is going to need to have a huge impact for them to hang with those other top teams, which is possible but remains to be seen.

Alright, I pushed back the draft to Saturday night at 9:30 central. That's the last decent time, so if it doesn't fill up I'll end up deleting it.

I've got 3, I need quite a few more if you guys want another league.

Alright, what the hell, I'll give it a shot. League #2 League ID- 138011 password- soxtalk Right now the draft is set for Friday at 8:30 PM central. That might be a bit soon to try to fill it, but the other draft times before the season starts kinda suck (I may or may not be able to move it to a suitable time if it doesn't fill). Join and join fast!

Yikes, that second one is far more brutal. The guy giving up Arenas and Melo is clearly finishing last... If you can afford to wait a bit, Wade's injury situation obviously can affect things quite a bit. If you hear next week that he's playing in an exhibition game (which appears unlikely) you definitely can't deal him, if he gets set back you might want to consider moving him (though obviously it'd be too late). In a head-to-head league it's not the end of the world if you have a bad November though, as long as he's healthy in March and April, which he should be.

I've got a couple of thoughts, some things to think about for and against: 1) Though he obviously has some upside Roy was essentially the same player as Manu last year, Bargnani gives you a lot of the same things as Granger, and Ellis gives you basically the same thing as Wade only a lot less of it. Ellis also might see his playing time dip a bit with the arrival of Bellineli (though I personally doubt it). They don't really add anything to your team in most categories, other than some depth. You also lose a fair number of points, assists and your FG% takes a hit by making the trade, especially since Wade shoots so much. The first and third could hurt you a bit, as Wade is your only elite scorer and Billups and O'Neal are a bit of a drag on the FG%. On the other hand, the biggest gain you make is actually a subtraction, in that you don't have to deal with Wade's obscene turnover totals. You've got a monster turnover-prevention team without him. You also gain a bunch of 3's with Bargnani and Roy, though you already have four 100+ guys in Billups, Ginobili, Jamison, and Granger. You could also kinda use the depth. 2) You'd be trading a top-level talent for guys that aren't really elite players. Wade went in the first for a reason, he's a beast that helps you a ton in points, assists and steals as well as having a major positive impact in FG and FT%, especially with his number of attempts. Roy, Ellis, and Bargnani are all solid players, but none of them is will beat the production of a healthy Wade. Especially in a shallower league, having those elite producers is a major asset. I guess it kind of depends on your risk tolerance and how much you believe in the guys you are getting. It also depends on what route you want to go with your team. You can keep Wade and benefit from his all-around production or take the deal and have a team that won't turn it over much and will hopefully make up the production you lose. Is the scoring roto or head-to-head? If it's roto, you should probably do it as the trade could mean a 6-point swing in turnovers and you'd gain a few in 3's to compensate, if it's head to head it's a bit easier to swallow those TO's and his dominance can carry you in a given week. I personally wouldn't do it. We know that Wade is an elite performer that was still pretty effective even at less than 100% at the end of last year, you're not as sure exactly what you're going to get from those other guys. So far he shouldn't miss a whole lot of time, though you don't entirely know. He's a super-elite performer though when healthy, those are the kind of guys you need. Also, in a shallower league you'll likely be able to pick up some pretty solid performers once the season starts to improve your depth (Honestly, why are some of those guys even on your team? You should be able to find better than guys like Moore and Law without a whole lot of difficulty). If you're really worried about Wade, I'd try to counter with Roy, Ellis, and another G/F that's a bit more of a sure-thing than Bargnani, or try to snag someone that's a bit more of a sure-thing to put up good numbers than Roy like Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, or Andre Iguoudala. I'm personally not all that sold on Roy dominating (though I have to admit it is possible), he's not quite an elite level scorer or athlete and it's going to be harder for him to rack up higher assist totals with Oden out. He doesn't really dominate in any one category, which is why I think he's rated just a bit too high. He will improve a bit, but that could be negated by the increased defensive attention he gets with Randolph gone. I'd expect fairly similar numbers this year.

Soxtalk League Thread

QUOTE(chimpy2121 @ Oct 10, 2007 -> 10:59 AM) I'm excited for the season and seeing how Soloman Alabi and Julian Vaughn play. However, this will be another year where FSU doesn't make the Big Dance. Hey, try being an NU fan, that's par for the course. Still, I am really excited for the season, I love college basketball. I just hope some of NU's young guys show some development. When's the first good game anyways? Doesn't UNC play Louisville on like Nov 5th? Edit- nvm, looks like a potential tournament game. I'm far too lazy too look all those up.

We'd have to get A LOT to convince me to trade Bobby, especially given the current state of our pen. I'm talking like a young, highly productive position player/starter or two can't-miss type prospects. I have a hard time imagining someone doing that.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Oct 9, 2007 -> 03:16 PM) Oh. I thought we were all making claims and assumptions not based on facts. There's a lot more evidence supporting Rex throwing picks than there is Rex being an accurate passer that can consistently complete deep balls, especially since people started covering Berrian on deep balls about week 5 of last year.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Oct 9, 2007 -> 03:02 PM) Yes, but many of the deep balls that Griese was off on, Rex would have been more accurate. Sure, because Rex had so many completed deep balls in the first 3 games. Oh wait, he only had two completions over 25 yards.

Alright, let's do this. League ID- 56316 Password- Soxtalk Draft is currently set for Tuesday, October 23rd at 8:00 Central. That time is negotiable.

Is there enough interest for us to do a league? I'll be happy to start one and be the commish.

Personally, I just can't get on the computer and type while drunk. My typing accuracy suffers dramatically, and the computer screen makes any alcohol induced headache even worse. Looks like fun though, maybe I should have tried it Saturday after playing a major role in killing a keg at our tailgate.

As you can probably see in some of the threads, we have a few winners up. Jackie Hayes was victorious in league 2. Buehrle the Ace prevailed in League 3. And of course the real reason I started this thread, Zoom takes down the title in Leagues 1, 5, and the Keeper league. Unfortunately I drafted like crap in League 4, and Vandy125 took the title. I believe that's a repeat champion. Congratulations to all the winners! Feel free to fill in any other results.

We've got DirecTV and love it. We've had it for a few years and it's gone out MAYBE 5 times, only once for more than about an hour. The only thing is I'd check the pricing if you're going to switch to HD. Right now we have two DVR's, 4 lines, 3 sets and the Sports Package and it's about the same as our Comcast was without the DVR's or the sports thing. However, I think it goes up a fair amount with HD. Also, you need a different dish/receiver for HD, so if that's the case you might want to buy the TV now or wait until you get it to switch (which doesn't sound like an option).

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Oct 1, 2007 -> 01:56 PM) Even the TD to Clark was a horrid pass. At least with Rex you are trying to develop a younger guy, Griese has been like this his whole career. 3-4 good passes and a pick. Rex has already had 5 years in the league though and is likely gone after this year, there's not a whole lot of point in playing him. As long as we have some mis-guided plans of winning this year, I think you have to ride Griese. They only way they'll have any success in the passing game at all with the state of their O-line is with a short/intermediate passing game, and that's just not Rex's game.

Neither one can be considered a good QB, but at least the offense actually DID something yesterday. They were able to take the ball down the field several times, and a non-offensive lineman actually caught a touchdown pass. That was with the line, runningbacks, and receivers still having some problems as well. He may have a rag-arm, but he can also find and hit short to intermediate receivers with some kind of consistency. Obviously the picks are a major problem that will hopefully be ironed out in the next few weeks (not sure how likely that is, though it was his first meaningful game in years), but IMO there was a moderate improvement, which is about the best we could hope for in our current situation. We definitely need to do something to fix the whole QB/line situation this off-season though, we're not going anywhere with any of these guys at QB.

I used to collect sports trading cards. Many of them are basketball, though there's some from every sport. They're still all over the house in boxes. I've cut back on that considerably though, there just got to be too many sets and too many short-printed cards. Once single cards of top rookies started costing hundreds of dollars before they ever did anything and any of the sets with the cooler/more valuable cards started costing $120+ for a box I just couldn't do it anymore. However, I do still collect short-printed cards of NU players, mostly through E-Bay. It's a lot more fun for me because I've met several of these guys, and unless it's a printer's plate or a 1-1 they generally don't cost more than $20. I have about 25, none of them with more than 100 in existance, as well as sets of printing plates from Napoleon Harris, Damien Anderson, and Zak Kustok cards from back in their rookie year. I've also got quite a bit of sports memorabilia stuff, I've sort of shifted over to that now. I have framed photos all over the walls of my room, in fact I ran out of space so there's a bunch on the floor. I've got plenty of cool stuff from that category. My favorite is probably a toss-up between the signed 16x20 photo from the Ali-Liston fight and the signed 16x20 from the Sox World Series Celebration. I also started saving the ticket stubs from all of the sporting events I go to, which is a lot. My Dad gives me grief about it every now and then.

I gotta update that a bit, this off-season is kinda goofy with guys switching teams. Now Toronto and San Francisco are available, as well as the Brewers. That last one is definitely pretty attractive.

Bumped. We just finished 2009 and are about to enter the off-season. It looks like we have two openings right now with potentially one or two more becoming available. Cleveland and Toronto are the two available teams, and amazingly they are not totally devoid of talent. Message Board Page for sign-up and info Standings Page to check out the teams