Balta1701

QUOTE (QuincyStandback @ Feb 16, 2013 -> 01:25 PM) That's my favorite Beckham quote. Doesn't pay attention to that stuff, just plays baseball. If that's what he's been doing the last 2 years...maybe he should try paying attention to it?

Jordan beat Michael Kidd-Gilchrist in 1 on 1.

QUOTE (Tex @ Feb 15, 2013 -> 07:59 PM) I read that the last time an meteor that size hit Russia, the Cubs won the series. You need to specify a size for this to be accurate. Meteors hit everywhere quite regularly.

Federal prosecutors formally announced charges against former-rep Jesse Jackson Jr. (and his wife, a former Alderman).

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Feb 15, 2013 -> 05:02 PM) Stop it. I still can't get Michael the Wizard out of my head. 10 years, 585935 cigars, and what looks to be a good 60 pounds later in today's game? No thanks. A lot of guys have said he still plays pickup with players on the Bobcats and definitely doesn't embarrass himself. (Yes, insert joke about it being the Bobcats now).

QUOTE (flavum @ Feb 15, 2013 -> 04:47 PM) You gotta be some kind of arrogant to get off on a technicality, lie right to public while your teammates stand by you, and continue to juice. We'll see what happens, but there's just way too much smoke with this guy. I don't think it's arrogance with these guys. I think they're something closer to addicts...they're getting paid hugely for things that they're only able to do because they break the law, and they know it.

Just feels like an appropriate time to remind everyone that NASA's budget has been trending down, cut last year, cut again this year, facing much larger cuts in the "Sequester". The one passing today is big enough for a Tunguska-sized event. Could basically blast away a city if it were to hit one. It was discovered about a year ago, and it took a good amount of effort to narrow down its orbit.

QUOTE (Elgin Slim @ Feb 15, 2013 -> 02:02 PM) http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/white-sox/...st-session#more Danks' velocity down, how much we don't know. If he is throwing under 90 sox are in big trouble with the contract. I think he doesn't have the command to reinvent himself as Mark Buehrle. Dude, it's February.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 15, 2013 -> 01:24 PM) I think he'll be able to handle other positions just fine, and he atleast offers upside with the bat. I'm his biggest defender here, and i'm skeptical on the "upside with the bat" part right now.

QUOTE (Jake @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 07:31 PM) Screw that, he could very easily become a league average hitter given his current track record. I would seriously restrict the amount of talent given up for him. And for that reason, the Padres have no need to trade him.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 06:19 PM) Balta, Unfortunately no one wants a minor league system. NBA doesnt want to pay for it. NBPA doesnt want to agree that its players can be put in a development league and not get time counted. And in that case, the best way for the NBA to work with the quality of product on their courts is to make use of the highly restrictive but free and already set up minor league system(s) provided by college and overseas basketball. Whether 1 year is the perfect amount I'd happily debate, I could see the NBA still benefiting from 2 years. But I'm convinced that the NBA's product quality suffers significantly when they put 18 year olds on the court. The 2000's chicago bulls are the best example I can give you. Drafted 2 18 year olds and wound up with disaster, drafted a 19 year old and wound up with a star (and that 19 year old would not have been the #1 pick had it not been for his year at Memphis, I believe)

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 06:12 PM) Balta, If those things are true, if there is tangible reasons why the rule benefits the kids, I have no problem with it. I just think the current 1 and done rule is broken. And that it should be something like you can go to the draft, but then you cant get drafted for 3 years, or if you go to college you have to stay 2. I dont know I just would rather give the kids more options and try and find a way to also make the NBA product stay strong. If you really want the best option, it's what MLB does, a minor league system. That way, you can have teams draft a guy even when they're 18, give them some money, but then let the team decide when the guy is ready to be brought up. And most players would be in a situation where college would be a reasonably good option as a way to improve their skills. But what is needed to make this happen is...you need the same service time setup as in the MLB. You need an 18 year old who goes to the "Minor leagues" to not start their clock towards free agency until they come up to the big leagues, because teams won't put 18 year olds in their minor leagues if their free agency clock runs from the day they sign their rookie deal.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 06:06 PM) This is the best argument for why the NBA rule is okay Ive seen yet. At least you are saying that it some way has a tangible benefit for the players, they will receive more money later on. That's the only thing I would have gone on anyway. The NBA benefits somewhere between very little and not at all if Lebron James is playing in the league at age 18 versus age 19, but it benefits hugely if it can get a guy like Eddy Curry some time on the court against higher levels of play before the draft happens. It's also worth considering that it's at least plausible playing 82 game seasons at age 18 can do enough damage to the body of a developing youth that it could also harm the quality of play by putting players out of the league or onto the inactive list more often, although I haven't seen that well enough established yet.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 06:02 PM) So I'm left wondering what you were trying to say. Were you agreeing with me? That effectively, worrying about the long term financial health of the players in terms of going to college or not is essentially the wrong issue. The extra year or two of earnings while your 18 has little benefit down the road, as does extra education at the time. For me, the proper issue for the league seems like it should be quality of play. That's the way the league is likely to see increased revenues, which increases earnings for both the players and the league.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 05:57 PM) What are you asking? How many of that 60% are ex-college players? How many were 3-4 year college players? Is there any evidence that those extra years in college is buying them anything long-term and not actively reducing their lifetime income by taking valuable early playing years away from them? If you want a comparison, a similar number of NFL players have the same issue within a few years of retirement. So basically, college years seem to have little impact on whether or not a player goes bankrupt when his career ends. THat is true both in teaching financial literacy and in terms of the player's long term earnings potential. In other words, it's really the wrong issue.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 05:53 PM) He had to give up $75M plus three houses, so his assets would have been north of $150M if you assume a 50/50 split. Having to give up that much in the divorce doesn't say anything about his money-managing skills. And, really, if you want to look at it that way, he spent a boatload more and enjoyed it that would have otherwise gone to his ex-wife. And he still has generational wealth. Sounds like he's doing fine financially, and I'm not sure what 3 years of "sports management" classes would have gained him. So then let's turn around and ask on the other end...by some estimates, within a few years after retirement, 60% of NBA players are broke.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 05:49 PM) But hes no good with money because he never went to college. How can this be? He only had to give up $75 million and 3 houses as a payment for his divorce. Btw, if his assets were $150 million at the time of his divorce, then he's probably blown through more than 50% of his lifetime earnings already.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 05:46 PM) Kobe didnt go to college and hes seemingly good with money. Kobe has been paid so much by both the lakers and shoe companies that he'd have to have more kids than Cromartie before it started mattering. He's legitimately making $50 million+ a year on endorsements and his contract.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 05:26 PM) This is another thing I don't get: why is the salary floor like 85% of the salary cap? You're basically forcing teams that are rebuilding to sign stupid, cap-clogging contracts on mediocre players, and then they wonder why these teams are losing money. Make the salary floor something more reasonable (maybe like $25 million) and then lay off some of the crazy luxury tax penalties so teams that are actually trying to compete aren't forced to let good players go. Are we really going to see a substanial difference in the caliber of the team if the Kings or Bobcats only have a $20 million payroll? A salary floor is a great victory for a union, and the higher it gets, the more revenue it pushes onto the players. The NBA has such high revenue sharing that it probably makes sense for most of the owners to accept those sorts of limits.

A secretary of defense has been filibustered for the first time in U.S. history. The vote was 58 in favor of moving forwards, 41 against (with one senator voting present and Reid switching votes so that he could bring the nomination up for cloture vote again). 59 Senators were willing to vote in favor of confirmation of former Senator Hagel, but that was insufficient, per Senate Rules, to move his nomination forward to the point where it receives a vote.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 05:14 PM) 18 years olds don't have to like it. Most of them are too immature to know what is best for them. Playing in the NBA is not a right. It is best for the NBA and the player that they mature both physically and emotionally before they are thrown into professional sports. One thing that would really be useful in the ideal situation is a working NBA minor league. It works spectacularly in baseball...but there's one difference. In baseball, you don't start earning time towards your free agency period until you make the show, and there are only limited protections for guys who are kept in the minors for multiple years. The NBPA would actually be the deterrent here. They're not going to give up the right to making FA 4-5 years after a player is drafted unless they get something really precious in return.

This goes back a couple topics...the Economist has a piece not only on how poor financial education is...but also discussing how every effort at improving financial education seems to meet with failure.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 05:05 PM) yeah but talking about the latest labor negotiations doesn't really tell me anything about how dumb GM's are Do you honestly need a summary of how bad at winning championships NBA GM's are? You can write an article like this every year, and then every year we gawk at how much money got handed out by some GM who had cap space to spend and found a guy whose sole talent was being tall. The NBA GM's are actually in a terrible position. The best way for an NBA Team to suddenly become a title contender is to hit the lottery, but that means, for most GM's, building the worst team you possibly can. One way to do taht would be the Marlins route...but the NBA Has a salary floor so you can't just sell everything off. The end result of this is a lot of GM's waste enormous amounts of money on guys who they hope will make them good enough to keep their jobs for one more year. The NBA GM's can't stop themselves from spending $8 million a year on Tyrus Thomas (while giving up a draft pick to boot!). A workable system for the NBA Basically requires the owners to protect their franchises from their GM's, because the GM's best method for success means risking his job on a 25% (at best) lottery chance.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 03:23 PM) If you could show me that there's a net benefit for NCAA colleges on the academic side (don't a lot of athletics programs lose money?), that would be a point in the NCAA's favor. But you'd still need to explain why you would lose that benefit if student-athletes were compensated. The real difficulty in showing a specific benefit is the "Red Queen" phenomenon. Everyone is running as fast as they can just to stay where they are. If Tennessee, for example (where I'm at), just decided that they were going to get rid of their football program, do you think it would impact their students? Guarantee it would. They'd rapidly start attracting fewer, worse students. They'd sell less merchandise. They'd have fewer families with connections to the university. Businesses nearby would be hurt and that would hurt student life. The counterexample right now is Alabama, which has seen a significant improvement in student quality and quantity (according to people I've spoken to there) over the last 3-4 years...which just happened to correlate with a fairly successful football team. Every single team that works this way is generating a whole lot of uncounted things for their university that don't get put on paper.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 14, 2013 -> 03:23 PM) Well, if your business model is reliant on the bulk of your labor force going unpaid (and, on top of that, actively forbidding them from getting outside revenue streams), something's inherently flawed. Is that really the case though? A whole lot of places have unpaid internships that people are willing to accept because it opens opportunities for them in the future. That's not an inherent flaw...that's the natural response to an extremely competitive industry. A league with 500 total highly paid jobs per year can set enormous entry barriers and still be able to come up with people who are willing to attempt to get through that barrier. If people are truly unhappy with the restrictions of their internship...they can go find a different line of work, right?