NBA 2009 nba draft, nba trades

As we did last year, I'll be liveblogging the NBA Draft tomorrow night, starting about 7:00.  The draft doesn't start until 7:30, but there's going to be a ton of movement to discuss before then.  For an idea of what to expect, check out last year's liveblog.

I haven't much more than a faint clue of how things are going to fall out tomorrow night.  There's already been some significant trades, with more likely to come over the next several hours.  Plus, this draft class just isn't very good, so there could be a lot of teams trying to trade out of picks if their guy doesn't fall to them.

That said, here's my last best guess at how the lottery will go:

1. LA Clippers - Blake Griffin, Oklahoma

2. Memphis -  Hasheem Thabeet, Connecticut

3. Oklahoma City - Ricky Rubio, Spain

4. Sacramento - Tyreke Evans, Memphis

5. Minnesota (from Washington) - James Harden, Arizona State

6. Minnesota - DeMar Derozan, USC

7. Golden State - Stephen Curry, Davidson

8. New York - Jrue Holiday, UCLA

9. Toronto - Gerald Henderson, Duke

10. Milwaukee - Brandon Jennings, Italy

11. New Jersey - Jordan Hill, Arizona

12. Charlotte - Earl Clark, Louisville

13. Indiana - Jeff Teague, Wake Forest

14. Phoenix - James Johnson, Wake Forest

NBA nba draft

(via Rush the Court)

Maybe this has slipped through the media cracks, but WKYT dropped what I'd consider to be a bombshell last week regarding the potential status of Jodie Meeks.

Meeks has not signed with an agent as yet.  So, if he is not selected in the NBA draft tomorrow night (and that is looking like a realistic possibility), he could invoke the Randolph Morris loophole and return to Lexington.  According to the UK atheltics department, Meeks has not done anything to jeopardize his amateur status, so this looms as an option.

On talent alone, Meeks probably should get picked.  However, just about every team is in some sort of financial bind (I've heard as many as 27 teams were unprofitable in 2008-09).  They could easily decide to, rather than take a college player that would sit on their roster, select a foreign player that can sit overseas for the upcoming season, and just hold the rights to him until several months down the road and not have to pay him right now.  It's a small cost savings, but it's a savings nonetheless.

If this happens, UK is so far and away the preseason #1 next year it'll be scary.

College Hoops, NBA nba draft, jodie meeks, university of kentucky

With five of the top six teams in the bracket losing last week, it was tough to make major changes.  Last week I felt there were four definitive #1 seeds, and the rest were a step below.  The #1 seeds have not changed, but there's a lot less distance between them and the field.

Midwest Region

(1) Pittsburgh vs. play-in game winner (Alabama State vs. Tennessee-Martin)

(8) Florida vs. (9) UCLA

(5) Purdue vs. (12) Siena

(4) Florida State vs. (13) Davidson

(3) Duke vs. (14) North Dakota State

(6) Arizona vs. (11) Utah State

(7) Syracuse vs. (10) Minnesota

(2) Kansas vs. (15) Belmont

South Region

(1) North Carolina vs. (16) Radford

(8) West Virginia vs. (9) Ohio State

(5) Washington vs. (12) Creighton

(4) Gonzaga vs. (13) American

(3) Marquette vs. (14) Weber State

(6) Dayton vs. (11) Maryland

(7) Tennessee vs. (10) Texas A&M

(2) Memphis vs. (15) Robert Morris

East Region

(1) Connecticut vs. (16) Morgan State

(8) California vs. (9) UNLV

(5) Utah vs. (12) Michigan

(4) Wake Forest vs. (13) Virginia Commonwealth

(3) Villanova vs. (14) Vermont

(6) Xavier vs. (11) Kentucky

(7) Illinois vs. (10) San Diego State

(2) Missouri vs. (15) Cornell

West Region

(1) Oklahoma vs. (16) Long Beach State

(8) Butler vs. (9) Wisconsin

(5) Clemson vs. (12) Temple

(4) Arizona State vs. (13) Western Kentucky

(3) Michigan State vs. (14) Buffalo

(6) LSU vs. (11) Boston College

(7) Texas vs. (10) BYU

(2) Louisville vs. (15) Stephen F. Austin

LAST FOUR IN: Kentucky, Temple, Maryland, Michigan

LAST FOUR OUT: Penn State, South Carolina, UAB, Miami (Fla.)

NOTES:

• A rash of losses pushed Memphis, Missouri, and Louisville into #2 seed slots.  Memphis is the most likely to sneak onto the top line, since Louisville still has a couple potential stumbling blocks before the Big East tournament.  Don't count out the Tigers though, who are quickly becoming the team no one wants to have to play. 
• Arizona State and Florida State are quietly creeping up the board, making it to the #4 seed line this week.  The Sun Devils in particular loom as a dark horse Final Four pick, with their strong defense as well as standout SG James Harden.
• Because of all the teams losing around them, Xavier's cold streak isn't going to kill them too badly.  It's going to be very tough for them to crack the top four again though.
• Butler pretty much saved their season yesterday.  Had they lost to Davidson, they likely would have fallen to strictly automatic qualifier status.  They can't afford to slip up again before the conference tournament.
• Ohio State needs to get focused, as the season could really unravel over the next couple weeks (vs. Illinois & Penn State, at Purdue).
• Kentucky looks like they're going to continue riding the roller coaster.  I would hope this week would tell us more about them, but in all likelihood they'll split their games with South Carolina and LSU, and we'll be right back here next week.

College Hoops bracketology, march madness, ncaa tournament

Courtesy of Beyond The Boxscore...I'm pretty sure Muehlekamp is behind this one...

MLB dusty baker

More than any other stat in baseball, the stolen base is influenced not just by the player's skill, but also the manager's tendencies to exploit that skill.  If a manager likes to play for the big inning, that's not going to drastically affect a high batting average hitter from putting the ball in play.  Likewise, a manager might believe in manufacturing runs, but that wouldn't make a musclebound slugger any less powerful.  But, if a manager doesn't like his baserunners attempting to steal, then a speedster's ability to affect the game is drastically reduced.

I'm surprised that more people haven't taken this angle when looking at the recent acquisition of Willy Taveras.  Everyone's looked at his gaudy 68 steals from 2008, and has just assumed that 2009 will be more of the same, without ever thinking about whether Dusty will run him often enough to get to that kind of number.

Certainly we can't use last season (when the Reds used 10 different leadoff hitters, including 32 games of - gulp - Corey Patterson) as any sort of barometer of Dusty's running tendencies.  But, in his pre-Cincinnati years, Dusty had two legitimate base stealing threats similar to Taveras - Darren Lewis with the Giants in 1993, and Juan Pierre with the Cubs in 2006.  If we look at those years, and compare them with Taveras' 2008, we might get a better idea of what 2009 might hold for Taveras.  Pierre is a great example in my opinion, because I think Taveras fits the profile of 'poor man's Juan Pierre' very well (incidentally, that would make Joey Gathright a poor man's Willy Taveras).

The SBO% - stolen base opportunity - column is very telling.  All that calculation shows is the percentage of times that the batter reached first base (by a single or walk) that he attempted to steal second base.  Immediately we can see that, when handed a leadoff man with A+ speed, Clint Hurdle was much more willing to let his runners fly than Dusty usually is.  So right there, we can see that it's extremely unlikely that Willy is going to match his steals output from last season.

So let's just assume that, somehow, Taveras gets 500 at-bats with the Reds in 2009 (Patterson got 366 last year - anything's possible).  Let's assume his batting average bounces back up to .280 from last season's .251.  If we figure that all his other numbers stay consistent, here's what his batting line would look like if he gets the green light as much as Pierre did in 2006.

About 60-ish steal oppotunities in 2009, so 56 steals looks pretty nice, right?  Well, that's assuming that Taveras keeps up his other-worldly 90% steal success rate from 2008, which was over 10 points above his career rate.  Possibly that's a measure of his progression as a base stealer, and that development will stick.  But, if that was a fluke (and that's the more likely answer), then that mix drops to about 50 SB / 12 CS.  And if it ends up being a regression to the mean type season, it could be 45-17, but the 50 steal mark seems pretty reasonable overall, so we'll stick with that.

Even so, right there Taveras just lost 30% of the value that he had going into this season just by coming to the Reds.  And, as countless articles have shown, speed without a passable OBP is fairly worthless - ask Joe Torre, who figured out halfway through last season that Andre Ethier was far more valuable to his lineup than Juan Pierre.

Guestimating, Taveras' baserunning overall probably will net the Reds 1-2 wins overall (if he steals 50 or so with 80% success), which isn't bad but is hardly anything to go crazy over, and his glove will probably net out another win.  But his bat is so abysmal that he'll probably give those wins back at the plate, so the season will probably be a net wash.

What it comes down to is, again, this signing made no sense.  It could very well block Chris Dickerson, who actually has potential to do some damage with his bat, and we're stuck with him for two years.  To do that for a net zero ballplayer at best, is a waste of time, money, player development, and uniform lettering.

MLB willy taveras, dusty baker, juan pierre

Since every other site has a bracketology thing of some sort going on, I figured we should too.  Here's my first stab of likely several at the brackets, updated for results as of posting time:

East Region

(1) Connecticut vs. (16) Radford

(8) LSU vs. (9) Minnesota

(5) Washington vs. (12) Boston College

(4) Gonzaga vs. (13) Virginia Commonwealth

(3) Villanova vs. (14) Robert Morris

(6) Florida State vs. (11) Utah State

(7) Arizona State vs. (10) San Diego State

(2) Memphis vs. (15) North Dakota State

South Region

(1) Oklahoma vs. (16) Cal-State Northridge

(8) Ohio State vs. (9) BYU

(5) Marquette vs. (12) Davidson

(4) Wake Forest vs. (13) Buffalo

(3) Clemson vs. (14) Binghamton

(6) UCLA vs. (11) Wisconsin

(7) Utah vs. (10) Florida

(2) Louisville vs. (15) Tennessee-Martin

Midwest Region

(1) North Carolina vs. (16) Jacksonville

(8) Syracuse vs. (9) UNLV

(5) Illinois vs. (12) Siena

(4) Xavier vs. (13) American

(3) Missouri vs. (14) Weber State

(6) California vs. (11) Kentucky

(7) Dayton vs. (10) Virginia Tech

(2) Michigan State vs. (15) Sam Houston State

West Region

(1) Pittsburgh vs. Play-in game winner (Alabama St./Morgan St.)

(8) Texas vs. (9) Miami (Fla.)

(5) Tennessee vs. (12) Southern California

(4) Butler vs. (13) Northern Iowa

(3) Kansas vs. (14) Arkansas-Little Rock

(6) Purdue vs. (11) Temple

(7) Arizona vs. (10) West Virginia

(2) Duke vs. (15) Cornell

• For the local teams, Xavier hasn't been hurt too badly by their two losses over the last 10 days.  Any more defeats (outside of Dayton, maybe) will become a problem and could give the committee an excuse to drop them below a top 4 seed.
• Butler has earned its #3 seed.  Outside of one bad loss, they've done everything they're supposed to do; at some point you can't penalize them any more for the big boys not being willing to play them.  Beating Davidson on Saturday would give them another quality win to go with their Xavier victory.
• Dayton has quietly taken care of business over the past few weeks, and is now in excellent position to get a top 8 seed come Selection Sunday.  The schedule is pretty favorable for them, and if they were to run the table they could probably elevate to a 4-5 seed.
• Kentucky's wins over Florida and Arkansas last week have pushed them into the field of 64 - for now.  Their margin for error is thin; winning two of their next three would put them in pretty good shape.
• Louisville's ceiling is likely at the #2 seed, but they should go no worse than 6-1 over their final seven, and if they do they should feel pretty good about their seeding.
• Cincinnati still has several teams to climb over to get into the dance, and absent a big victory that no one expects, I don't see this changing.  The wins they expected to hang their hats on (Georgetown, Mississippi State, UAB) don't look nearly as good now, and they haven't been competitive in most of their losses against the top 50 RPI teams.

College Hoops bracketology, march madness, ncaa tournament

I found this very cool post on Yahoo!'s Shutdown Corner.  While we're arguing over how great the ending was or whether the refs screwed the Cardinals, there were our boys and girls in Iraq that had to choose between watching the Super Bowl or getting sleep, and had to get an order from the top U.S. commander in Iraq to allow them to have a few beers during the game.  Chris Chase received e-mails from two captains that I'm going to copy in full below; they're a little long, but it's well worth getting a glimpse of what these guys deal with on a daily basis, and how the big game served as momentary relief for them, instead of an excuse to eat chicken fingers and guacamole, as The Boss said.

Army Captain Alex Dorko, 14th Engineer Batallion

After a work day spent fighting the war on terror, I went back to my little trailer where I sleep and contemplated whether or not I should wake up for my quota of two beers. The game kicked off at 2:28 a.m. in Nasiriyah. Hypothetically, I would have slept for five hours, woken up, put on a complete uniform (which is a hassle, I hate wearing what other people tell me to), and walked ten minutes to the dining facility where they were giving out the beer. Then, I'd have had to wait another ten minutes in the line to get inside.

No one would actually opt to watch the game in the dining facility, but that's where the beer was handed out and you had to drink it while you were inside the dining facility. The game was on all of the flat screen televisions in there. The DFAC has ten of them (thanks, tax payers!). Then I guess I would have left with my mild buzz and found a more comfortable place to sit and watch those tools beat the good-for-nothing Cardinals.

More likely than not I would have then gone back to my little room and fallen asleep again, only to have woken up in a couple hours to use the bathroom. Since my room is 300 meters from the nearest toilet or shower, I tend to intentionally dehydrate myself on a regular basis in order to avoid such things. That second middle of the night field trip would have been the icing on the proverbial Super Bowl-cake and I would have woken up later in the morning with a tiny little hangover and cotton mouth.

Instead of all that, I slept... And I woke up, sharp as ever, and ready to fight the terrorists once again from behind my computer.

Had it been the Browns in that Super Bowl... who am I kidding, Army has a better chance of actually beating Navy than seeing I do of seeting those idiots in the big game.

In case you were wondering, they had Bud, Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller Light, Heineken and Guinness. Most of the Joes drank from the Bud family with Heineken and Guinness sitting right there. I guess they thought they were paying for it.

Captain James Douglas, 570th Sapper Company

It was a great opportunity and a big morale booster for Soldiers in Iraq. It was very well organized and just about every safety precaution was taken. We started out standing in line for about 20 minutes while the start of the Super Bowl was being broadcast on every large screen TV in the chow hall. The Soldiers handing out the beer called us to the counter and verified your military ID and asked you to dab blue ink on your index finger. This is the way the MPs and DEFAC worker could identify you've received your two beers.

Our selection was Guinness, Bud Light, Coors Light, and Heineken. They also provide a large selection of finger foods. The opportunity to watch the Super bowl and have a few beers reminded us of home and gave us a break from reality, if only for a few hours. I really hope the chain of command looks at other special events like the Army Birthday and Independence Day to allow Soldiers to drink a few beers as a morale booster.

NFL super bowl

A week ago Tuesday, Kentucky took a two point lead against Ole Miss into halftime.  As is customary during any ESPN televised game, one of the coaches does a halftime interview on the way to the locker room, and this time it was Gillespie's turn.  Despite the small lead, sideline reporter Jeanine Edwards asked Gillespie a question regarding Jody Meeks' lack of production, and Billy Clyde did not take too kindly to that: 

Kind of an over-reaction if you asked me - and you didn't (nice bland follow-up question on Edwards' part).  But in the five halves of basketball since that interview, the Wildcats have:

• given up 48 points to the Rebels in the second half of that game, and lost going away, 85-80
• committed 21 turnovers in a 78-77 home loss against South Carolina Saturday, and
• scored a grand total of four points in a nine minute stretch during their disappointing 66-57 loss to Mississippi State.

Coincidence?  Perhaps.  But it ought to give Coach Gillespie some pause the next time he treats a reporter's question with such disdain.

(in all seriousness, with games against Florida and at Arkansas and Vandy over the next two weeks, the 'Cats better get their act together quickly if they have any interest in playing a post-season game of any sort.)

College Hoops kentucky, kentucky wildcats, uk, billy gillespie, jeanine edwards

Channel 5 ran a piece regarding the Andy Kennedy arrest from mid-December, and they included the police video from the evening.

Wow. 

That doesn't exactly paint him in a favorable light.  Let's set aside the fact that clearly Kennedy had indulged in more than "a few drinks", as the reporter stated - we've all done it, though most of us are usually able to maintain enough control to not get thrown out of a bar by a police officer and then get in an argument with a cab driver.  The bothersome part is how this guy tried to make the argument that they couldn't take him to jail because he was coaching against Rick Pitino the next night.  Really?  I guess it just goes to show you that anyone that thinks they can pull the "do you know who I am" card will take a shot with it.

Kennedy really didn't need to worry, since, as Donald at Cincinnati Blog pointed out, he was released before having to appear before a judge, a move that he found to be more than a bit unusual for someone charged with a violent crime.  And given the weird twists and turns this saga has taken, who knows whether this video or report will have any affect on the outcome of this case.

I will note two interesting items in the video.  First, it doesn't speak well of Kennedy's judgment to hire William Armstrong as his director of basketball operations (2:35 in).  It takes a special kind of clown to tell the police to "I'll go to jail".  Second, the line at 3:46, when the officer tells Kennedy "we deal with the Bengals all the time"...I can only imagine what the national media could do with that one.

College Hoops mississippi state, cincinnati, cincinnati bearcats, andy kennedy