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UVA, Duke, and a short treatise on college basketball...

Ok, this might be a long one, I watched a lot of great basketball yesterday (and currently OSU-Wisconsin) so I'm primed and ready to go for March Madness. I'm going to do my typical recap of the UVA game first, which will likely lead into a larger commentary on college basketball (thanks to some awesome graphs from KenPom). That will then be followed by a Duke preview, because I'm travelling again Thursday-Saturday and won't have time to get one out later this week. Alright, time to follow me down the rabbit hole!

Yesterday the Heels seemed to follow an all too familiar formula when playing on the road. They started out good or even great, got a little lazy and trailed early in the second half, and finally put some solid defensive possessions together for the win. The mild difference was that I'm not 100% sure the "solid defensive possessions" were that and not just some luck. Some will say luck is the residue of design, though I'd disagree and say that UVA missed some fairly open shots. Then again if the Heels designs were to be ahead, that fact likely forced Mike Scott into an ill-advised 3 on one of the Hoos' last possessions. In brief summary, UNC played decently and shot poorly, luckily UVA played a little worse and shot poorer. Looking over the Four Factor numbers the Heels took care of the non-shooting aspects of the game, decent TO numbers, good rebounding, good number of trips to the line. Similarly, the Heels did the same on the defensive end of the floor, kept UVA off the glass and the free throw line (UNC eschews forcing turnovers as a defensive mechanism, if you don't agree with me or are unsure why I have a book recommendation for you). The Heels did all the little things right, but their shots didn't fall. Because they did those other things the Heels left Charlottesville still in control of their own ACC (and NCAA?) destiny.

Favorite Number: 10 FTR (Free Throw Rate, FTA/FGA) - This is key to the UNC defense, I'm sure you've heard me say it, but I'll hammer on it again. The height the Heels have, and the method of defense they play, relies on the ability to affect shots without fouling. In games the Heels have posted under 25 FTR (19 total this year), the opponent has only exceeded 1 point per possession once (Jan 29th, hosting GT) and the Heels are 19-0 in those games. Not to get ahead of myself but this will be a huge key to the Duke game.

Also, there was this http://www.ballinisahabit.net/2012/02/posterized-john-henson-uses-his-length.html

Least Favorite Number: 35.3 eFG% - I'm not a fan of the number itself, but it is more how the Heels earned this metric that was upsetting. There were a number of poorly selected shots (largely 3's) and possessions where the ball never visited the paint. I don't mind a cold shooting night, but only when it is earned by the opposition through defense and not as a result of lazy or misguided offensive flow.

Of the Four Factors, the one that has the most bearing on efficiency is Field Goal percentage. This isn't a debatable fact, you can play a rotten all around game and be bailed out by good shooting. Alternatively you can have a cold night shooting and lose despite be on point everywhere else. That is what makes college basketball exciting and unpredictable, and what makes March worth experiencing. On Saturday, the Heels produced a poor shooting night of epic proportions, only making 17 field goals. This is arguably the bottom of the Heels' efficiency curve, they won't have many nights worse than this, and a lot of that can be attributed to random shooting noise, especially when a team like Virginia slows the pace down to 60 possessions. Fortunately the Wahoos had a poor shooting night of their own, and had an offensive output similarly on the bottom end of their spectrum. I've graphed (below) the offensive efficiency outputs of UNC and UVA over the course of the year to illustrate my point:

As you can see, the UNC curve exists at higher efficiency values than the UVA one, meaning that the Heels' worst game is better than the Hoos' worst game. I felt that it would be safe to ignore defense here, since UNC and UVA have similarly skilled defenses. Though one could graph each curve with raw data first, and then account for each team's defense after the fact.* As an example, graphing Duke and UNC's curves would show Duke to the right of UNC, but would be ignoring the fact that UNC's defense is measurably better than the Devils' defense this year (yes, I just wrote that sentence, tongue far from cheek, crazy huh?).

Any college basketball game can be simplified to this degree, the point per possession output of one team graphed against the other, and will be fairly accurate as long as you take home court and defense into account. (You might notice that UVA is bi-modal, which complicates things, I'm assuming most teams have offensive outputs that fit a normal curve). This is a really neat way to think about basketball, and in a way provides insight into March Madness. When you look at a given matchup there are a pair of curves. For any two teams that make the NCAA tournament their curves overlap. The only ones that don't (using historical data) are the #1 and #16 teams, which is truly saying something. Of the 67 games that will be played in March (& April), 63 of them could go either way and the large majority of those will contain curves like the above, where the teams only differ by 5-10 points/100 possessions. The largest swings in the curves happen as a result of field goal percentage, something that can come and go in any given game, making March all the more mad. KenPom has talked a bit about this lately on his blog (see the link above), mainly within the context of three point shooting being a force that serves to increase entropy within the system of college basketball.

Now, are there exceptions to this rule? Of course. The 2009 Tar Heels weren't within 10 points of any of their 6 NCAA opponents. There is the occasional team and bracket breakdown that leads to an overwhelming champion, but this year doesn't appear to have an overwhelming favorite. If the chips fall the right way, Kentucky would be the one team to run the table, but they aren't worlds above the other teams in the bracket and they have won a few close games against a lackluster SEC.

So, since UNC falls into the category of "not overwhelming favorite" their chances will be bettered by a safer path to the Final Four. Depending upon how the remainder of the season plays out, UNC seems to be destined for between 3 and 10 on the NCAA tourney "S-curve" (where 1-4 are 1-seeds, 5-8 are 2-seeds, Lunardi currently guesses UNC is at 6 http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/50096/joe-lunardis-latest-bracketology-update-10). For simplicity I'm assuming a win against Maryland, but depending upon the Duke outcome and ACC tournament performance the Heels could end up as high as the 3rd or 4th #1 seed, but as low as a #3. That said, what matters more than any positioning between 4-7 is the ability to avoid the best teams and the teams that are underseeded. For instance, this year it'd be best to stay out of Kentucky's region, and away from a dangerous Buckeye team that seems destined for a 3-seed. Funny that given any small change in the last Duke-UNC game and the entire storyline of the season would be different (see here for the original publishing of this idea http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2087). As it stands, Carolina has finished the season strong and in position to set themselves up for a #1 seed regardless of Austin Rivers' heroics.

Next Saturday the ACC crown will be up for grabs (safe to say, because even if either team loses mid-week, the regular season title will still be in the balance). There are a couple of keys to the game in my mind, one that I've touched on already.

1) Free Throws - Duke cannot get to the line as often as they did in the Dean Dome. This may see like an impossibility, and it very well may be, but the point is that if Duke is only taking shots from inside the arc on half their possessions, UNC can't foul them on and additional half of those. Let Duke take contested 3's, or let Rivers drive, but don't let Duke beat you from behind the arc and the stripe.

2) Rebounding, Offensive - Duke isn't a horrible defensive team, just a bad team relative to Dukes of the past. One of the most stark contrasts in this game is UNC's ability to board its own misses (5th in the country/1st in the ACC) with Duke's inability to prevent it (162nd/9th). Even if the shots aren't dropping, the Heels must trust their own inside game and their ability to get multiple shot attempts in a given possession. Last game Duke had 10 offensive rebounds while UNC had 14, if the Heels are going to withstand a hot shooting night from Duke, they'll need to get 2 and 3 attempts off their own misses.

3) Additional Production - In the first game, UNC's key players played well, but no one else stepped up. Bullock and Hairston had 0-fers from behind the arc and McAdoo had 6 points. This was balanced well by the key scorers pouring in above average nights, but that can't be expected to happen. Bullock, Hairston, or even McAdoo getting hot would go a long way to a Carolina win.

The way that Duke and UNC are designed are in such a complementary fashion that each has the other's number. If you were to create an offense UNC would have difficulty with, it would be one with a potent slasher (Rivers) and several role players capable of hitting three's when the defense gets sloppy. Similarly, Duke has problems defending opponents in the post (they're 2nd in the country in opponent's 3PA/FGA, no one shoots 3's against them) and preventing opponents from getting second looks. UNC played an excellent game offensively on February 8th, but Duke's 14 3's were too much to overcome. I doubt Duke will hit 14 3's again (they hit 14 one other time this year, and took over 30 in one other game), but the Heels will have a difficult time reaching 84 this time around as well.

*There are actually even further assumptions that are being made to simplify the situation. One could even make further assumptions about how defenses and offenses interact. Overall UVA and FSU have very similar defensive efficiencies, but they each arrive at the numbers differently. FSU uses their height and length to pester opponents into turnovers, while UVA doesn't focus on them and is shorter overall. Thus the same defensive metric has grossly different effects on UNC. So, much like physics, college basketball theory works best in a vacuum

Ryan's Favorite Numbers

Just wanted to try something out. Maybe not all of you heard, but KenPom is going all big time on us, and charging for a subscription. Personally, I plan on buying in, but I wanted to share some of the important stuff with y'all. So, after each UNC game I'll email out the Game Plan line (the 4 Factor Summary) to those parties interested, or at least my estimation of that list. The line is below, as a quick recap the numbers from left to right are Efficiency, effective Field Goal Percentage (where FGs are weighted by point value), Turnover Percentage, Offensive Rebound Percentage and Free Throw Rate.

Anyways, each game I'm going to throw in a Favorite and Not Favorite Number. As the season progresses I might start to get a little fancier, for example a player's usage in a given game or something else homebrewed.

Favorite - 51.0% eFG, pretty decent shooting night, and I'd have to say I felt the shots weren't dropping. There seemed to be a lot of good shot selection that was unrewarded, but I'm not sure how to go about confirming this without some sort of game charting system. Anyways, we didn't lose any game in which we shot 51.0 or greater eFG last year, though we came close in the ACC tourney playing Miami (and turning the ball over on nearly 1/3 of our possessions)

Not Favorite - 45.9 OR% (against), pretty easy to guess this one, as I texted Cason seeing Watts really drove me crazy. He is a great energy guy who has his place, but this isn't last year and his place really can't be the 4 spot. We were playing the defensive boards pretty poorly with Zeller, and then we sent Watts in to try and box out Draymond Green, wtf Roy. Hopefully he realized he has 3 freshmen who can rebound better (well, maybe, we'll see about Simmons). It would be neat to break down the first half's runs (6-0 UNC, 15-2 MSU, rest of half ~24-5 UNC) with the number of rebounds.

Alright, in general I was pleased with UNC's play, but I really couldn't tell if it was solid defense or a Spartan team that just can't shoot. It will be nice to see as the season progresses, also worth noting that despite the OR%, the 79 Defensive Efficiency posted would have been good for 4th on the season last year, and we only held 2 BCS teams that low: Rutgers and BC.

Date Opponent Result Pace Eff eFG% TO% OR% FTR | Eff eFG% TO% OR% FTR

Fri Nov 11 34 Michigan St. W, 67-55 N 70 96 51 20.1 22.1 45 | 79 31.9 21.6 45.9 18

(really sorry KP, hope you don't find this and sue me)

weeks 10&11

9-10-tot
Alex.....7-9-65
John....6-9-63
Ryan....6-9-70
Jason...4-7-65
Kevin...6-9-59

gonna send an email out today with tomorrow's 3 games.

pick 'em 8 & 9

Sorry for the lapse, college basketball is back (if you happened not to notice)

Name Wk8-Wk9-Tot
Ryan....5-6-55
Jason...5-5-54
Alex....5-9-49
John....6-4-48
Kevin...3-2-44


Thoughts on FIU: Larry Drew II looks good, but I can't tell if it is because his back ups look so bad. The big men are just that, big, and its a deep team. But, for the 2 minutes that only freshmen were on the floor it looked pretty bad.

week 7 pick 'em

Week 7
ryan: 8
john: 8
kevin: 8
jason: 7
alex: 2

cumulative
jason: 44
ryan: 44
kevin: 39
john: 38
alex: 35

consensus: 4-2 (more consensus picks because alex went all underdogs, so i excluded his picks)

Week 6 Pick 'em

So, in a reversal of fortunes this week Alex has posted the highest total, he made notable headway on the Bills, Ravens and Texans.

week 6
alex: 10
ryan: 8
jason: 7
john: 7
kevin: 6

cumulative
jason: 37
ryan: 36
alex: 33
john: 31
kevin: 31


This is as of Sunday night, but we all pick the two remaining games the same way (Atlanta -3 & Denver +3.5). Everyone will remain in the cumulative order shown, but we may all pick up some W's between now and week 7.

Also, this week we tried picking parlays, and we have all struck out to this point. Incorrect parlay picks include Steelers (Alex), Vikings (Kevin, Ryan), Jets (Kevin), Lions (Jason), and Eagles (John). We're 3-1 in consensus picks, wins: Pats, Falcons and Broncos and the Eagles dropping the ball.

Week 6 Pick 'Em

Trying something new here folks:

Setting the Week 5 table

Current Rankings

jason: 30 (8)
ryan: 28 (5)
kevin: 25 (10)
john: 24 (9)
alex: 23 (8)

week 4

wow, i laid an absolute egg:

kevin: 8
john: 7
jason: 7
alex: 7
ryan: 4

kevin & john have pitt (-6.5), we all have minny (-3.5), so, john and kevin will pick up one and we'll all stay in stride monday night. i notably whiffed on DET, NYJ, STL, and SEA who either everyone else, or only one other person missed.

Great NBA Training Camp Stuff

So I figured that week 5 of the college football season was a great time to show everybody this NBA Training Camp footage. I found this playing on the NBA TV channel, and it's a great insight into the kinds of things coaches go over when preparing their teams for the season. Here's Nuggets coach George Karl directing rookie Ty Lawson (known only as "Rook") about eschewing the open three in favor of driving to the basket. He also teaches him about decision making on the break and when to pass up shorter shots. Starts at around the 9:00 mark, in case you don't want to watch the whole thing.



There's also an excellent video on the Lakers that runs just as long. It's available here. And yes, they do discuss Adam Morrison's future and how much less of a douche Sasha Vujacic is now that he cut his hair.

week 3 pick 'em

Name - Wk3 (Tot)
Ryan - 11 (23)
Jason - 11 (22)
Kevin - 9 (15)
Alex - 8 (15)
John - 8 (14)

Consensus: 2-1, Giants and San Diego were on the money, and we got burned on Pittsburgh again.

WHY DOES THE TAMPA-2 SUCK SO MUCH

Week 2 Final Standings

Here are the Week 2 final standings, next week's Google-style surveys will go out some time Thursday.

The three consensus picks were Minny (-10), Pittsburgh (-3), and Indy (-3).

Week 2 Early Standings

That's 1 o'clock games only. I think I'm going to start using Google surveys to compile our data into spreadsheets, beginning with next week's games.

Week 2 spreads, 2009 season Pick'em

Time for another year of Pick'em! I love Pick'em. We'll be picking every game this season from Week 2 onward, so here are the spreads for this week.

Oakland @ Kansas City (-3)
Houston @ Tennessee (-7)
New England (-4) @ New York Jets
Cincinnati @ Green Bay (-9)
Minnesota (-10) @ Detroit
New Orleans @ Philadelphia (PICK'EM)
Carolina @ Atlanta (-6)
St. Louis @ Washington (-9.5)
Arizona @ Jacksonville (-3)
Seattle @ San Francisco (-1.5)
Tampa Bay @ Buffalo (-5)
Cleveland @ Denver (-3)
Baltimore @ San Diego (-3)
Pittsburgh (-3) @ Chicago
New York Giants @ Dallas (-3)
Indianapolis (-3) @ Miami

Since we didn't finalize the format until late this week, picks are due before 11AM Sunday. Please leave a comment with your picks for the week on the post with the spreads; Ryan will record your picks and then approve the comment when everyone's picks are in (so everyone may then see who picked whom).

Cason Visits the Spurs, and It Was Good

As a special to Thrice Fortnight, I'm posting my write-up of my trip to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club (the Spurs) as part of my visit to London. Since we got obscenely low airfare (direct from Raleigh, which if you've ever traveled extensively, you know is a luxury in-and-of-itself), Dad took me for my birthday. I realized that if I was going to spend money on something big, I could either see this game or Shakespeare's Troilus & Cressida at the Globe. I'm not married, so Shakespeare was out. The Spurs faced Birmingham City, a freshly promoted club who was in the top half of the rankings and had only given up one goal in three prior games.

We were fortunate that Birmingham City was not a team that most fans considered a powerhouse, otherwise tickets would not have been available. As it were, there were a decent number of tickets available for purchase so I snapped up a pair that ended up being very good. The alternative would have been trying to buy them off 'touts' (scalpers) and since I had no idea whether you needed a club membership to get in with tickets from touts, I went the safe route and booked tickets online a few days before we left.

Since the game was in North London, we took the train to White Hart Lane Station and found our way to the ticket office. Other than the food and merchandise carts, you wouldn't know there was a match about to start. I found this a little odd because I'd always read about the fanaticism of the fans all over the Prem. No saturation of signage and neon. After getting through the line for our tickets, we walked around to our gate, and made it through the narrow entrance, noting that we were the only ones who were getting in, and the game had only just started. I should say that the entry way past the ticket takers is so narrow that I could not fit walking straight through and had to walk in sideways. Maybe this was to prevent any rushes into the stadium or they just wanted to keep Diego Maradona out, both laudable goals. Drew Brees would have a difficult time threading a pass in there. I forgot to take a picture because we were hurrying to get to our seats.

We discovered that we were the only people who weren't in our seats in the entire section (when was the last time you went to a pro or college anything and that happened?). We were on roughly the 35 or 40 yd line and the seats were right on top of the field, which was nicer than Bryan Park, like plush green carpet. We sang 'When the Spurs go marching in' which is very close to a song that means something to me. Dad and I quickly took a liking to the Spurs no. 7, Aaron Lennon, who was mentioned as a potential member of England's national team soon after this game.

The game proceeded with the Spurs dominating possession, as they moved the ball fluidly around the field. They had difficulty getting the ball inside 10 yards of the goal, as the Birmingham defense didn't let many balls through. Luka Modric broke his leg getting tackled while going for a fifty-fifty ball. However, this was the best thing that could have happened for the Spurs, as Peter Crouch went in as his sub.

If you've ever watched a game from Europe, you know the fans spend much of the game singing their club songs. Exactly what they're singing is another matter. I expected to be able to understand the chants word for word, but they sounded exactly like they do on television. I don't know whether this says more about the quality of the sound on televised matches or my difficulty understanding British chants. I was pretty familiar with 'When the Spurs go marching in' but had difficulty interpreting things outside of "F%$# City" or "Arsene Wanker."

Everything changed with Crouch, as the Spurs were a bit slower on offense
with Modric out but were able to play above the opposition. Birmingham City's offense came out of nowhere and held onto the ball well, producing some good scoring chances. Some poor defensive execution nearly gave some away a goal or two.

Halftime meant that everyone left for the john and for food. We didn't have to deal with people leaving four times for more food or to pee in the first half. This was important because the seats were so cramped there was barely room to stand. Once the second half was about to start, everybody was back in their seats. There were no halftime promotions of a fan trying to score a goal from all the way across the field, no T-shirt gun, no ED ads (I'd almost forgot what it was like to go to a sporting event and not deal with the image of two old naked people in outdoor tubs). Aside from the numerous Puma and Mansion.com signs (gambling website, official sponsor of the club and occupying the center of their jerseys) along the sidelines, there were no offical tie ins. No sideline reports, no awkward and vacant interviews with the coaches going into or out of the locker room, no overplayed OutKast anthems.

The second half was much more exciting, as City's offense emerged and Peter Crouch initiated the Spurs scoring chances. Crouch tried a number of headers, one of which was stopped by a defender right on the goal line. This was then followed by another Crouch header bouncing off the top left corner of goal. As agonizing as each of these were, it only set the stage for the exciting goal, when Crouch scored off a free kick off a foul.

When Peter Crouch finally scored, there was a great mix of celebration and relief as Birmingham's defense was finally broken. Happily, It also meant it was ok to start flipping off the City fans, which I may have taken advantage of. The goal appeared to be the result of a set piece off a free kick about 30 yards away from the goal. Crouch certainly deserved to score, as he was off by a matter of inches on three earlier occasions.

Crouch heads in the first goal

Unfortunately, the Spurs decided it was ok to start packing it in, even though there were over 20 minutes left. City then scored on a miscommunication between a defender, Hutton, and the goalie. City fans were ecstatic to be tied on the road with the first place team in the Prem. Regulation ended in a tie, but there was some stoppage time from the Modric injury, leaving time for a last chance for the Spurs.

In stoppage time, City were content to play keep away and get the point. Their fans were loudly singing and feeling like they had won something. However, a City midfielder fell over on his own (seriously, watch the highlights) and the Spurs raced up the field with numbers. A great cross to Aaron Lennon led to some great stutter steps and a whistling shot between a defender and the goalie. As soon as this happened, we all immediately turned to the City fans and shouted obscenities at them as they snatched defeat from the jaws of a draw. It was swell. As that was in the fifth minute of stoppage time, the ref called the game soon after kickoff, which was just as well since several City defenders still hadn't gotten up off the ground. It was a great Spurs win, with Crouch and Lennon leading the way. Dad and I had a great time, even if we were only working on 2 hours sleep from the flight over.

OK, so we bought scarves

In hindsight, I'm thrilled we went to the Spurs game, since they currently sit at second in the Prem, and the first place team, Chelsea, is currently banned from signing new players. Liverpool is off to a terrible start, all Arsenal cares to do is protest a UEFA ban on a forward for diving (which was obvious even for their standards) and Man U is facing similar heat as Chelsea for encouraging a player to break a contract with his French club. Given this start (best in 40 years) and the preoccupations of the big four, this is the Spurs best chance to qualify for the Champions league or even win the Premiership.

Here's the highlight video, from the BBC:

Okafor for Chandler, part deux

In response to Ryan's post, I am sharing my thoughts about the big Bobcats trade. Firstly, we must consider Chandler's health. After all, his health was the reason his trade was rescinded. His foot injury, which was performed by the same doctor who deemed him unfit for the trade, is certainly a cause for concern. Chandler played in 45 games last year before playing between 73-80 games over the previous four seasons. For comparison, Okafor played in 82 games the last two seasons but far fewer in the previous three. Therefore, I don't entirely buy the idea that Okafor is so much healthier than Chandler.

Next, we look at the teams' motivations for the trade. The Hornets were acting out of financial interest, since their owner wants to avoid paying him the next two seasons. In my searches, I didn't find anything that made Chandler out to be a bad teammate, so at least there won't be any bad locker room energy injected into Charlotte. In my estimations, the Bobcats are trying to shake things up either because Larry Brown told them to or they want a contract that expires way before Okafor's so the team can be sold easier. Bob Johnson has expressed a lot of interest in selling the team and once he finds serious suitors I'll bet that will convince that Larry Brown that he could do better elsewhere, since Larry hasn't always been on the best of terms with owners and management.

As for the effect on the teams, I think Chandler will (surprise!) miss running the PNR with Chris Paul for easy buckets. He'll have better defensive help with the Bobcats, but you have to wonder who is going to be doing all the scoring when Gerald Wallace has an off night or inevitably gets injured. As for the Bugs, they will appreciate Okafor's rebounding and attitude (not that they disliked Chandler), but I've never seen Okafor move well on a PNR. He could very well have been trapped on the wrong team, but he seems to lack the fluidity Chandler has. We'll see what happens to his numbers from playing with Chris Paul. I think we'll have to wait and see as to who profits more. The sad thing, as Bill Simmons pointed out, that both teams wanted to dump salaries and that was the main reason for this happening. We'll see if either team benefits from their new centers.

Okafor for Chandler?!?!

Last night I was eating at Moe's (WELCOME TO MOE'S), it was $5 chicken-only Joey night, when I nearly spat my queso out over something I thought I saw go by on the crawl beneath the Cardinals-Dodgers game, "...eka Okafor for Hornet's C Tyson Chandler."

WHAT?!?? Why? How? Who? The Bobcats have only made a few successful draft picks, Okafor being one (at least relative to the others, and within his draft class). He's the rock and face of the franchise, an original Bobcat, he shot 56% from the field last season and he's a double double machine. OK, maybe machine is a bit generous, but he's a double double source. Put it this way, he's a double-double source only by nature of our base-10 counting system. If we admired 11 the way we do 10 he'd only have produced a single double double season once, and his points aren't that far ahead of his rebounds.

Anyways, I tried to legitimize the deal from the booth at Moe's. They're probably the same age (since Chandler entered the league from high school). It is likely a salary dump, they're just not reporting that Nazr Mohammed is included in the deal.

As I returned home and was able to look into all the details a few things became obvious and the deal came into focus. 1) Larry Brown doesn't like Okafor, for all his hard work 'Mek doesn't have the basketball instincts or ability that Brown wants. 2) Okafor has a 6 year contract while Chandler has a 2 year deal for less average money. 3) The 'Cats are not significantly worse with Chandler than they are with 'Mek (this one has a huge condition, that Chandler can stay healthy).

All in all two main things make me happy about this trade. The Bobcats are making business decisions. The easy way out would be to let Okafor's permanence with the team blind them, but they're making a tough choice for the good of the team (think of the Panthers letting Dan Morgan or Will Witherspoon go). They're also planning for being good in the future, not just mediocre. If this deal works they will have cap space in 2011 without being significantly worse next year. This allows for the team to get much better that year as opposed to settling for sneaking into the playoffs as the number eight seed.

This year the deal favors the Hornets, who get a quality big man and about 1 mil of cap relief, but from 2011 to 2014 they'll be paying 30+ year old Emeka Okafor 12 mil per year to be an undersized, aging bench player. In the NBA cap space is as valuable as not screwing up draft picks, the Bobcats seem to be learning at least one of these lessons.

Cason is much more NBA knowledgable than I, so that said any thoughts Mr. Dwyer?

I'm pretty sure we didn't make this up...

Quentin Thomas, of "Just the Two of Us" fame from 2005's Midnight Madness, is going to be providing the intro to NBA Live 2010. We'll be checking for YouTube clips in November, when the NBA Season really starts.

Here, Thomas is seen clearly fouling Gerald Henderson, now of the Charlotte Bobcats.

From the N & O:
http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/unc/story/1602045.html

Roy is more popular than Coach K in North Carolina and in life...

In a poll that should surprise no one, the Public Policy Polling firm declared that Roy Williams is liked by more people in the state of North Carolina than is Mike Krzyzewski. Sixty-one percent of voters had a favorable opinion of Roy while only fifty-two percent felt the same about Coach K. This indicates that fans of Duke and UNC appear to have a healthy respect for the suit on the other sideline. On an interesting note, Sidney Lowe and Dino Gaudio had zero favorable opinion* in this poll.

http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/williams_leads_coach_k_in_popularity

*Dino Gaudio and Sidney Lowe were not part of this survey, but zero percent popularity is our most approximate figure based upon State fan griping that they didn't have a winning season yet again and Wake fan griping that their team quit on their coach during their first round loss to Cleveland State.