Those Damn Devils And Weekly NBA Power Rankings

If the Cowboys are the most hated team in my sports universe, Duke basketball is a close 2nd (or maybe even 1-A). Even as I write this, just thinking about Duke is making me angry. There is just something so smug and smarmy about the Blue Devils. Coach K, the refs constantly giving them every call, the “Cameron crazies,” Dickie V’s slobbering all over them until the end of time, the fact that they always have at least 1 really goofy, ugly, unathletic white guy (Jon Scheyer, Brian Zoubek, Ryan Kelly, etc.) that actually fits their system perfectly somehow and is essential to their team’s success…I’m not sure that their being white has anything to do with it, but they are in fact white. In reality, it’s mostly that they are just consistently really good every year. But besides the “hateable white guy,” their star player is usually pretty detestable for some reason or another too. Battier was just too squeaky clean. He was almost like “Tebow-lite” before there was even a Tebow…hitting the same pick-and-pop top of the key 3-pointer at least 3 times a game, becoming so good at taking charges that he got the benefit of the doubt from the refs anytime he flopped, being a great student, having a great work ethic…it was all just too much to take. Reddick was maybe the best pure shooter that I have ever seen in the college game, but he came off as such an arrogant prick on the court. (Strangely, I’ve kind of become a fan of Reddick now that he’s a pro…I think he turned me when he was on a Bill Simmons podcast once.) And now Austin Rivers…Rivers is everything you could hate about Duke rolled into 1 guy. He’s good, he’s mouthy to the refs and opposing players alike, he’s Doc River’s kid (nothing against Doc, but it just makes his son even more of a target), he called out LeBron when he was still in high school (if you want to call people out, you better be on their level, and Rivers doesn’t appear to be on LeBron’s), and he appears to have a very high opinion of himself in general judging on how he carries himself on and off the court. So, when he hit a buzzer-beating 3 to beat North Carolina last night, the only thing that would have soured my night more would have been if it came against Maryland. Anyway, let’s move on to my weekly NBA Power Rankings. (I can say “weekly” if I’ve done it 2 weeks in a row, right?)

Wipe that smug look off your face, Reddick!

1. Miami Heat (PR=1, 19-7)…Went 3-1 since last week’s rankings, and they got walloped by Orlando last night, but maybe they deserve a little slack given that it was their 3rd game in 4 nights. However, they finish up a 6 game road trip next Friday with potentially tough stops in Atlanta, Milwaukee, Indiana, and Cleveland.

2. Oklahoma City Thunder (PR=2, 20-5)…They continue to quietly chug along with the league’s best record, and Durant, Westbrook, and company look poised to take over the #1 spot should the Heatles slip up on their current road trip.

3. Chicago Bulls (PR=3, 22-6)…No movement among the top 3, but Chicago went 3-0 since last week’s rankings while the Heat and OKC each suffered 1 loss apiece. If they beat the Celtics in Boston on Sunday, it will be tough to keep them out of the top 2 next week though.

4. San Antonio Spurs (PR=Not Ranked, 18-9)…A 6 game win streak has given San Antonio the 2nd best record in the West all of the sudden. The Spurs continue to find good young role players (Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green, James Anderson) who fit their system and compliment their core. With a favorable road schedule this upcoming week (Nets, Pistons, and Raptors) and the return of Manu looming while other key Western Conference contenders are losing key players (Billups, Gallinari), the Spurs are poised to hold on to a top 5 spot for the foreseeable future.

5. LA Clippers (PR=5, 15-8)…This upcoming week may tell us a lot about how Lob City fairs the rest of the season. They started off the week by throttling the Wizards in DC and beating the Magic in Orlando in double overtime. Not bad…but that win proved costly, as they lost Chauncey Billups for the year with a torn achilles. Fortunately for the Clips, they have plenty of backcourt depth (CP3, Mo Williams, Randy Foye, Tough Juice) and frontcourt reinforcements on the way (Kenyon Martin), but it may be close to impossible to replace Billups’ toughness, leadership, and clutchness.

Lob City might be all flash without Mr. Big Shot.

26. New Jersey Nets (PR=Not Ranked, 8-19)…Were just outside of the bottom 5 last week, but the combination of Detroit winning 3 straight and the Nets’ 4 game slide (which included losses to the depleted Knicks and the Pistons themselves) caused them to join the ranks of the bottom-feeders. Their Deron Williams gamble doesn’t appear that it will pay off, as it’s harder and harder to envision him re-upping with New Jersey or soon-to-be Brooklyn with every passing loss. The Nets could maybe at least flip-flop in the rankings with Detroit again, as they play again tomorrow.

27. Toronto Raptors (PR=26, 8-19)…In what had to be 2 of the most painful television minutes of my life, I flipped to the Wizards-Raptors game the other night, and Toronto’s 5 on the floor were Amir Johnson, James Johnson, DeMar DeRozan, Jerryd Bayless, and Anthony Carter…blech.

28. Washington Wizards (PR=27, 5-21)…Hard to drop in the rankings with the other teams in the bottom 5, but that’s what the Wiz did this week. They still seem to be going for the title of “the best of the worst,” as they are a combined 4-1 this year against Toronto and Charlotte. Their games within the next week though: home for the Heat, at Detroit, at Portland, and at the Clippers…good luck.

29. New Orleans Hornets (PR=28, 4-22)…As I was glancing over the standings, I had the Hornets all but penciled into the last spot, as they are owner’s of the worst record in the West and a 7 game losing streak. Until…

30. Charlotte Bobcats (PR=30, 3-22)…How could I forget about the Bobcats? The losses are at 12 in a row and counting, and their next 4 games are against teams who are 0.500 or better, so it’s not going to get better anytime soon.

Rising: Boston (winners of 5 in a row and 9 of 10), New York (in terms of talent, less is apparently more), and Detroit (3 W’s in a row has them out of the bottom 5)

Falling: Denver (lost Gallinari and 4 straight)

MFS: Most Frustrating Season

Being from New Jersey, Krissy is a diehard Giants fan. If she had happened to be a fan of almost any other team, I probably would have been able to adopt her team as my 2nd favorite team without a peep, but the Giants are like public enemy number 2 for Redskins fans (behind the Cowboys of course). So, learning to be supportive of the New York Football Giants has been a work in progress for me. Someone I’ve developed a way to compartmentalize hating them and rooting for them (because seeing them win makes my wife happy) at the same time, but after last night’s game it was almost too much to take. When Tom Brady’s last second desperation Hail Mary attempt fell harmlessly to the turf, smiles, high fives, and hugs soon followed, but once the excitement of the game died down my mood inexplicably became more sullen. I couldn’t really put my finger on why exactly that was the case until Krissy, decked out in her Ahmad Bradshaw Jersey and Giants pajama pants, said something to the effect of, “Don’t worry, babe. Your team will win again someday too”…

Sure, they took care of the Niners, Packers, and Pats, but not the juggernaut known as the Redskins.

…which, in typical Krissy fashion, knowing me better than I know myself, encapsulated my mood perfectly. Yesterday’s Super Bowl officially marked the end of the 21st NFL season that I have been a fan of the Washington Redskins. The 1st of those years, 1991, the Redskins went 14-2 and cruised through the playoffs to the tune of their 3rd Super Bowl title. That team was one of the most dominant in NFL history. What normal 6 year old wouldn’t think this would be a regular occurrence for years to come? At the time, a 9-7 record in 1992 seemed unacceptable, but it’s tough for a 2nd grader to understand the intricacies of an aging roster and free agency. In the 20 seasons since that Super Bowl season, the Redskins have had a record of 0.500 or better 9 times, made the playoffs 4 times, and won the NFC East only once. They have finished last in the NFC East 5 times in the last 6 seasons, and in my time as a fan only in the Heath Shuler era has the team gone through a worse 3 year stretch than they are in the midst of right now. And yet, this sorry franchise, which boasted a 5-11 record in 2011, fielded a team that beat the Super Bowl champion Giants twice this year. And in those 2 games, they didn’t just beat them…they smacked them around with an aggregate score of 51-24. I wrote about this last month, but this doesn’t mean that the Redskins are actually the best team in the league or anything like that. That would be nonsensical. The Giants were beat-up, injured, and not the same team that reeled off 6 wins in a row on the way to being Super Bowl champs during those losses to the Skins. Besides, we should have enough evidence over the last few NFL postseasons to see that it isn’t necessarily the best team that walks away with the hardware but the team that gets the hottest at the right time of year. One thing that it does mean though (in my completely biased opinion) is that the Redskins are the most frustrating team to be a fan of in the entire NFL. So, because I seem to like doing lists and rankings lately, here’s my list of the 5 most frustrating Redskins seasons of the past 20 years.

5. 2011 (5-11)…Let’s start this list off with the most recent season, shall we? No one likes when their team stinks, but Redskins fans had gotten so tired over the years of the mindless spending on aging veterans that they welcomed a few years of stinkiness in order to do the whole “get really bad to get good” process. Well, be careful what you wish for sometimes because year 2 of the Shanahan era is what the “get really bad” part of that equation looks like. And yet they still beat the Giants twice. How…?

4. 2003 (5-11)…Hindsight will tell us that the Steve Spurrier experiment was a bad one, but it sure did seem like a good idea at the time. 2002 was Spurrier’s 1st year, and they finished 7-9 despite using good ol’ Gator boys Danny Wuerffel and Shane Mathews at quarterback. 2003 seemed much more promising with Spurrier’s system in place for a 2nd season and young stud Patrick Ramsey under center. They started off 3-1, even beating the Patriots at home in week 4. That game would prove to be an aberration though. The Patriots wouldn’t lose again the entire season, going 14-2 en route to their 2nd Super Bowl title in 3 years. He may have never amounted to a great quarterback anyway, but the combination of Spurrier’s “fun and gun” system and the Skins lack of offensive talent around him crushed Ramsey’s confidence and his body. Tim Hasselbeck finished the year at quarterback in what I remember being some truly unwatchable games, and Washington went 2-10 following the hot start.

Apparently, there's no "blocking" in "fun and gun."

3. 1996 (9-7)…Following their worst 3 year stretch in my years as a fan, the Skins finished the 1st half of the ’96 season 7-1 when they beat the Colts for their 7th straight win. A playoff berth, a division title, and even a 1st round bye all seemed within the realm of possibilities. Then, the Redskins gagged their way through the 2nd half of their schedule, losing 6 of 7 before winning a meaningless game at home against the Cowboys in week 17. (It almost goes without saying that, no, they did not make the playoffs.)

2. 1997 (8-7-1)…’96 and ’97 were not good years to be a Redskins fan. The Redskins finished with nearly an identical record to the year before, but instead of streaking to a great start and then collapsing at the end of the season the Skins went through the year basically alternating wins and losses in a mediocre fashion. The year can be summed up in 1 game though where the Redskins couldn’t get out of their own way: a Sunday night game at home against the Giants in week 13. The game included Gus Frerotte injuring himself by headbutting a wall following a 1st half touchdown run and Michael Westbrook getting called for a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for removing his helmet to argue an incomplete pass call late in overtime. Frerotte will never be remembered as Joe Montana, but the now infamous celebration caused the Redskins best offensive player to be removed from the game for little used backup Jeff Hostetler, and Westbrook’s temper tantrum added 15 yards to a potential game-winning field goal attempt. The Giants ended up winning the division and making the playoffs anyway, but the Skins finished a half game out of the wild card. (They would have made it based on tiebreakers if they had beaten the Giants that night.)

Hey, Gus! Watch out for that huge concrete wall! No biggie...your team's season just

1. 2000 (8-8)…2000 was a year full of promise for Redskins fans. 1999 was the 1st year the Skins won double digit games or the NFC East since their ’91 Super Bowl run, and it was the 1st year that they made the postseason (and won a playoff game) since ’92. Their season eventually ended in the divisional round of the playoffs with a 1 point loss to the Bucs, but the outlook for 2000 was bright. Perhaps with a few smart draft picks and free agent signings they could have bolstered their defense and added to an already potent offense that included Brad Johnson, Stephen Davis, and the aforementioned Westbrook (who seemed to finally be maturing). Instead, 2000 marked the season that owner Dan Snyder decided to begin using the Redskins as his own personal real-life fantasy football team. Washington went out and got aging, big name, expensive free agents Bruce Smith, Mark Carrier, Deion Sanders, and Jeff George among others (sound familiar, 2011 Eagles fans?). With the modicum of success from the previous year combined with these additions, the phrase “Super Bowl or bust” was thrown around before the season even started. Unfortunately, the talent on the field didn’t match up with the price tag and name recognition of the players. The play of Johnson, who had been very steady in ’99, suffered thanks to losing his best big play threat, Westbrook, to a knee injury in week 2 of the season and constantly looking over his shoulder at Snyder’s newest toy with the big arm, George. (Johnson was eventually benched in favor of George amidst speculated pressure from Snyder.) The results of the season were underwhelming, yet following a week 14 home loss to the Giants the Redskins were still 7-6 with 3 games to go, good enough to at least still be in the playoff hunt. Inexplicably, Snyder fired coach Norv Turner that week, and the Skins responded by getting sha-lacked in Dallas and Pittsburgh the following 2 weeks. In another meaningless week 17 game, the Redskins inserted Johnson back into the starting lineup and beat Arizona easily…it would be the last game Johnson would play in a Skins uni, and it ushered in the era of “psycho Dan” as we know it in D.C., thus concluding the single most frustrating Redskins season of the past 20 years.

Show Me The Savings And Weekly NBA Power Rankings

Saving money stinks. Well, the act of saving money isn’t so bad. Krissy and I aren’t the most “elaborate” people, so it’s not like we have had to make some huge lifestyle changes to stash away extra doe, but saving up with a specific goal in mind sucks. We have been trying to save up for a down payment on a house, but the process is painfully slow. And it’s not like we’re a couple of hobos! We both have good jobs and make a decent amount of money. And we’re not asking for a McMansion either…just a nice house in a decent neighborhood, preferably with other houses not built directly on top of said house. I mean, is that too much to ask? Anyway, it’s the 1st week in February…time for some NBA power rankings. I will try to make this a weekly thing, but who knows…this could wind up being the 1st and only edition of the Postell Power Rankings. Get ‘em while they’re hot! (For simplicity, I will just do the top 5 and the bottom 5 in the league.)

Love it or hate it, as long as they stay on the court they are the prohibitive favorites.

1. Miami Heat (16-6)…Technically, they are tied for the 3rd best record in the league, but it’s tough to argue that they aren’t the team to beat when they are firing on all cylinders. As long as LeBron continues to be indestructible and Wade can stay healthy (relatively), it’s going to take a lot for someone to knock them off of the top spot.

2. Oklahoma City Thunder (17-4)…Have rattled off 12 out of 14 to gain ownership of the league’s best winning percentage (and 1 of those losses in that stretch was inexplicably to Washington). This team has taken a step forward each year with its current core, so it only makes sense that they have quietly risen to conference favorites this season.

3. Chicago Bulls (19-6)…As the Bulls and Thunder have shown, it pays to be both young and good in this condensed season. Those young legs have proven especially useful for Chicago, as the schedule has not been kind (they have played the most games in the league), and yet they still have the East’s best record. As if they haven’t been tested enough, they finish out a brutal 9 game road trip next Sunday in Boston.

4. Denver Nuggets (15-7)…You have to root for a team that’s built like the Nuggets. Deep and talented, but no star power…somewhat reminiscent of the Pistons championship team made up of Chauncey, the Wallace brothers, Rip, and company a few years back. George Karl’s got to be the top candidate for coach of the year so far.

5. LA Clippers (13-7)…This team is definitely flawed and has been helped by a very home-heavy schedule so far (and 1 “road” game at Staples Center), but I’m not quite sold on any of the other top 5 candidates so far either. They ran into a buzzsaw against Denver last night playing their 4th game in 5 nights, but they have also shown they can be a problem for other top teams like Miami, Oklahoma City, and the Lakers (not to mention beating said Nuggets earlier this week) among others.

26. Toronto Raptors (7-16)…When I’ve watched them play, Bargnani has played better, but I’m not exactly sure what else this team has going for it. They also boast losses to the woeful Wizards and Nets…yikes.

27. Washington Wizards (4-18)…Seem to be playing harder for Randy Wittman than they were for Flip Saunders at least, who was never the right fit as a coach for this young immature roster. I also wonder if that change in effort has to do with 1 of their knuckleheads (Blatche) being out of the lineup. Nick Young’s nightly assist totals (or lack thereof) have become a constant source of entertainment thanks to Tony Kornheiser though.

28. New Orleans Hornets (4-19)…Poor New Orleans...they get taken over by David Stern, then Chris Paul is traded to both LA teams, they end up getting the worse of the 2 deals, and the best player they got back in the trade (Eric Gordon) hasn’t even played since the 2nd game of the year.

29. Detroit Pistons (4-20)…My apologies to my boy, Mac, but I have wondered for years what Joe Dumars has been doing with this roster. Frankly, outside of Greg Monroe it seems like a mess. At least the name “Jonas Jerebko” is fun to say, right?

30. Charlotte Bobcats (3-20)…A few weeks ago, I wondered if this year’s Wizards team was the worst team ever assembled…until they beat the Bobcats twice in a week. Charlotte has the worst record in the league, has a starting frontcourt of Boris Diaw, DeSagana Diop, and Tyrus Thomas, and their leading scorer (Gerald Henderson) just got shelved for a 2-4 weeks with a pulled hammy…is MJ even trying?

Other notes…Upstarts Philly and Indy were just on the outside of the top 5. The Sixers have relied on outworking their opponents and beating up on lesser teams for the most part so far. A win tonight against Miami will almost assure them of a top 5 spot next week. And if the Knicks don’t start improving, they might be in the bottom 5 next week just out of spite.

Henderson getting hurt was just adding insult to injury (or injury to insult, maybe).

The iPhone: Sometimes It Doesn't Pay To Be Contrarian

Like I wrote in the post about Facebook, there are times where I like to be contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian. Part of the fun for me in not having Facebook is that just about everyone else that I know has a Facebook account. But also in the case of Facebook, I actually have substantiated reasons for not wanting many of these things in my life as well, which brings me to the iPhone. iPhone users have no qualms about telling anybody and everybody that the iPhone is the greatest creation that man has ever conceived. There is a certain snootiness that all iPhone users have when it comes to their phones, and the ability to look down at owners of all other phone types is apparently part of any iPhone service plan. I know this because I am related to people both by blood and by marriage who have the iPhone and said accompanied snootiness. The iPhone is the perfect thing for a natural born contrarian like me to rail against. It’s trendy, it’s the “it” thing that everyone must have, and its users are generally really annoying when it comes to proclaiming their devotion to it. Most of the time, I treat overzealous iPhone enthusiasts in the same way that I treat pompous soccer fanatics. Their points of view regarding their greatest love are completely one-sided, and they aren’t even interested in opposing opinions at all…thus, it’s better to just ignore them all together (or hit them in the head with a snow shovel, as Tony Kornheiser would suggest).

All of you, just get out.

There’s also a part of me that just likes things to be simple, and sometimes I wish that my phone was just “a phone.” Being able to use the Internet anywhere is great, but paying for a data package is not, and I often wonder if my quality of life would suffer all that much if I just went back to an old-school regular cell phone. Maybe I’m at the point of no return already, but I truly like my trusty ol’ Blackberry. I like having a keyboard as opposed to a touch screen. I like the organizational and file storing features of it much better than my wife’s/brother’s/wife’s brothers’ iPhones. I guess it’s nice to have everything synced, but I don’t like the iPhone’s overreliance on iTunes to configure updates and organize different kinds of files. The iPhone also has a zillion apps that I can’t imagine ever using. When Krissy and her brothers all got the iPhone (her oldest brother had had it for a while), the “in” thing to do was to use one of the video chatting apps whenever they wanted to call one another. This wasn’t appealing to me because I am not a big phone-talker in the 1st place…why would I want someone to be able to look at me while they are talking to me too? The video chatting phase lasted for about a month (if that), but like most of those things that seem really awesome at 1st it died out pretty quickly. I don’t know that Krissy even has the app on her phone anymore at all. I realized though that in effect I had started to become the snooty one when it came to this stupid phone stuff. My holier than thou viewpoint had made me look down at iPhone users in a way not that different than iPhone users probably look at me. I had had an iPod Touch for a few years, but had never really used it all that much other than for music. For whatever reason (maybe I had secretly started to think some of Krissy’s iPhone apps were pretty cool), I started downloading and using some apps on there in addition to some of the features in comes with: games, fantasy sports trackers, email. The problem is that at some point I started to develop a liking for my enemy…like Stockholm Syndrome or something.

Sweet! Angry Birds!

My iPod isn’t exactly like an iPhone (you need WiFi to be able to use anything that requires an Internet connection for one), but it can do a lot of the things that an iPhone can do, so it at least gives me an idea of what it would be like to use one. First, the screen size blows my Blackberry out of the water, and the touch screen isn’t all that bad for typing, which I originally thought I would never get used to. Obviously, the touch screen makes gaming, viewing things online, and the use of most other apps easier. For the most part, Internet browsing seems faster than on my Blackberry, and maybe most importantly of all, getting an iPhone would consolidate some of my current devices. More and more often lately, I have found myself double-fisting my electronics when I get home from work: phone at my side in case anyone calls, iPod in my hand whenever I want to do anything else. It’s just so damn cool! What the hell do you want from me? My Blackberry looks like a dinosaur next to it. And iPhone and Android are killing Blackberry so much that Blackberry (much like dinosaurs) could become extinct. Blackberry's App World has become a barren wasteland on the same wavelength as MySpace, filled with sad little apps that no one could possibly ever want. Other people must have realized the same things I'm realizing. I used to have a decent amount of contacts for Blackberry Messenger...as of today, I have 3 (of which I'm not sure if any still have active BBM accounts, as I haven't used BBM in over a year). I could also trade-in/sell my iPod Touch and iPod Classic (which is sitting in a drawer somewhere), and just use my iPhone for my listening enjoyment as well. Krissy has a smaller iPod Nano for working out, and her reasoning for that is that she doesn’t like the clunkiness of the iPhone when she’s running and training, but if an iPod Touch doesn’t bother me I don’t see why an iPhone would. Anyway, what used to be utter defiance has now turned into resigned acceptance. It’s probably only a matter of time now before I join the rank and file now.

Book 'Em

Krissy and my absence from Facebook is partially functional, partially because we admittedly like to act like we're "too cool for school" sometimes. I mean, we have to be considered "1st generation Facebook-ers"...we had accounts back when you had to have a valid college email address to join. By the time we closed our accounts, Facebook apps were just starting to catch on, but for the most part they didn't exist. Farmville was probably still a glimmer in some software developer's eye at that point. Now, grandmothers and kindergarteners alike can join, and there are enough Facebook apps and games that you probably can save you Xbox money for something else if you really want to. But Krissy and I (summoning my best "hipster" voice here) liked Facebook before it was cool...well, not really I guess, but you get the point. The fact is that it's fun to go against the grain sometimes. When you were a kid, you may have bought this really dope pair of sneakers that no one else had yet. If everyone else went out and bought them a week later, where's the fun in that? Some of the looks you get when people find out you are not on Facebook are priceless though.

So, part of it is just being a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian, but truthfully by the time I deleted my account Facebook had become more of a pain in the ass than anything else. I am awful enough at correspondence and responding to people's emails, texts, and voicemails. Sometimes I really do wonder if people tried contacting me by carrier pigeon whether my response time would take just as long as it does now. Facebook was just another communication medium on top of all of those that was bogging me down. And for anyone who has ever read this blog, you know that I can be pretty wordy with even the simplest subject matter...not a good combination for me. The sad part is that it's not even like I had "that" many friends, but I guess I should be glad I didn't. Also, Facebook is nice for staying in the loop on what's going on in your circle of friends and stuff, but most of the thrill is gone once you're in a committed relationship. Just as The Social Network made perfectly clear, Facebook was and still is fueled by sex. Sure, it's nice to reconnect with old friends and look at a family member's vacation pictures, but at the end of the day people go on Facebook to look at and read about people they want to bone...people they knew from back in the day, people they know now, people who are friends of friends of their friends and they actually have no idea how they stumbled onto their page, but they're there now and...anyway. Even when Krissy and I were just in the beginning stages of going out, we still used it as a means to flirt with each other and whatnot. We are, for all intents and purposes, and old married couple now, so 90% of the intrigue that Facebook has for most people is gone for us. The other cue for me to exit stage left on Facebook was when kids that I used to be a camp counselor for in summer camp started to send me friend requests. On the 1 hand, it was kind of cool that these kids remembered me enough to look me up. On the other hand, it's annoying when you have to explain to your wife that all the girls she doesn't know that are writing on your wall are actually 12 years old. Also, most of them type in that weird version of English that kids use these days ("hAi, wAzuP?")...sigh. It was all just too much to deal with for an old fart like me.

That was pretty much the end of Facebook for me, and Krissy soon followed suit. Our friends like to chastise us for not having it, but I'm not sure how much we're missing. Every once in a while Krissy will go on her little brother's account because she heard that some girl she went to high school with got fat and she wants to see pictures, but those times are few and far between. My friend Mac has made the argument before that even if I no longer used it or kept up with it, I should have just kept my account open. What would it hurt? But to me doing that is just silly. Before long, Facebook would be a bottomless wasteland of a website just like (shudders) MySpace. No, a clean break is better in the long run I think. Besides, it's nice to be somewhat off the grid. Maybe the world could stand to be a little less connected from time to time, but that's just me (he says from his blog...oh well).

A Little Bit Of Everything

While this year I didn’t have much luck with my fantasy football team, I have probably covered the full spectrum in terms of the type of season you can have over the years. Looking at my Yahoo fantasy profile (discounting the couple of leagues I’ve done on ESPN and Fox Sports), I’ve played in 11 fantasy football leagues dating back to 2006. In those 11 leagues, I’ve won twice, and I’ve finished anywhere from last to 3rd place in the other 9 leagues. Fantasy basketball has been a slightly different experience for me. In the same time period, I’ve been in 6 (now 7) fantasy basketball leagues on Yahoo. My best finishes (coincidently in the last 2 leagues I’ve participated in) were 7th out of a 12 team league and 8th out of a 16 team league. My 1st 4 attempts were historically bad though: 13th in a 14 team league, 13th in a 16 team league, last in a 14 team league, and 13th in a 16 team league. That’s “Curse of Le Boulez” bad.

There’s a laundry list of reasons why I have done so poorly with fantasy basketball leagues. 1st, I just never seem to care quite as much about fantasy basketball as football. Football has established itself as “the” fantasy sport, and everything else (even though fantasy sports originated with baseball) is pretty much small potatoes compared to it. When people ask me how I like fantasy basketball compared to football, my usual response is something to the effect of, “It’s ok. It’s just different.” So, take that for what it’s worth, but it leads to my next reason of why my past fantasy basketball teams have sucked so hard…2nd, I have never actually been present for a fantasy basketball draft (at least not that I can remember). The amount of times I wound up with a starting frontcourt of Adonal Foyle and Lamar Odom those 1st few years was absurd. Missing your league’s draft is a cardinal sin of any semi-serious fantasy player. At the bare minimum, you at least should pre-rank the players you want to draft if you know you’re going to miss it, but I rarely did this either. So distracted was I with my fantasy football prospects (and life in general) that fantasy basketball drafts would usually come and go without my knowledge at all. 3rd, I was very often the victim of the strange and bizarre. I’ve said it a million times before, but injuries and luck are part of the deal with fantasy sports…but it was tough to account for some of the things that would happen to my teams. One year, I made a trade with someone where the centerpieces were Yao Ming and Amare Stoudemire. The deal got accepted, and Yao had one of his many season ending injuries while the trade was still pending. I thought this was fair game, but the deal got vetoed by the league commissioner, and I was stuck with Yao’s decaying body. I was furious, but there wasn’t exactly much I could do. In a last gasp effort, I traded away my next best player, Rashard Lewis, for 3 or 4 lesser players. I just needed bodies, and I was hoping that I could catch lightning in a bottle with at least 1 of them. The league commissioner, my friend Josh, thought I was up to some kind of shenanigans though where I was trying to throw my season and give an unfair advantage to my trade partner, Eyun. He essentially David Stern-ed my team (locking me from making moves and assuming control of my roster).

I’m hoping that this year turns out a little bit different. Through 3 weeks, Krissy and I (she’s my co-commissioner) are 13-11, which is good enough for 7th place in a 14 team league. We weren’t logged in to our draft, but we at least had the good sense to do a draft pre-ranking this time. I thought I was going to have to live through another trade veto when my offer of D-Rose for LeBron got accepted, but it eventually got pushed through. Our roster is at least solid. If it wasn’t for 2 long term injuries to Manu and Z-Bo, it might be downright scary. One thing’s for sure though: at least I will be paying attention this time.

The key to our fantasy basketball season...

My last post was my Redskins wrap-up for the 2011-2012 season, but I couldn’t help but add 1 more little tidbit of information after reading an article in the Washington Post. Strangely enough, the Redskins hold a 7-2 regular season against teams that made it to the NFC championship game during a particular season dating back 4 seasons. It was an idea I actually had (but can’t take credit for since I didn’t write it) back when the Giants beat the Falcons during Wild Card weekend. If the red hot Giants could upset the Packers, it would be yet another year where the Skins beat one of the championship game participants during the regular season. In 2008, Washington beat the Cardinals once and the Eagles twice to go 3-0. In 2009, the Skins lost by a field goal in a game that they absolutely should have won to the eventual Super Bowl champion Saints. In 2010, the Redskins beat both the Packers and the Bears. This year, they had their 2 most convincing wins of the season against the Giants (although they got manhandled by the 49ers in a game that wasn’t as close as the score indicates).

It should be noted that in none of these 4 seasons did the Redskins have a winning record. The article correctly points out that this gives Redskin homers something to point at to feed their delusions that the Skins are a relevant franchise. It’s also one more thing that could serve to drive the more grounded Redskins fans mad. How can they be that bad, and yet still give good teams competitive games? Well, maybe that is the whole point (if there is 1 at all). They NFL thrives on competitive balance, and any 1 team can beat another on any given week. Even in the event that a seemingly dominant team pops up in this day and age (the Patriots in 2007-2008 and the Packers this year), there’s a good chance they will get beaten at some point as well. Also, those teams that the Redskins beat those years were either teams with records barely above 0.500 who got hot at the right time of year (the Cardinals in 2008 and the Packers last season), were not the team they were by year’s end that they were at the time the Skins played them (the Bears last season), were talented but wildly inconsistent (the Eagles in 2008 or the Giants this season), or some combination of the 3. So, when Brian Orakpo tries to convince us through Twitter that the Skins are actually not that far away from greatness, and they just need to bring the same intensity every week that the team brought to those 2 Giants games, try to look the other way.

So, that means the Skins are really at least the 2nd best team in the NFC, right?

Speaking of “The Curse of Le Boulez” and “historically bad seasons” earlier on in this post, the Wizards might be well on their way this year. The only thing that might save them is the fact that this lockout-shortened season will come with an asterisk in the history books. It’s not just that they are 1-12 so far, it’s that they look like the most bumbling franchise in the NBA (maybe in all of sports). I have always been somewhat emotionally detached from the Washington franchise. I am and always will be (rightly or wrongly) more of a fan of the college game, and the Wizards/Bullets have been as consistently mediocre as any team in the league since I was a kid. Couple those points with the fact that they traded away 1 of the only Washington players worth watching (Chris Webber) in the last 20 years and made dumb personnel move after dumb personnel move ever since, and they aren’t exactly doing a lot to gain my undying support. Still, I admit that I went to a handful of Wizards games during the Gilbert Arenas era, and if there is a team that I would call my NBA home team, the Wiz would be it. 1-12 is 1-12 though. In this 66 game season, that extrapolates to a record of 5-61 for the season should they keep this pace up, and it would mean only 6 or 7 wins if it were a full 82 game season (the record for futility in an 82 game season is 8 or 9 wins I believe). Even worse than the record is the cast of characters that makes up Washington’s roster. John Wall appears to have regressed, and there are fair questions about whether he is really a basketball player, or just a great athlete who happens to play basketball (his turnovers are up, and his shooting is down). I’m willing to give him a pass right now just because he has literally no help. Actually, “no help” doesn’t begin to describe it. Just from the standpoint of basketball as a sport being played for fun, the other guys logging major minutes for the Wizards this year look like the least fun players to play with ever. Rashard Lewis, unfairly or not, has become the posterboy for the overbloated contracts in today’s NBA that were partly the blame for the lockout. While his skills have declined, and he’s not worth a third of the money he’s making, he probably is at least a serviceable player…but he carries around the stigma of the bad apple that spoiled the bunch, and given that he’s getting old and playing for a team going nowhere it often looks like he is only interested in cashing his paycheck and getting the hell back on the team bus. Worse than that are these 3 characters: Andray Blatche, Nick Young, and JaVale McGee. Where does 1 start with this trio…“7 Day Dray” is the epitome of the lazy selfish athlete. Young is a glorified chucker. McGee appears to have no basketball IQ (or overall IQ for that matter) whatsoever. Add to that 2nd year guard Jordan Crawford, who is at least young and relatively inexpensive, but who is almost as big of a black hole on the offensive end as Blatche or Young. All are enormously talented…none will be in the league in 5 years. None of them “get it.”

Yesterday’s game was a microcosm of this. McGee, who earlier in the year started an online campaign lobbying fans for All-Star votes (really, All-Star votes?), threw a pass to himself off the backboard for a fastbreak dunk in the 3rd quarter, and was subsequently benched. The post-game comments of Blatche, Young, and McGee were quite revealing. Young actually had the gall to give McGee props. Why that surprised me, I am not sure, but it did! Blatche, team captain as he is (cough, gag), said he didn’t really care for McGee’s play, but basically gave a “that’s just Javale being Javale” type of response. McGee’s response was that of a high school prankster who has been sent to the principal’s office one time too many for it to have any effect on him. “Apparently, if you get a fast break and throw it off the backboard in the 3rd quarter, and you’re 1-11, you’re not supposed to do stuff like that,” McGee uttered after the game. He could have saved his breath. If he had rolled his eyes, and said, “Whatever,” to the reporter’s question, that would have sufficed. Wall, who had his best all-around game of the season in defeat (38 points and 8 assists), sounded like a guy who would rather be somewhere, anywhere, else. “A dunk is a dunk. I would rather seen him do a regular dunk. We’re down. We’re 1-11. 1-12 now. So there’s no point in doing any kind of excitement…” No wonder Wall always looks like he just got the news that his dog died; he goes to bed knowing who he has to come to work with the next day! What’s truly sad is that the Wizards brass had a chance to unload all of these guys this offseason. I don’t know the ins and outs of the new NBA “amnesty clause,” and I’ve read that it wouldn’t have been entirely beneficial to use on Rashard Lewis, but they still could have used it and got out from under his enormous contract. Young and 7 Day Dray could have been given their walking papers. McGee’s trade value (whatever you could in fact get for him) was certainly higher before the season started than it is now. At 1-12, you couldn’t be any worse starting all the young guys on the roster than you are right now. And yet, they chose to bring them all back. Why, we may never really know. Your 2011-2012 Washington Wizards, everybody…where amazing truly happens

Another Merciful End

This might be the longest gap in between blog posts since this blog’s current reincarnation. Holiday travel and deadlines at work don’t make for ideal blog-writing conditions. So, as I started writing this I couldn’t help but think that a Redskin season wrap-up would be way late…and yet this past weekend was the 1st weekend since their bye week that there was no Redskins game. This served as not only a reminder of how crazy the holidays are, but how dismal this current stretch of Redskins seasons has been, as another year has passed with not even close to a playoff appearance. 4 out of the last 5 weeks I didn’t even see the game. For anyone that knows me, this would probably come as a shock. From the time I was a 3rd grader, I probably averaged missing about 1 Redskins game a year on TV. Granted, I was either in the car or outside the viewing area for all of these games, but in years past I would have made every effort to plant my can in front of a television set to see the game somehow, someway…not this year.

2011 was a year to forget for Redskins fans. I got frustrated during the middle of the season because so many people had clamored for the Redskins brass to finally truly rebuild the team by tearing the roster down and starting from scratch, and yet in the same breath those people complained about how terrible the team was. How can you be overly critical of a strategy that you wanted in the 1st place? However, by the end of the year I was admittedly just as disgusted with the product on the field as the same people I was originally angered by. I still maintain that the Redskins could actually have an improved team with the same or a worse record this season compared to last year. Well, my theory is about to get tested out…Mike Shanahan’s record in his 1st season: 6-10. Shanahan’s record this year: 5-11.

In Shanahan’s 1st season, it was evident just how much dead weight was on the roster. The Skins roster was not only old but overpaid and underperforming as well. Shanahan and GM Bruce Allen did well to make the roster younger and cheaper in their 2nd season, but they misfired on 1 acquisition so badly in year 1 that they contributed to their own problem. Donovan McNabb was a completely failed experiment, and while the Shanahan/Allen regime has done well overall in its 2 years of stockpiling draft picks, acquiring young talent, and avoiding the overpriced aging veterans (at least compared to the Vinny Cerrato era, where management gave away draft picks like they caused an allergic reaction), the McNabb trade may still prove to be the singular move the dooms Shanahan’s stint in Washington. The draft picks and money they spent getting McNabb and the team’s mistake at the most important position in the sport probably set the team’s rebuilding/development back at least 2 years. The best thing you can say is that at least they cut their losses early on and didn’t stubbornly hold on to him too long when they realized McNabb was a complete bust at this point in his career.

Next year will be the 3rd year of the Shanahan/Allen battery. While a combined 11-21 record over the last 2 years was acceptable and somewhat expected, a plucky 6-10 season will not be tolerated in 2012. 3 years should be long enough to clean house, put your system in place, and fill the roster with the type of player that can produce a winning team. Shanahan is oft-criticized in the personnel department, but most of the players they picked up last year look like they could help the team for the next few seasons. Roy Helu shouldn’t be mistaken for Arian Foster, but he and Evan Royster look like steals for 4th and 7th round draft picks. Ryan Kerrigan could be a bookend rush linebacker along with Brian Orakpo for years to come. Leonard Hankerson showed promise as a receiver in the 1 game he was given an opportunity before getting injured. Barry Cofield and Stephen Bowen look to be cost-effective upgrades to the defensive line. And Jarvis Jenkins, who was hurt in preseason and lost for the year, will basically be an extra 1st or 2nd round pick next year. None of this means that anyone deserves a parade just yet, but it’s at least a small glimpse of hope to hang on to.

There are still plenty of holes to fill. The defensive secondary is awful. London Fletcher could use some help at inside linebacker (if they even choose to resign him). You can never have enough offensive linemen, and that’s even if Trent Williams gets his act together. Fred Davis probably cost himself a lot of money with his shenanigans as well, which may have made him much more affordable for the Skins to resign if they so choose. The receiver corp has lacked a fast, big-bodied, do it all Calvin/Andre Johnson type receiver since forever. And most importantly, the Skins need an upgrade at quarterback. While John Beck was a complete disaster in his audition, as bad as Rex Grossman was at times you would have to say he at least did a serviceable job as a fill-in this starter this year. If the Redskins believe Grossman is actually their answer at QB, they are nuts. However, their draft position puts them in a tricky position: they have a high pick, but not high enough that the guys thought to be elite franchise-type quarterbacks will still be around when it comes their turn to select. Hopefully, they don’t reach for a guy that they really don’t believe in just out of desperation. I would be more than fine with someone like, say, Justin Blackmon (probably will be picked by then as well, but one can only dream). If they can’t pick or trade up to pick Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin, I fully expect them to be in the Matt Flynn running, as he seems to be the guy most likely to have someone throw starting quarterback money at this offseason. Otherwise, the best we can probably hope for next year with Grossman at the reins is 8-8 or 9-7 (assuming the team improves in other areas). That’s all pie in the sky stuff for now though, but hope springs eternal. As for Skins talk, see you in April at the draft.