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Nothing in Return

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The big news in Oakland tonight: the impending departure of Baron Davis. Because Baron's opting out of his contract and signing with the Clippers, the Warriors will soon have nothing to show for their top star but memories of last year's playoff run.

Unfortunately, losing talent for pennies on the dollar is nothing new for Warriors fans—it happens on a regular basis. Don't believe me? Take a look at what happened to the team's top performers from the past decade. The table below shows all seasons in which a Warriors player posted a Player Efficiency Rating of at least 18, which translates to a "Solid 2nd option" according to Hollinger.

Season Player PER Swapped For
2006-07Baron Davis21.0Nobody
2004-05Baron Davis20.4
2007-08Baron Davis19.8
2005-06Baron Davis18.3
2003-04Erick Dampier20.1Eduardo Najera
2003-04Brian Cardinal19.4Nobody
2007-08Andris Biedrins19.2 
2005-06Jason Richardson19.2Brandan Wright
2004-05Jason Richardson19.0
2007-08Monta Ellis19.0 
2002-03Antawn Jamison19.0Nick Van Exel
2000-01Antawn Jamison19.0
2002-03Gilbert Arenas18.6Nobody

Granted, some of these guys probably weren't worth what it would have taken to keep them around. And hey—2 of the 13 will most likely be back for next season. But when you effectively trade Baron, Gilbert, J-Rich, and Jamison for a half season of Nick the Quick and the upside potential of Brandan Wright, you're going to have a tough time staying competitive.

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BREAKING: Chris Paul is Really Good

The Hornets fell just short of advancing to the Western Conference Finals, but Chris Paul's play was surely one of the highlights of the first two rounds. There's been a lot of talk about Paul's ascension to the NBA elite, and John Hollinger named him as his early playoffs MVP. In only his third season in the league, and at 22 years old (an age at which many of the all-time greats hadn't even begun their careers), Paul finished 2nd in MVP voting.

Given this, how much better can we expect CP3 to get? One way of guessing is to look at the careers of other NBA stars, as TZ ran a couple of weeks ago (spoiler alert: the title says that he has no ceiling). Here, I extracted a list of elite NBA players for comparison using data from basketball-reference.com. The list includes all players who achieved a Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of at least 20.0 through at least 820 minutes in at least 3 seasons over the past 50 years. 106 players fit that criteria, and here's the average PER by age for these stars:

NOTE: PER factors in statistics like turnovers and blocks, which weren't calculated 50 years ago. Cross-generational comparison is also complicated by the addition of the 3-point line and changes in average skill levels, although PER is normalized to a common average to help address these issues. PER doesn't factor in the kinds of defensive skills that aren't captured in boxscores, which, depending on who you ask, might be a weakness of Paul's. We're also looking at just three seasons worth of data--a relatively small sample.

The basic shape is of course what you would expect - young players improve, and old players decline. The average peak age is 27. As it turns out, you can slice this data in a number of ways with these stars but still end up with the same peak. Players who enter the league before they turn 21, players who enter the league after they turn 21, players shorter than 6'4", players taller than 6'8" ... all peak at just about the same time:

That's not to say that there aren't differences, though. As you can see from this chart, shorter star players are outperformed by taller stars on average for most of their careers, but the ones that last into their late 30's contribute more than aging giants. This height-performance trend applies to NBA players in general as well as the elite players, although John Stockton's efficiency at the later stages of his career was a big factor in this relatively small sample. Stockton's per-minute output was amazingly consistent throughout his 30's; he just played less as he got older.

Given that shorter players tend to have a tougher time posting big numbers, we'll first show the 6-footer Paul's career trajectory compared to other shorter stars. Here he is vs. other players from the list of 106 stars who are 6'1" or shorter:

Impressive. Compared to similarly-sized players, he's already better at age 22 than any of them hit at any point in their careers. Here he is against 6'2" players, ...

... and against 6'3" stars (Fat Lever and Sidney Moncrief missed full seasons due to injury--this is reflected in gaps in their lines):

In fact, only one NBA player shorter than 6'6" has ever posted a single season PER score higher than the 28.3 score that Paul achieved this year: Dwyane Wade, who hit 28.9 as a 25-year-old. Or maybe two, if you don't buy Charles Barkley's official height—he posted a 28.9 as a 27-year-old.

Perhaps even more impressive is the way that Paul stacks up against the taller greats. CP3 already has the 10th-higest career PER in the history of the league. Here are the top 10:

Looking at these numbers, it's easy to claim that he's off to a Jordanesque start in terms of overall production (as is LeBron, for that matter: believe the hype).

Finally, here's a tool you can use run your own PER comparisons among top NBA stars. Choose up to 5 different players from the select boxes to add them to the chart below. Some examples to get you started: [2003 draft], [1984 draft], [2008 Celtics], [all-time Grizzlies greats].





[Start Over]

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Reviewing the NBA Blog Previews, 07-08

Last October, Jeff Clark from CelticsBlog coordinated yet another team-by-team look at the 2007-08 season, featuring dozens of NBA bloggers. And once again, there was more than enough optimism to go around in the preseason ... with disappointment for many fans once the real games begun.

This table compares the preview predictions to the each team's actual win total on the year. It's sortable—you can toggle the sort and direction by clicking the column headings.

Team Preview Predicted Wins Actual Wins Difference
76ers Passion and Pride 30 40 10
Blazers True Hoop 34 41 7
Blazers The Inferno 38 41 3
Bobcats Bobcat Bonfire 40 32 -8
Bucks Bango's Bunch 44 26 -18
Bulls Cobra Brigade 52 33 -19
Bulls Bull Riding 56 33 -23
Cavs YAYsports! 51 45 -6
Cavs The POJO Dojo 50 45 -5
Cavs Cavalier Attitude 52 45 -7
Cavs Truth in a Bullet Fedora 55 45 -10
Celtics CelticsBlog 50 66 16
Celtics LOY's PLACE 50 66 16
Celtics Celtics 17 50 66 16
Celtics RedsArmy.com 49 66 17
Celtics Celtics247.com 52 66 14
Celtics Green Bandwagon 49 66 17
Clippers Clips Nation 35 23 -12
Grizzlies 3 Shades of Blue 37 22 -15
Hawks Impending Firestorm 40 37 -3
Hawks Atlanta Hawks Blog 42 37 -5
Heat I Want to be a Sports Agent 41 15 -26
Heat Crazy from the Heat ??? 15 ???
Hornets Hornets247.com 48 56 8
Hornets THE New Orleans Hornets Fan 48 56 8
Jazz Daily Basketball 56 54 -2
Jazz The NBA Source 48 54 6
Jazz Basketball John 55 54 -1
Kings Sactown Royalty 35 38 3
Knicks Straight Bangin' 36 23 -13
Knicks Posting and Toasting 41 23 -18
Lakers Forum Blue And Gold 46 57 11
Lakers With Malice... ??? 57 ???
Magic Believing in Magic 48 52 4
Magic Third Quarter Collapse 46 52 6
Mavericks Showboating 60 51 -9
Nets HOOPLAH.. NATION 46 34 -12
Nets NetsDaily 45 34 -11
Nuggets The Nugg Doctor 53 50 -3
Pacers Indy Cornrows 40 36 -4
Pacers Pacers Pulse 43 36 -7
Pistons PistonsNationBlog.com 52 59 7
Pistons Empty the Bench 51 59 8
Pistons Need4Sheed 51 59 8
Pistons Pistons Palace 50 59 9
Raptors Hoops Addict 46 41 -5
Rockets HoopsBlogging 58 55 -3
Sonics SonicsCentral.com 40 20 -20
Spurs Spur of the Moment 57 56 -1
Spurs Pounding the Rock 55 56 1
Suns Bright Side Of The Sun 60 55 -5
Timberwolves TWolvesBlog 21 22 1
Warriors Golden State of Mind 44 48 4
Wizards Bullets Forever 46 43 -3

Interesting footnote: in the last two years, predictions in the range of 40-42 wins have been the kiss of death. Last year, 7 predictions came in at between 40 and 42 wins, and they overerstimated by an average of nearly 8 wins. This year was even worse—the 7 near-.500 predictions were off by a whopping 12 wins. Word to the wise: if you find yourself predicting a .500 record for your team next year, you may want to consider ratcheting down your expectations.

Congrats to the most accurate predictions from this year: TWolvesBlog, Pounding the Rock, Spur of the Moment, and Basketball John were all just one win off.

To see what fans are predicting for the playoffs, check out the master bracket from the BallHype playoffs pick'em contest.

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Deadspin's Media Approval Leaderboard

For some time now, Deadspin has been running their Media Approval Ratings series--daily polls which ask readers their opinion of various members of the sports media. Some of the results have been predictable, others somewhat surprising, and on the whole, they've been very interesting.

Several times, I've found myself wanting to compare the results, so I decided to put something together here. You can fiddle with the controls below to toggle the sort and filter. The chart is updated daily with new personalities and late-arriving votes.

Sort by: Approval Percentage Vote Totals
Filter:

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Shaq for Marion: Done Deal (pending physical)

The Suns roster gets slower, older, and more expensive. That Gasol trade is looking a lot more reasonable now.

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Commenter's Corner

This is where Howie normally highlights some of the best comments from the past week. He's been busy setting up our big ShowHype Oscar Quiz, though, so I've been called in off the bench.

First off, TheHype Himself goes Rachael Ray on this blogging manifesto:

But Lunch of Shame is so good when you put the Sauce of Despairity on it!

Next, Rod Benson's blogging sidekick gives a great example of justifiable homicide:

The comments page of this one will be read aloud at my trial for stabbing 42 people wearing hoodies.

Finally, comment of the week goes to meech.one, for reminding us of the inimitable John Moschitta Jr.:

Will has a similar cadence to that guy from the Micro Machines commercials.

Slow... it... down... maaaan.

Also receiving votes: more Shaq persecution, jersey popping explained, and blogger stereotyping.

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Player Production by State, or Where to Raise an Athlete

After I posted a set of maps last month denoting NBA player birthplace and high school locations, a few people wondered about per capita implications as well as other sports. Thankfully, I got an email from Andrew Percival, who a few years ago plotted much nicer-looking maps that tackle those very questions.

First, here's his NBA production map (click to enlarge), which shows how many high schoolers made it to the NBA for every 1 million males in each respective state. Not surprisingly, the results are quite similar to what Truth About It calculated from the later birth stats, with states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, Iowa, and South Dakota producing more than their share of players. When presented in this format, it's evident that there isn't much of a strong regional pattern.

 

Next up is his MLB production map (again, click to enlarge), which shows stronger geographic patterns. As a warm-weather sport, baseball's strength is in states with mild to subtropical climates, with Washington and North Dakota being the only real northern outliers.

 

My favorite was this NFL production map, which is even more geographically concentrated in the Southeast. No shocker here--Sarge at First and 10 Inches pointed out just yesterday that 32 of this year's top 50 high school senior football prospects are from Florida, Georgia, Texas and Alabama.

 

So why is basketball more geographically diverse? Andrew offered two explanations, paraphrased here:

  • Basketball is can be played year-round, indoors and out, so it doesn't rely on optimal weather conditions.
  • The basketball map is based on about 1/3 as many players as baseball and 1/5 as many players as football. The smaller sample size increases the relative importance of each individual player, contributing to the more checkerboard like pattern.

His last gift was a set of Google Earth files which frankly make my old Google Maps offerings look like garbage. (You can download Google Earth here, but don't blame me if you get sucked into zooming in and out on your neighborhood for the next 15 minutes.)

These files map the high school of every player in each league from last season. Click a dot to see which players are represented, and double-click to zoom in on the school. If you made it this far (and don't have vertigo), you'll love them.

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BallHype's Top 10 Sports Blog Stories of the Year About ... Sports Blogs

2007 was a big year for sports blogs: fans turned to them in growing numbers, mainstream media took notice, and (some) bloggers got paid. To commemorate, we dug through the archives for the top 10 stories about the sports blog revolution.

1. Deadspin: This Hurts Us More Than It Hurts You, Colin

Posted April 5, 2007

Related: Do it Again and the Kitten Dies, Schreiber: Radio host's blog attack was 'off limits'

2. Crashburn Alley: Conlin's Losing Numbers

Posted November 23, 2007

Other sports journalists weren't too happy with the blogs, either: Stephen A Smith, Chris McCoskey, Sam Smith (but if you can't beat 'em ...)

3. FanHouse: Sports Illustrated Steals From FanHouse and Gets Punk'd

Posted July 7, 2007

Related: How to Give Blogs Credit: a Handy Guide for the Mainstream Media

4. Larry Brown Sports: Sports Bloggers Can Be Hypocritical, and Lazy

Posted July 26, 2007

5. Ladies...: Hot Blogger Bracket

Posted June 6, 2007

Or: 2007 Sports Blog of the Year Tournament

6. TrueHoop: Major Announcement: TrueHoop is Becoming Part of ESPN

Posted February 13, 2007

7. Dan Shanoff & Jamie Mottram: The Top 20 Most Influential Sports Bloggers

Posted March 1, 2007

Or if you prefer pictures--Jamie Mottram & Dan Shanoff: The Top 20 Most Influential: Sports Bloggers

8. mgoblog: Breaking the Lloyd Carr Retirement Announcement

Posted November 12, 2007

9. 2007 BallHype Sports Blogger Study

Posted August 1, 2007

10. Dawg Sports: Deadspin, ESPN, and the Sports Media Revolution: A Blogosphere Anthem

Posted July 22, 2007

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BallHype's Top 10 Sports Videos of 2007

The first annual BallHype Person of the Year award goes to ... You[tube]. If pictures are worth a thousand words, then a hilarious sports video is worth a million. With videos like these, who needs writing?

1. Giving Him The Business!

Found by Mr. Irrelevant

2. Trinity (TX) Laterals Their Way to Division III Win

Found by East Coast Bias

3. Miss Gossip Interviews Greg Oden

Posted by TheHype

4. Mayor of Cincinnati Not Much of a Pitcher

Found by With Leather

5. Craaaazieesst #$%^ing Fall In X-Games!!

Posted by TheHype

6. Mike Gundy Lectures the Oklahoma Media

Found by FanIQ Blog

7. Minor League Manager Meltdown

Found by Sox & Dawgs

8. Keep Your Eyes on the Bat

Posted by studes

9. Stephen A. Smith Heckled at the 2007 NBA Draft

Found by Deadspin

10. The Worst Flop Ever

Posted by gurdflavor

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More Sports Blog Geekery: Top Deadspin Commenters, 2007

On Wednesday, Rob Iracane unveiled his picks for Deadspin commenters of the year, and Camp Tiger Claw came out on top. Regular comments section readers are well aware that CTC brings the funny, but was he really the #1 commenter for 2007?

To find out, I printed out each post from 2007, divided them up among 5 monkeys, and had them count up all of the +1's, +2's, +10's, and other variations that commenters have awarded each other—you know, in lieu of comment voting. (See footnote for a few caveats.) Before we get to the final tally, here are a few other nuggets we were able to extract:

As you can see from the chart below, Camp Tiger Claw was in fact the top commenter by this measure, with a comfortable lead over Tuffy at #2. The rest of the top 10 follow, with some of their highest-rated contributions for your reading pleasure.

CommenterDapsExamples
Camp Tiger Claw81Romo's athletic roots
Everywhere you look, everywhere you go
Tuffy63The Karate Kid: 14 years away
Hartman was awesome
Weed Against Speed61How the mighty have fallen
Van Peezy's other handle
UkraineNotWeak47What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss?
The juice is loose
Lady Andrea29Vigo the Carpathian = Fred Thompson
Ewwww
Phony Gwynn25Those bears can ball
Can't we all just get along?
Stev D25IT WAS JUST THAT ONE COLUMN
Ha—I bench 520!
Gourmet Spud24Charlie Hustlin'
Rocket needs rest
ArkansasFred23La Liga race watch
Define combat, sir
Rob Iracane23Tomorrow night, Paul O'Neill has to catch a fly ball in his hat
Do as I say, not as I do

 

Notes:

  • All plusses were counted equally: +1, +2, +1000, whatever.
  • We only included plusses that were attached to @username replies, which seem to show up sometime in February.
  • Only the first page of comments per post was parsed--any points awarded after #100 weren't factored in.
  • Total plusses tracked: 1,860.

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The Foibles of Formulas: A Quiz

Since its release last year, The Wages of Wins has sparked a number of discussions on how best to evaluate basketball players statistically. Most recently, we have seen a blog debate over this season's top Laker and The Pot Calling the Kettle Black from Dan Rosenbaum and Dave Lewin.

We can all agree that quantifying the performance of basketball players is very challenging, and all of the currently-available techniques have their flaws.

The primary metric used in Wages of Wins to evaluate basketball players is Wins Produced, or Wins Produced per 48 minutes (WP48). Find out how well you know your Wages of Wins by taking the following quiz, which matches up 12 pairs of NBA players and compares their WP48 scores for the 2006-07 season. Good luck!


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Where Birth Happened: Six Decades of NBA Origins

Fun things to do with Google Maps #3: plot the birthplace and high school location of every NBA player from the 1946-47, 1956-57, 1966-67, 1976-77, 1986-87, 1996-97, and 2006-07 seasons.

As with the last version, use the controls on the left to zoom, and drag 'n drop to pan. This time, multiple players from the same city are grouped into a single marker, with the number indicating how many players are represented. Click markers to see the list of players. And change the season to see how origins have evolved over time. A larger version is available here.

Season:       Location:

The most obvious trend is the league's internationalization, beginning in the 80's and exploding in the last decade. There also seems to be a fair amount of rural-urban migration between birth and high school, apparently as early as 1946-47.

Thanks to Basketball-Reference.com (and last week's commenters) for the birth and high school data.

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Where Birth Happens

Fun things to do with Google Maps #2: plot the birthplace of every current NBA player.

As with the blog map, use the controls on the left to zoom, and drag 'n drop to pan. This time, multiple players from the same city are grouped into a single marker, with the number indicating how many players are represented. Click markers to see the list of players. You can also filter by team.

Choose a team:

A few things that jumped out at me:

  • Strong showing from the Euros.
  • Zoom in two ticks on the U.S.--the eastern half of the country is dominant.
  • Celtics: 100% born in the U.S.A.
  • Not a single Pacers player was born west of Texas.
  • The Suns are one Yuta Tabuse away from having a player born on every continent.

Thanks to Basketball-Reference.com and Yahoo for the birth data.

Update: A larger version is now available.

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The Sports Blog Mapping Project

1,500+ U.S. and Canadian sports blogs loaded into Google Maps for slicing, dicing, zooming, and panning.

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Dwyane Wade Converse Commercial - 10/31/2007 Remix (video)

Dwyane Wade "From Robbins, Illinois" Converse Commercial - 10/31/2007 Remix

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Introducing ShowHype: Ballhype Goes Hollywood

Today we launched ShowHype, a site that finds the most popular entertainment stories and videos on the web and lets users hype up the best stories, comment, or submit their own. Sound familiar? It’s like Ballhype went to LA, got a new wardrobe and a tan, became a party circuit regular, and could tell you the latest news about any star, any time of the day.

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Commenter's Corner

This is where Howie normally highlights some of the best comments from the past week. He's been busy helping us with the ShowHype launch, though, so I've been called in from the bullpen. Not playing over the loudspeakers: Welcome to the Jungle.

First off, Agent Zero's biggest fan told us that Halo hacks work in RL:

Gilbert does this with NBA games too, just in basketball the dummies are called "Lakers"

Perennial CC contender chone explained the decimation of Dickie V's October Madness Bracket:

Anyone who willingly sits through that many Devil Rays games probably doesn't know much about baseball.

Finally, comment of the week goes to goathair_3, who had empathy for Brad Miller's new look:

As a white guy who had cornrows back in the day, I support Brad Miller's decision to look like an idiot.

Also receiving votes: more justification for cornrows, Tiki doesn't miss you that much, and Everybody Loves H.E.R.

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Commenter's Corner

This is where Howie normally highlights some of the best comments from the past week. He's busy partying with the Joneses, though, so I've been called in to pinch-hit.

Upon learning that the Astros had hired former Phillies GM Ed Wade, meech.one from Bugs & Cranks summed up the views of countless Philly fans eloquently and succinctly:

hahahahahhaahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhaahahahah

After watching ESPN's Rob Stone getting friendly with the soccer talent, McLovin from Nyjer Please offered this observation:

Somewhere, Harold Reynolds is going apeshit.

Finally, comment of the week goes to JaketheSnake from Bullets Forever for the following bit of news related to Barry Bonds' impending free agency:

Rumor has it that Marc Ecko is already planning on trying to sign Barry Bonds and then let fans decide to:

  1. Let him enter free agency.
  2. Tattoo an asterisk on him, and then let him enter free agency.
  3. Put him on a rocket ship and launch him into orbit. 
Also receiving votes: torn scrotum jokes never get old, mazel tov, and don't tase me, bro!

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Miss Gossip: A Retrospective (video)

Selected Miss Gossip creations from SunsGossip, FanHouse, and elsewhere. Note: contains occasional coarse language, hand-drawn nudity, and baby polar bears.

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17 Games: NFL Invitational Preview

As we announced a couple of weeks back, we’re celebrating  the arrival of football season with a new contest: 17 Games.  All Ballhype users (well, except us) are eligible to win "The Duke", and you’re free to create your own pools groups for gambling fun as well.

We’ve also created an invitational group, in which representatives from a handful of outstanding sports blogs will be competing for a modest $200 charitable donation--$100 from us, and another $100 from the not ungenerous Unsilent Majority.  Embedded with the virtual heavyweights is an up-and-comer who’ll be chronicling the season for us all: Ty Keenan, from the basketball-themed Plissken at the Buzzer.  Ty is the latest in a long line of talented student-bloggers from Bill Walsh’s old stomping grounds.  His season preview follows:


As embedded correspondent for this competition, it’s my job to inform readers of everything that goes on in one of the most hotly-contested leagues in American sport: the Ballhype NFL Invitational. This group of celebrity bloggers actually has quite a bit in common with the league from which we’ll be picking games. In the NFL, 25 of the teams are generally mediocre, requiring massive amounts of insight and analysis to figure out which team has the best chance to make it to the playoffs and beyond. Similarly, our league features so many excellent bloggers that it’s difficult to predict who will fare best throughout the season. With that in mind, here’s a detailed look at our celebrity bloggers’ strengths, weaknesses, picking tendencies, and chances to win the right to give money to charity.

Michael David Smith: FanHouse, Football Outsiders, NY Sun, ProFootballTalk.com
  • Strengths: Apparently some sort of football-writing robot. Most prolific writer at FanHouse by a wide margin (389 posts in last 30 days).
  • Weaknesses: Roots for team run by Matt Millen.
  • Most Likely to Pick: Whichever team looks like the best pick for each particular week. Too smart to pick the Lions.
  • Chances to Win: Excellent. Clearly one of the most football-savvy participants. Writes enough that he won’t have to do any extra research.
  • Fun Fact: Once owned a Charlie Batch jersey.

Unsilent Majority: Kissing Suzy Kolber, Deadspin Weekends
  • Strengths: Gained reputation through commenting, so knows what it’s like to be the little guy. Drinks scotch, so clearly a real man. Name is a Rocky IV reference.
  • Weaknesses: Evidence suggests he might enjoy scotch a bit too much, which could have some effect on picks.
  • Most Likely to Pick: Against Brady Quinn.
  • Chances to Win: Excellent. Picking strategy outlined above can only bring victories.
  • Fun Fact: Quotes 1984 in interviews, so a man of culture, too.

Brian Powell: Awful Announcing
  • Strengths: Watches nearly every game, since most football announcers are immeasurably terrible.
  • Weaknesses: Focuses on announcers, who do not actually play the game.
  • Most Likely to Pick: Games called by Joe Buck or Phil Simms.
  • Chances to Win: Unclear. Buck and Simms call important games, for which the spreads/games are usually close, but there’s a decent chance that Powell will pick an unforeseen blowout.
  • Fun Fact: Will not be able to pick Monday Night Football games this year, because the crew is finally good.

The Ladies: Ladies...
  • Strengths: Sensitive to subtle emotions from players, giving them an edge over the rest of the participants.
  • Weaknesses: Distracted by incredibly tight football pants. Potentially focus too much on food for Sunday game-watching parties.
  • Most Likely to Pick: New England Patriots. No warm-blooded American woman can resist Tom Brady.
  • Chances to Win: Very good. Picking Brady is a time-tested strategy, although there’s always the chance that a new QB hotness will emerge on a terrible team.
  • Fun Fact: Fallout from last spring’s Ladies.../KSK college basketball bet should ignite a vicious rivalry with Unsilent Majority.

Jamie Mottram: FanHouse Impresario, Mr. Irrelevant, Blog Show
  • Strengths: Has full weight of AOL cash behind him, making it possible for him to hire as many research interns as he’d like. Has been dubbed a "stud blogger" and "blogfather."  Lists Will Clark as his favorite athlete ever.
  • Weaknesses: Success of FanHouse has potentially made him content to sit on pile of money with many beautiful ladies. Past involvement with Cold Pizza means that he might draw on Woody Paige and Skip Bayless for advice.
  • Most Likely to Pick: Washington Redskins. Not only because they’re his favorite team, but also because Mottram is the Daniel Snyder of Blogburgh.
  • Chances to Win: Decent. Running the #1 site in Ballhype’s rankings is nothing to sneeze at, but Redskins fandom suggests he won’t be able to pick more than eight games correctly.
  • Fun Fact: The latest comment on his myspace page was posted by Sarah Spain, the Bears Super Bowl date girl.

The Big Lead: The Big Lead

Dan Shanoff: Dan Shanoff
  • Strengths: Picking underdogs.
  • Weaknesses: Football games do not exist in Quickie format. Writes about babies, who are too small to play football.
  • Most Likely to Pick: Jacksonville Jaguars. Must prove that his newfound fandom is more than a gimmick.
  • Chances to Win: Excellent. Connections to ESPN Empire could be the difference.
  • Fun Fact: Holds MBA from Harvard Business School, which has helped him create several blogs that provide no income.

Brooks: Sports by Brooks