User Blog - Jason

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
2006-07	Baron Davis	21.0	Nobody
2004-05	Baron Davis	20.4
2007-08	Baron Davis	19.8
2005-06	Baron Davis	18.3
2003-04	Erick Dampier	20.1	Eduardo Najera
2003-04	Brian Cardinal	19.4	Nobody
2007-08	Andris Biedrins	19.2
2005-06	Jason Richardson	19.2	Brandan Wright
2004-05	Jason Richardson	19.0
2007-08	Monta Ellis	19.0
2002-03	Antawn Jamison	19.0	Nick Van Exel
2000-01	Antawn Jamison	19.0
2002-03	Gilbert Arenas	18.6	Nobody

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.

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:

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].

-- Choose Player -- -- Choose Player -- -- Choose Player -- -- Choose Player -- -- Choose Player -- -- Choose Player -- -- Choose Player -- -- Choose Player -- -- Choose Player -- -- Choose Player --

[Start Over]

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.

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:	All Sports	All Networks

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

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:

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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:

• Most points awarded in a single comment: a hundred quadrillion.
• Fewest points awarded in a comment: 0.4 (S2N), 0.7 (Skeets)
• Most plusses received from the combudsman: 3 each for Camp Tiger Claw and UkraineNotWeak
• Most generous with the plusses: Signal to Noise (61), BigTenObsession (44), Gourmet Spud (42), MrRedDevil (40), Camp Tiger Claw (39)

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.

Commenter		Daps	Examples
	Camp Tiger Claw	81	Romo's athletic roots Everywhere you look, everywhere you go
	Tuffy	63	The Karate Kid: 14 years away Hartman was awesome
	Weed Against Speed	61	How the mighty have fallen Van Peezy's other handle
	UkraineNotWeak	47	What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss? The juice is loose
	Lady Andrea	29	Vigo the Carpathian = Fred Thompson Ewwww
	Phony Gwynn	25	Those bears can ball Can't we all just get along?
	Stev D	25	IT WAS JUST THAT ONE COLUMN Ha—I bench 520!
	Gourmet Spud	24	Charlie Hustlin' Rocket needs rest
	ArkansasFred	23	La Liga race watch Define combat, sir
	Rob Iracane	23	Tomorrow 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.

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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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: 1946-47   1956-57 1966-67 1976-77 1986-87 1996-97 2006-07       Location: Birthplace High School

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.

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: [All Teams] Atlanta Hawks Boston Celtics Charlotte Bobcats Chicago Bulls Cleveland Cavaliers Dallas Mavericks Denver Nuggets Detroit Pistons Golden State Warriors Houston Rockets Indiana Pacers L.A. Clippers L.A. Lakers Memphis Grizzlies Miami Heat Milwaukee Bucks Minnesota Timberwolves New Jersey Nets New Orleans Hornets New York Knicks Orlando Magic Philadelphia 76ers Phoenix Suns Portland Blazers Sacramento Kings San Antonio Spurs Seattle Sonics Toronto Raptors Utah Jazz Washington Wizards

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.

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

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

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.

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:

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

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

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

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:

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

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

Also receiving votes: torn scrotum jokes never get old, mazel tov, and don't tase me, bro!

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

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

• Strengths: Name suggests victory is imminent. Unknown identity presents mysterious front to opponents. Has actual media connections.
• Weaknesses: Lives in fear of another unprovoked Cowherd attack.
• Most Likely to Pick: Any team that signs (or even tries out) Jeff George. Owes Jason Whitlock for helping to push site over the top.
• Chances to Win: Pretty good. Ability to break stories gives them a leg up on lazier participants.
• Fun Fact: Claims that being mentioned in New York Times resulted in 17 more hits than normal.

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