ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(Butter Parque @ Feb 25, 2005 -> 08:49 PM) Obviously you didn't read prior posts. It said why would Duke be getting respect every year. It gets respect because of it's past and present. It's always a final four contender, whether they have the best talent or the worst talent becuase when it comes down to it, they just win. As for your remark that Duke's quality wins have come at home. First, we beat Oklahoma at the Garden. We beat Georgia Tech both at home and on the road, we beat NC State on the road, we haven't played North Carolina on the road yet, and we only lost by 3, with a chance to win it, against Wake on the road. Those are called quality wins. It's not like we get to face Northwestern twice a year, or Penn State, or Michigan State, or Purdue, or Minnesoata, or Ohio State. It's damn near impossible for an ACC team to have a .500 conference road record. No, you've been specifically talking about how this year's Duke team hasn't been getting respect and that they are great, not the prior Duke teams that actually were. And none of those road wins are quality wins. Beating ranked teams on the road are quality wins, which has not happened for Duke. Oklahoma on the road is the one solid road/neutral win, and they're not THAT good, especially since they played them before Oklahoma got on a roll. The Illini played Cinci at a neutral court and won at MSU and at Wisconsin, two of the toughest places to win. Not every team in the ACC is that good, there's a reason they're only going to get 4 or 5 teams in the tourney. Everyone's opinions concerning the strength of the ACC is clouded based on how much stronger UNC, Wake, and Duke are than everyone else. Clemson and Florida State are just as bad as the weakest teams in the Big Ten, and NC State and Virginia are pretty hapless too. If it wasn't for injuries and suspensions at Michigan and Iowa the Big Ten might have actually finished higher(or at least pretty close) in the RPI than the ACC. More importantly, the difference isn't that severe that you can logically say that a 4 loss team in the ACC is better than an undefeated team in the Big Ten, especially when Illinois has played stronger teams out of conference (their out of conference RPI is lower because of a couple of really bad teams in the one tournament, but they played 3 major teams in Gonzaga, Wake, and Cincinnati). Duke is probably the 3rd best team in the ACC and you're trying to make them the be all and end all of college basketball.

QUOTE(T R U @ Feb 25, 2005 -> 06:14 PM) and by the way things are looking Illinois is going to be in a home setting for all their tournament games You're right, in Indianapolis and Chicago it will probably be heavily pro-Illini, and St. Louis isn't exactly a long trip either.

QUOTE(Butter Parque @ Feb 25, 2005 -> 04:28 PM) 3 CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!!!! THATS HOW YOU EARN RESPECT Come back when Illinois gets one! Until Illinois proves that it deserves to be respected like basketball gods, why should they. Sure a perfect record is unbelievable, especially when you've beaten some quality opponents, but your SOS is 48th, and you play in one of (if not), thee weakest major conference in college basketball. You haven't won your conference tournament yet, you haven't gone into the NCAA's yet, for all anyone knows, you could be this year's Stanford. With Duke, everyone knows that they are going to be major players in the tournament. They've won 3 championships, and this year have beaten: Michigan State North Carolina Wake Forest Georgia Tech 2x Virginia Tech Miami Oklahoma North Carolina State If Illinois came into the ACC, how many road games would they win, they'd be lucky just like everyone else in the conference, to stay at .500 The history of a school doesn't matter in a given year. That has no bearing on how good this team or in any way affect what they have done. By that logic UCLA and Indiana are teams to be reckoned with this year, and clearly they aren't. Just face the facts, Duke isn't as good as they normally are and Illinois has a very good team this year. Several of those wins you are recounting aren't even that solid. Georgia Tech has been struggling all year and has an RPI of only 53. Miami is at 48, Virginia Tech is at a measly 89, and NC State is at a seriously unimpressive 111. Plus, all of their quality wins came at home, and they got swept by a Maryland team that hasn't done much other than beat Duke twice. Duke is far from the powerhouse they normally are, so unless the NCAA creates a new rule allowing Elton Brand and Shane Battier to play in the tournament this year, they're not going to beat Illinois on a neutral court.

I really don't see how this helps the Kings. I would have understood if they picked up at least one solid young player in the deal, but as you guys said, they're getting weaker players with equally poor contracts. The benefits for the Sixers are obvious, they get a really talented player when he is healthy. I think they are one of only 3 teams with a real shot to get the East title now, and that drops to two if Shaq is out for the year.

He might have been sent down, but his numbers weren't that bad, he still had 72 runs and 14 SB in only 134 games, and his average wasn't that bad at .262. Basically I'm just not a fan of taking whatever player shows any kind of power in Coors. Gonzalez did hit .292 with 12 homers in limited time, but I don't see any reason to think he's more likely to do it again than Berroa's previous year.

I would definitely take Berroa, he's actually put together a decent fantasy season in the not so distant past. More importantly, Gonzalez is not a lock to win a starting job, while Berroa pretty much is. I'm not a big fan of taking guys just because they play in Coors, Gonzalez hasn't shown that much. However, if you need power towards the end of the draft Lou Go might be a sneaky way to get some. As for other sleepers, I like getting Uribe because he can play several postions. I definitely like getting Iguchi or Chase Utley. Utley has some pretty good power potential. Cesar Izturis is also a decent sleeper, he had some decent numbers last year.

Yeah, I don't have a whole lot of say on weekend draft slots. It's basically during the day or that 10:30 slot. I can have basically any weeknight in March at basically any time though, which is why I was asking.

I got a question for you guys: would you rather have me try to add two more players or cut the league to 10? The league will get shallower, making everyone's team a little bit better. It might also make it harder for you to cut someone to grab a player you need. Also, if I go with the ten teams, should I add a couple of roster spots to compensate? I hate to get back to draft time, but are weeknights good for everyone? I can't really get any other nights during the weekend (other than the one I already have), but there are a ton of weeknight spots available.

I got a couple of questions: first, is this going to be a standard 3 year keeper? second, how many keepers are we going to have? I think average is about 4 or 5.

Well, I took what you guys said and pushed it to Sunday night, March 6th at 10:30 PM CST. There weren't a whole lot of draft times open, which is why I had to go so late.

Due to the fact that I currently have open spots in the league, I'm probably going to push it back. What day/time is good for everyone?

To anyone that is interested, there are two open spots in Soxtalk League #5. It is a daily head to head league. The draft is set for 8 PM next Saturday at the moment, however I will change it if that time is a problem. PM me to join.

Soxtalk league #5 has been setup. The roster given to me is as follows: ZoomSlowik- commish and eventual champion Kalapse Chisoxrd5 Valponick Nitetrain8601 Latinoheat30 Toasty Sox4lifeinPA Fattyguy78 The Yahoo league ID # is 30334, password is soxtalk. The draft is set for March 6th at 9:30 CST. Let me know if this time doesn't work, I am willing to move it, although I will need to hear from several members to do that. Feel free to post any questions or comments in this thread. There are two open spots in this league. Anyone interested in joining should PM me.

To all members of league number 5: My apologies for not getting started over the weekend, I was out of town playing in a pool tournament and did not have internet access. I will be responding to those of you who asked for the league info shortly and PM'ing those that didn't.

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Feb 13, 2005 -> 10:34 PM) The high school senior class is the weakest in atleast 10 years. But that won't stop kids from jumping into the draft anyways. I wouldn't be suprised to see 6+ from this class again try to make the jump. I wouldn't be suprised to see any of these guys make the HS/Pro jump; Louis Williams, Monta Ellis, Brandon Rush, Julian Wright, Andray Blatche, Martell Webster, Shawne Williams, Gerald Green, Amir Johnson, Chris Douglas-Roberts. Most likely Monta Ellis and Louis Williams will make the jump, they are on opposing teams in one of the biggest all-star games and will likely be auditioning against each other. Both are very talented players, but what position Louis Williams will play in the NBA or even on the next level is a question. I think Brandon Rush, Martell Webster, and Gerald Green are on the next tier of most likely to go, all 3 are very talented 2G/SF types. What you will see out of this class is that there is a severe lack of post players that could make the jump which could help someone like Chris Taft at Pitt who has been struggling but is very talented and of course all the foreign big men will feast on the draft again. There are definitely people that will try to go, but they'll be largely unsuccessful. Supposedly Green and Webster are the only ones with any hope of the lottery, although Ellis has been moving up after torching Williams head to head. He's got a much better chance if the scouts think he is a PG, which is starting to happen. Williams is one of those guys that thinks he is better than he is. He thinks he's Allen Iverson, most scouts aren't sold. This is definitely only a blip on the radar though, prep players going early isn't going to stop. Greg Oden and Brandan Wright will probably both be top 5 picks next year, and Kevin Durant might have a shot with some good performances.

QUOTE(SleepyWhiteSox @ Feb 13, 2005 -> 09:24 PM) Has anybody seen any early draft rankings/projections? I'm curious to see what talent is out there since nobody really stands out.. The only stuff I've seen is on ESPN Insider. This is a weak high school class and the senior class isn't stellar either. However, there is a pretty good European class and a lot of good underclassmen. Their projected top 5 from January was, in no particular order, Chris Paul, Chris Taft, Marvin Williams, Rudy Gay, and Martynas Andriuskevicus (7-3 PF from Lithuania). Two other hot names that just missed are Andrew Bogut and Nemanja Alexandrov (6-10 SF from Serbia). Those last two are moving in opposite directions.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Feb 13, 2005 -> 06:43 PM) There will be a second keeper league for sure. There are plenty of people interested. I think Soxbadgers is going to run it, unless you want to talk to him Zoom? Either way. Just post something when you want one of us to start organizing it.

Add me to that list too. I'd love to see NU beat the Illini down here, but there's no chance in hell, especially if Thompson is still out.

QUOTE(HoosierSox @ Feb 13, 2005 -> 10:03 AM) Can we start another keeper league? It seems like we have plenty of interest. Tell you what, I'll run a league on yahoo and make it a keeper. I'm assuming that we are going to wait until we know how many open spots there are in the current keeper league however.

MVP awards are overrated. They don't really mean anything, it's just a collection of people's opinions. You could make a strong case in any year that 2 or 3 other players could have been MVP. Hell, Ted Williams won the Triple Crown and didn't get the MVP, so it can't mean that much. Do we really think that Bill Russell was Michael's equal because they both have 5 MVP's, or that he was better than Chamberlain because he only won 4? No. You could make a strong case that Russell wasn't the MVP on his TEAM in some of those years, or that Michael should have won more, ect., but in the long run it doesn't matter. Malone definitely deserved one at some point during his career, he was a hell of a player. No matter when he got it people would be complaining because Michael didn't win, at least on this board. By the way, Bird was definitely a SF for the bulk of his career. You could make a case for him being the best SF ever. In my book it comes down to him and Dr. J. Just for fun, my All-time starting 5 PG tough call, but I like Oscar Robertson over Magic SG Michael, next SF Julius Erving PF Larry Bird (yeah, it's cheating, but I'm going small to leave more room for the man in the middle, and it makes me not have to choose between Erving and Bird. If I'm forced to take a PF, I'll go with Malone) C Wilt Chamberlain

If I remember right yahoo has like a 10 inning weekly minimum. Personally I don't care if someone loads up on relievers trying to steal stats, although I would lean towards that rule rather than against. Odds are if someone tries to do that there are at least two weak pitchers in the mix, or they just give up on the strategy after some bad results and grab some FA starters. All you have to do against that strategy is be selective with your starters to get either ERA or WHIP because wins and K's are pretty much a lock. It's really a terrible strategy because you need to have a pretty good offense to get it to work, and you gotta grab at least one, preferrably two or three of the top closers cause you need relievers that strike out a lot of people (ie Gagne, Lidge, Wagner).

QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ Feb 13, 2005 -> 02:30 AM) i dont think im going to get any white sox players because they will be overated in an all white sox fan draft. Maybe so. I can't remember a rush to get Bulls or Bears players in the other soxtalk drafts (I know not everyone here is a Bulls or Bears fan, but it is still a majority). I guess we'll know if a Sox player is taken in the first 5 rounds.

I'm a bit of an underacheiver. I can get to the park pretty easily, but I'm always somewhere between 5 and 10 games (looks like 5 for this year so far, might add a few more). It used to be easier before I went to school, which wipes out all of April and September, plus a chunk of May. Maybe when I get out of school and get a real job I can push that number up to a more suitable number.

Man, Minnesota is really trying hard to lose their NCAA bid. They lost to NU and Indiana in the same week. That can't help their cause.

I get the feeling Head isn't going to get a whole lot of love come NBA draft time. He's one of those 6-3/6-4 wing players that most pro guys think is too short, and I doubt anyone thinks he is an NBA point guard. I think this would be a major mistake though. The guy is a hell of an athlete and is shooting really well this year(although I'm not 100% sure about NBA 3-point range). He might get some more looks now that Dwayne Wade has become a star though. I think he'll make some teams regret it if they pass on him. At worst I see him as a solid defender chipping in about 8 points 3 boards 3 assists, but he could definitely do better.