UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

Today’s blog will take me on a trip down Memory Lane. Pardon me if I get a bit emotional *sniff*.

- (from Krunk) Here’s CRACKED.com’s list of 15 (Painfully) Unforgettable Cartoon Theme Songs. My thoughts on this list:

• Haha, I completely forgot that Steven Spielberg is the genius behind Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs. I may be in the minority here, but I actually liked Tiny Toon Adventures more than Animaniacs.
• Speaking of Tiny Toon Adventures, why is that at the beginning of the list?
• The second and third comments are spot on! How are Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck not on this list? And what about Conan the Adventurer?

I remember, back in elementary school, coming home every day to catch The Disney Afternoon; more specifically, Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers, and Darkwing Duck, as well as Tiny Toon Adventures and, eventually, Animanics on FOX. I recall never starting on my homework until 5pm.

(Yeah, as a kid, I watched too much TV. Don’t get me started on how much TV I watch now.)

And yes, I’ll admit it; when the show first came out, I watched Power Rangers. What can I say? Lots of my friends watched the show too!

(Wow, I never noticed how ridiculously cheesy the intro to that show was! Actually, what’s really sad is that I remember a show similar to Power Rangers, called VR Troopers. Now that was a cheesy intro!)

In my defense, the only reason why I watched Power Rangers was because of the Pink Ranger. Didn’t every adolescent male around that time watch the show for the same reason? Didn’t they???

- Trading card company Upper Deck is trying to buy out the last major trading card company out there, Topps. This is terrible news for an already dying market; dying because trading cards have gotten so unaffordable, only adults could afford packs these days. Back in the early 90s, I would often visit this card shop with my cousins–I forget the name–and usually spent $10-20 per visit there. I remember getting a whole assortment of stuff; some cheaper $1 packs, and a couple of the “premium” packs that went for $3-5 each. I remember opening each premium pack as if it was a Christmas present, being careful not to harm the foil packaging.

(Of course, I had to open the packs carefully, for fear of damaging the fancy cards that were stuffed inside.)

I remember back in 1993, buying a pack of Fleer Ultra Basketball for $3–Shaq’s rookie year–and pulling out an insert card of Shaq. That card was worth $75 at the time, and it’s still one of the top five insert cards I’ve ever pulled out of a deck of cards. I still have the card today, even though it’s probably not worth $5, just because of the sentiment behind it. In 1998, when my interest in trading cards was waning, I pulled a Ken Griffey Jr. card numbered to 100 (there were only 100 copies of that card in existence). That card, valued at $100-150 at the time, was probably the coolest card I’ve ever pulled out of a pack, and it was nothing more than a regular card with the letters in gold-colored foil, with a stamped number on the back (also in gold).

I stopped collecting as a hobby years ago, when the prices of premium packs got ridiculous; premium packs now range anywhere from $25-100 each. Back in the day, a rare card was a limited-print, glossy looking card. Today, only cards have a piece of memorabilia or an autograph on it–swatches of jersey, pieces of ball, shoelaces, nets, sticks, etc.–have any value in the market. What made getting rare cards back in the day so much fun were the improbable odds of getting one; the odds of getting one card similar to the Shaq card I pulled in 1993 was 1:72 (if there were 10 cards in that set, that would make the odds of me pulling Shaq’s card itself 1:720). Nowadays, with these expensive packs, the odds of pulling inserts are sometimes 1:1. What fun is that to guarantee yourself a card with a piece of memorabilia on it in every pack?

(Tangent: Between 1999 and 2001, I realized that trading cards was an affordable investment, rather than just a fun hobby. Between Yahoo! Auctions and eBay, I made about $2,000 during my senior year in high school (1999-2000) buying and reselling trading cards. While I don’t regret making that kind of money, I do have to point to that time period as the time when I stopped looking at trading cards as a hobby.)

I’ll still buy a pack every now and then, but I won’t touch those ridiculously expensive packs with a ten-foot pole. I hope, if Upper Deck does acquire Topps, they use the Topps brand to reintroduce affordable, marketable packs for the collector (in the form of $1-2 packs), while keeping the Upper Deck brand for the investor (the more expensive stuff). Bring back the days of holograms, parallel sets, and fancy (non-memorabilia) inserts for the casual collector!

I have the urge to swing by Target and pick up a box of cards, just for fun.

by Peter
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One quick rant: Buy.com finally issued me a refund on my order! I’m still not through with them, though; instead of crediting me $29.98, they came up with the idea of refunding me $18 instead!

I gotta contact their “support” yet again tomorrow.

- Anyway, the NBA Draft Lottery happened yesterday, and three prevailing themes arose from the proceedings in Secaucus, NJ:

1. Portland, Seattle, and Atlanta (even though the Hawks missed out on the top two picks) are the big winners.
2. The Celtics got screwed! If you don’t believe me, go ask a Boston Celtics fan.
3. The lottery system needs a fix. If you don’t believe me, go ask a Boston Celtics fan. However, perhaps the system can be tweaked slightly.

Portland gets to add Greg Oden to a lineup including this past year’s ROY (Brandon Roy, who was fleeced from Minnesota last year), skilled big man LaMarcus Aldridge, Zach Randolph, and Jarrett Jack. Even in the loaded Western Conference, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this team contend for a title in the next few years. Yes, Greg Oden can be that good in the pros, assuming he develops a consistent offense.

As for Seattle, not a bad consolation prize in Kevin Durant, eh? First of all, Durant allows the Sonics to let F Rashard Lewis go. Also, Durant may be the big name that will keep the Sonics from leaving Seattle. Atlanta wins as well, even though they will miss out on Oden and Durant. By landing the third pick, they get to keep the pick (had the pick dropped outside the top three, it would have gone to Phoenix). Also, they get Indiana’s pick, giving the Hawks two top-15 picks. Hopefully Atlanta doesn’t blow these picks, the same way they have blown their high picks in recent years.

By the way, Celtics fans, YOU DID NOT GET SCREWED BY THE NBA JUST BECAUSE YOU DID NOT GET A TOP TWO PICK! A lottery is just that; a lottery. There is an element of luck involved! Just because a coin is supposed to land on heads as often as it is supposed to land on tails doesn’t mean you can always expect one of each result with two coin flips. And no, just because you guys got “screwed” by the NBA lottery doesn’t mean the lottery needs to be fixed next season. More on fixing the lottery later…

If anything, the fact that the Celtics tried to intentionally lose games this year, only to miss out on a top-2 pick, is simply a case of bad karma (please don’t deny the tanking your team did, Celtics fan). All is not lost, though, Celtic fan; just because Oden and Durant are clearly the two best prospects in this year’s draft, they’re still nothing more than prospects. Who says Oden and Durant will pan out? Besides, you still have the #5 pick; you are still likely to get a nice player (Horford, Brandan Wright, Jianlian, etc.).

Don’t worry, Celtic fan: Bill Simmons feels for you.

(As an aside, thanks Bill for realizing that the announcement of Milwaukee picking #6 sealed your Celtics’ fate at #5, unlike some people who wrote that the Celtics’ nightmare was made official when the Celtics were announced at #5).

Personally, I think the NBA Draft Lottery doesn’t need to be changed; people whining that it’s unfair and stupid don’t offer enough compelling reasons for me to change my stance. One idea that’s floating around is to give the worst team in the league the #1 pick, the second worst #2, and so on. That’s nice and all, but how does that prevent tanking? In fact, I see no feasible solution that will prevent tanking.

That being said, I think the lottery could be tweaked a bit. Right now, the lottery is weighted in favor of the worst teams; I think the NBA should weigh it even more in favor of those bad teams. Yeah, this won’t prevent teams from tanking, but it’ll give the worst of the worst a better chance at getting the help they need.

Another suggestion I was kicking around is to have two different lotteries for all non-playoff teams. The first lottery could be held for, say, the first five picks, and the odds of winning could be heavily weighted in favor of the teams with the worst records. A second lottery could then be held to determine who picks 6-14, again heavily favoring the worst teams. This will add a bit more excitement to the lottery, as well as offer the best of the worst teams (the teams that didn’t tank) a chance to get a better draft pick. As it stands now, the best of the lottery teams has only a 0.5% chance of winning the lottery; with my suggestion, the best team has a decent shot at any pick from 6-14.

I’m feeling a lot worse than I have felt in the past couple of days, so I’m going to go to bed early tonight.

Happy blogging!

by Peter
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