UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

- I’ve already earned $5.94 from using BigCrumbs.com! I’m rich!

(I talked about BigCrumbs.com in a blog entry last Monday.)

Now let’s see if I actually get paid.

- SportsCenter started their My Wish series yesterday! For those of you that don’t know what this is, ESPN has teamed up with the Make-A-Wish foundation to grant five kids their sports-related dreams, and each night (Sunday-Thursday), SportsCenter will devote a few minutes to each story.

This is the second year of the My Wish series, and some of the stories last year were absolute tear-jerkers.

(Yes, I will admit that I shed a tear or two; stories that reflect on the human spirit always get to me, especially when they involve children.)

- I was going to start talking about the poker tournament that I played in on Saturday, but I couldn’t resist this little tidbit of news this afternoon: Kevin Garnett could be moved to the Lakers in a four-way deal?!?

Chad Ford of ESPN offered this trade scenario (ESPN Insider subscription required):

The Wolves send Kevin Garnett and Marko Jaric to the Lakers.

The Lakers send Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum to the Pacers and the No. 19 pick [and Kwame Brown] to the Wolves.

The Pacers send Jermaine O’Neal to the Celtics.

The Celtics send the No. 5 pick, Theo Ratliff, Gerald Green and Sebastian Telfair to Minnesota.

Ford touched on the potential impact of these deals for each team involved; I’ll expand on his thoughts below.

Lakers: Kobe gets his superstar that he needs to contend for a championship, at the expense of their salary cap (unless KG or Kobe opt-out of their contracts early). Plus, they have to swallow Marko Jaric’s horrible contract, lose Kwame’s expiring deal, and give up on Andrew “Big Project” Bynum.

Assuming they re-sign Walton, does a Jaric/Kobe/Walton/KG/??? starting lineup (with a Farmar/Vujacic/Evans/Turiaf/Mihm?/Cook or Head bench) contend for a championship? Probably not. Would they be better than last year? Absolutely. And no, Laker fan, just because Chauncey Billups is now a free agent, don’t expect him to come to the Lakers. How would they get him? Sign-and-trade? For what? Mid-level exception? Not a chance.

Pacers: The Pacers get the two players they wanted in a Jermaine O’Neal deal–Odom and Bynum–but they don’t get the #19th pick that they also wanted from LA. I still think this is a pretty good deal for Indiana, because Odom’s deal expires one year earlier than O’Neal’s. They didn’t really expect the Lakers to give up Odom, Bynum, Kwame AND the #19th pick for Jermaine O’Neal and the rights to badly overpay Troy Murphy, did they?

Celtics: So what if Boston doesn’t get KG? They are still getting a big, AND they don’t have to part with Al Jefferson (the centerpiece of any KG-to-Boston deal)! In the (L)Eastern Conference, I’d go to war with Pierce, O’Neal, and Jefferson, even at the expense of the #5 pick and Theo Ratliff’s expiring contract. The only problem with this deal is, re-signing Jefferson after next season puts the Celtics close to luxury tax territory.

Wolves: Minnesota will get tons of cap space in this deal: Kwame’s $9 million deal and Ratliff’s $11 million deal come off the books next year. Also, Ricky Davis and Eddie Griffin come off the books; that’s almost another $10 million. They also get three top-20 picks: #5, #7, and #19, which they could use to draft two top prospects from the Noah-Green-Horford–if he were to still be on the board at #5, Minnesota would take him in a half-second–Yi-Brewer group, and a guard (Pruitt? Crittenton?). Conley could fall to them at #5, but it looks like Minnesota wants Randy Foye at the point. Yes, the Wolves would be in super-rebuilding mode, with Gerald Green, Randy Foye, and their three picks probably seeing major minutes.

Ford says that this deal may not appeal to Minnesota. I don’t see why it wouldn’t. Two draft picks, one intriguing player–Gerald Green–and tons of cap relief after next season has to be a better offer than anything the Knicks can offer, right? As long as Phoenix doesn’t chime in with a package revolving around Amare Stoudemire…

If I had to pick a winner in this deal, I’d pick the Lakers. Indiana gets Odom and Bynum, but their team probably won’t contend for a title unless the entire team overachieves next year to a great degree. Boston could be stuck in cap hell for a while, with Pierce and O’Neal’s deals and the pending pay raise to Al Jefferson. Minnesota gets tons of young talent and cap space, but cap space doesn’t do you any good unless you can use the cap space efficiently. And who knows how many of those draft picks will pan out? The Lakers, on the other hand, get a super-duperstar to pair with Kobe. And I don’t want to hear how KG’s on the downside of his career. He’s only 31, for crying out loud! If I had to pick a loser in this deal, yes, it would be Minnesota for the reasons mentioned above.

EDIT: So much for this trade rumor. Apparently the Los Angeles Times has reported that the deal will be a two team deal, between only LA and Minnesota. More on this tomorrow.

Next time: I’ll begin talking about the poker tourney, unless something else comes up.

by Peter
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Tomorrow’s blog will be spent talking about an online poker tournament that I took part in last night. First prize of the tournament was ~$200 plus $1,000 to be used on two tickets to a National Football League game, transportation, hotels, and spending cash. Second place was $100, and third was $50. There were a number of other prizes, but I was definitely aiming to win the tournament.

Did I win? Will I be taking a trip to an NFL game this fall? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

- One quick-hitter: I enjoy betting on the over/under of a game or event (ex: Over/under of the number of hot dogs Kobayashi will eat during this year’s Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest: 50. I think he’ll eat more than that, so I’d bet the “over.” If he eats more than 50 hot dogs, I win!).

That got me thinking: say I made a bet that some guy will finish “over” fifth place in some contest. Am I betting that he will finish better or worse than fifth place? In this case, I believe that “over” means “better,” so I say that betting the over means that I am expecting the guy to finish first, second, third, or fourth.

Apparently, the exact opposite is true, to the best of my knowledge: if I bet on the over, I’m predicting that the guy will finish worse than fifth. That makes no sense to me! I know Krunk has my back on this one; does anyone else agree with me?

- We spent the morning at the Wat Thai (Thai Temple) of Los Angeles, located in North Hollywood. My sister likes to go there every now and then, and she especially felt the need to go today to pray. I, on the other hand, enjoy going there for the food: skewered chicken and pork, duck noodle soup, spicy papaya salad, beef and pork meatballs, and a delicious dessert made with tapioca, water chestnuts, jack fruit, coconut, coconut milk, and a simple syrup (sugar + water). They also serve sweet sticky rice and fresh mangoes, which are to die for.

I noticed something strange at the Temple today: banners were all around the place, asking people to not take food off the premises; I forget what the actual wording of the sign said. I thought that was weird, and especially so after ordering some food, when the servers asked if I wanted the food to go. If they didn’t allow food taken off the premises, why could I opt to take the food to go?

We thought nothing of it, took our food, and sat down to eat. Maybe it was just me, but the food was exceptionally good today.

(Tangent: It’s a good thing that it wasn’t terribly hot today! Another mid-90s day, and I would have just stayed home.)

Afterwards, we went back to get some food to go, again wondering why the servers let us order food to go if the signs said otherwise. Of course, nobody stopped us as we got to the exit, and we were on our way.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Apologies if the blog entry sounds rushed; it was

by Peter
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