Back on the Radio

In case you missed it, I had a radio show with special guest Chris Reed last week, reviewing the tumultuous NBA offseason. Go here to listen.

Looking forward, I'm hoping to provide radio shows to preview all of the upcoming sports seasons (basketball, football, hockey). If you think you'd like to co-host, drop me a line at joe.joe.sports@gmail.com.

Finally, I'm looking at doing a "stretch run" fantasy baseball show. Again, if you'd like to co-host, let me know.

Vote in the poll!

With the #1 Overall Pick in the 2010 NBA Draft...

It's as if everything that Ted Leonsis touches turns to gold. He's brought the Capitals to national prominence (despite their early playoff exit this year), and now, as ownership of the Wizards is passing to him, Washington catches a break and wins the NBA draft lottery, gaining the #1 pick in this summer's draft.

The Wizards had the #1 pick once before, when they selected Kwame Brown in the 2001 draft. Among the other players taken in the first round of that draft: Tyson Chandler, Pau Gasol, Jason Richardson, Shane Battier, Joe Johnson, Richard Jefferson, Troy Murphy, Zach Randolph, Gerald Wallace, Samuel Dalembert, and Tony Parker. So, not the best job.

This time, however, it looks like the Wizards can't foul it up. Kentucky's John Wall looks like the consensus #1 overall pick, with Ohio State's Evan Turner the only other possibility. The locals, though, are all going for Wall. Less than an hour after the lottery, I saw over a dozen Facebook posts by people excited about the Wizards drafting John Wall. He's clearly the fan favorite, and while I do trust basketball people to know better who should be taken first overall, I think it's worth mentioning that, right after the NCAA season ended a couple years ago, Kevin Durant was the obvious #1 pick, only to be snubbed by Portland in favor of big man Greg Oden. How's that working out?

Take John Wall.

NCAA Tournament Expansion "Probable"

I read on ESPN today that Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany indicated that expansion of the NCAA men's basketball tournament from 65 to 96 was "probable." It sounds like a big mistake, for two major reasons.

First, the basketball side of things. Further diluting the tournament doesn't seem like my idea of making the tournament more fun. And you have to think that a lot of those teams will be the middle-of-the-pack power conference teams. I know that, because 14 of the 32 NIT teams were from BCS conferences. You'd also presumably be giving some teams a first round bye, which means that a lot of those bottom-seeded teams, the 14, 15, and 16 seeds, won't get a chance to play Kentucky or Duke. Instead, they'll have to face off against N.C. State or Dayton just to get a chance to get walloped.

Will it create the opportunity for more upsets? Sure. Siena has a much better chance of beating Northwestern than they do of beating Syracuse. But you watch because every once in a while, you get a game like Ohio vs. Georgetown this year, or Iowa State vs. Hampton from back in 2001. You watch because the upsets seem so improbable, and the big ones are so rare.

Additionally, from a business standpoint, I think expansion is a mistake. You've got a great thing going, where the first round games account for over a billion dollars in lost productivity, a tremendous amount of Internet traffic, a massive afternoon ratings boost for CBS, and probably increased business for sports bars and restaurants. It's essentially a sports fan's holiday. And I haven't heard any logical way for that excitement to be preserved in an expanded bracket.

Speaking of brackets, how on Earth are you going to fit 96 teams on one sheet of paper so you can cross off your picks as they (inevitably) get bounced?

The one thing that's been good about Delany's comment is the discussion it's prompted in the sports world. Doug Gottlieb has his opinion, all of my local sportscasters have theirs, and I had a discussion in the office today with a couple of co-workers about positives and negatives. One suggested that he'd be alright with adding more teams as long as there was some effort to ensure that most of those additional bids went to schools in small or mid-major conferences, and I echo his sentiment on that. Teams should have to earn their way into the tournament; Kent State (24-10, 13-3 in the MAC) accomplished more in 2009-2010 than N.C. State (20-16, 5-11 in the ACC), so they are more deserving of an NCAA tournament bid in my book.

One thing we can all agree on, though. Even 96 teams would be better than the BCS.

Sweet 16 Bracket

Yahoo's got a Second Chance Tournament Bracket that we can use to run our Sweet 16 bracket. Click here to join.

Apparently, March Is as Mad as Ever

So, you remember last week how I said, among other things, that talent generally bears out in the tournament? Well, either these lower seeded teams are more talented than I realized (not impossible), or I was simply wrong about how today's NCAA championship bracket plays out. The whole weekend was a kind of upset special, with particular shockers happening on Thursday and Saturday.

• Early Thursday, #13 Murray State hit a buzzer-beater to knock off #4 Vanderbilt, and the avalanche had begun. Before the day was over, two #6's and #3 Georgetown would all fall victim to upsets.
  
  
• Friday was mostly upset-free, but Ivy League champions Cornell blew #5 Temple out of the building.
  
  
• Saturday, the first #1 seed fell as Kansas lost to #9 Northern Iowa. Washington proved that the Pac-10 was under-estimated as they shrugged off their 11-seed and laid the lumber to #3 New Mexico. And as boldly predicted by ESPN's Digger Phelps, #10 St. Mary's kept Villanova on their heels all game, eventually pulling off the upset.
  
  
• On Sunday, things almost came back down to earth, but #12 Cornell ran roughshod over Wisconsin to make the Sweet 16, and #6 Xavier bounced #3 Pittsburgh in the battle of teams that most frequently disappoint their fans in the tournament. Don't count on the Musketeers to give Kansas State any trouble next round.
  

The best game of the weekend had to be #4 Maryland vs. #5 Michigan State on Sunday afternoon. The Spartans had the lead most of the game, often double-digits, but late in the second half, ACC Player of the Year Greivis Vasquez turned it on and brought his team all the way back. What followed was a series of back-and-forths with the lead changing hands several times. Vasquez made an off-balance runner with six seconds left to put the Terrapins up one, but those six seconds were too much time, as Michigan State was able to run back down the floor and nail a three-pointer at the buzzer to advance. It was disappointing, because it would've been nice for Maryland to have a deep run, but still a satisfying game to watch.

What can we take away from this weekend of insanity? Well, on a personal level, I wish I had watched a little more college basketball so that some of these upsets would have more weight to them. If I had watched Kansas a few times and appreciated how good they really are, the upset might have been more gratifying. And perhaps watching some Villanova games might have allowed me to see their front-court deficiencies, allowing me to make the same kind of prediction that Phelps made about St. Mary's.

More importantly, now that we've all watched some college basketball, and we think we know these tournament teams, let's do a Sweet 16 bracket. Post your predictions as a comment. Give your Elite Eight teams, then your Final Four teams, then your championship matchup and the victor.

To give you an example, here are my Sweet 16 predictions:

Elite Eight
Michigan State
Tennessee
Syracuse
Kansas State
Kentucky
Washington
Duke
Baylor

Final Four
Michigan State
Syracuse
Kentucky
Baylor

Championship
Syracuse
Kentucky

NCAA Champion
Kentucky

Wager? I'll leave that up for discussion. Could be money, could be a dare, or something else. Something really cool that I don't even know about.

What Does March Mean For The Slightly Less Mad?

I like the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament. I even used to get a little insane for it, creating journals of the impact players for each team and watching games every waking hour. I don't regret putting that time in, either, because college basketball was in its heyday when I was a youth. Some specific memories? Well, sure, I've got a few:

• Joe Smith helps Gary Williams take Maryland to the Sweet Sixteen and a 26-8 record in his first season on the job.
  
• Marcus Camby leads an upstart UMass team past my dad's alma mater Georgetown on their way to the Final Four in 1996.
• I watched UConn beat Duke in 1999 with the girl who would end up being my first girlfriend (hey, we remember what we remember).

But these days, I'm not quite so crazy about March. There's nothing wrong with the tournament; it's still a great format, and a ton of fun for people who like college basketball, or just like their alma maters, or just like gambling. The problem for me is that I don't really fall into any of those categories.

College basketball is entertaining enough, I suppose, but for all the points that are scored and plays that are made, basketball feels surprisingly slow to me. There seems to be an inordinate amount of dead time, particularly in the college game with a 35-second shot clock. And it's no surprise that basketball has become notorious for having no drama until the last five minutes. That's the point that fans can see strategies play out and plays drawn up. The problem, of course, is that if the game isn't within a few points, you see desperation fouls and bad shots at the end of the game. It's frustrating to see the worst basketball played at the most dramatic point in the game.

Regarding alma maters, maybe I'd be more into basketball if I went to Maryland or Pittsburgh or Georgetown, but I went to Penn State. The Nittany Lions, NIT champions last year, finished this year 11-20 and just 3-15 in the Big Ten. They have exactly one signature win in the past twenty years: a second-round upset of North Carolina in the 2001 NCAA Tournament. That puts them on par with teams like Wichita State and Hampton. But to be fair, I'm not rabid about Penn State football either, so it can't all be that the Lions stink.

Gambling is alright from time to time, but I can't usually bring myself to gamble on something I don't care about. And that's why I'll be losing $40 when the Washington Wizards don't win the Eastern Conference this year. Probably should've just bet on the Caps.

Has the lure of the NBA and its money sapped college basketball of top-tier talent? I'd say that's probably true. But I think that we were less aware of it when high school players immediately went into the draft. Players who had the option of going straight to the NBA out of high school and chose instead to go to college seemed to be more interested in college basketball, seemed to stay longer, and helped to create more of an identity for their universities.

I don't think forcing young players to spend a year in college (or in the case of Brandon Jennings, overseas) improves college basketball. I think it hinders the ability of coaches to imprint themselves on a team, and instead you see the most talented teams be successful, because chemistry and coaching aren't as much of a factor with teams that play 28 games together. That's why Kentucky is my pick to win it all. Not because John Calipari is a superior coach, but because he's a superior recruiter. In today's NCAA basketball, more often than not, the talent will bear out.

So, while I'm sure I'll watch my share of tournament basketball in 2010, I'm once again expecting to spend more time focused on baseball spring training, and tweaking my fantasy baseball roster getting ready for opening day, and trying to analyze the Washington Redskins offseason moves (or, so far, the lack thereof). I guess I'd better fill out a bracket all the same, though. It wouldn't be March if I didn't.

What to look forward to from Joe and Joe Sports this fall...

It's September, and football seasons have just kicked off. Baseball's regular season is screaming towards the finish line, and while St. Louis has the NL Central wrapped up, most of the other playoff spots are still up for grabs. College and pro basketball are on the horizon, and the NHL has already started having preseason games. Early autumn is perhaps the most exciting time in sports, and we're happy to say that it will also be an exciting time on Joe and Joe Sports.

If you've been a frequenter of our blog, you know a few things:

• You know that we're better writers than a lot of bloggers. Rather than quick blurbs with PhotoShopped pictures of players' heads on animals' bodies, we try to give you in-depth analysis that reads more like an article than a rant. We won't stop doing that.
• You know that we love baseball. We love the one-on-one competition between pitcher and batter, and we love the over-arching strategies that surround that competition. You can look forward to our postseason picks, both for the MLB playoffs and for the various award-winners in baseball for 2009. And I could maybe see us having another argument or two.
  
• You know we love our home teams. You've probably seen that I've revived the Redskins Report Card feature, and I'll keep that going all season again. Meanwhile, I know my partner in crime has been working on a post about his beloved Cleveland Browns. As different as our two cities might be, we share a fatalist desperation that all true sports fans should feel. I'll let him tell you about his when he's ready.
• You know it's been forever since we had a radio show. We know it, too.
• And lastly, you know that we're conceited, self-absorbed, arrogant bastards. Oh. Well, if you didn't, you do now.

We'll have all of that and a whole lot more as the leaves begin to change. Got any ideas or requests? Email us at joe.joe.sports@gmail.com.

NBA Draft Debriefing 2009 Part 2: How Did They Do?

Now that we've addressed how those of us who don't get paid anything did in their draft day projections, let's look at how those who get paid millions did. We'll split this business into a couple of Top 5 lists, since that's how I like to look at things.

Top 5 Picks (quality and value)

1. Blake Griffin, Clippers, #1 overall. Sometimes, the best pick you can make is the one everyone knows you're going to do anyways. I don't want to repeat myself too much, but suffice it to say that I think he'll be a big time player in the NBA.
2. DeJuan Blair, Spurs, #37 overall. I stand by my statement that Blair was worth taking in the top 10. Getting a top 10 guy in the second round is awesome.
3. Ty Lawson, Nuggets (from Timberwolves), #18 overall. Lawson is a gamer, and it looks like he'll have plenty of teams to show up. In Denver, he can be a star, a perfect transition piece from Chauncey Billups.
4. Brandon Jennings, Bucks, #10 overall. The more I've seen of Jennings, and after seeing a brief interview with him last night, I'm sold. There's no doubt in my mind he can be as good as any point guard in this draft.
5. Jordan Hill, Knicks, #8 overall. The Knicks were undoubtedly disappointed that Stephen Curry got swiped one pick ahead of them, but I think I've got Hill ahead of Curry in terms of potential. People worry about Hill's commitment, but I think the Knicks got a guy who could explode...in a good way.

Top 5 Trades (quality and value)

1. Spurs acquire Richard Jefferson from Bucks for Bruce Bowen, Kurt Thomas, and Fabricio Oberto. The Spurs basically traded two crummy big men and Bowen for a dramatic improvement over Bowen. Lots of teams will cite "financial flexibility" when they make trades; I prefer to look at "getting better" as the main factor.
2. Wizards acquire Randy Foye and Mike Miller from Timberwolves for the #5 pick (Ricky Rubio), Etan Thomas, Darius Songaila, and Oleksiy Pecherov. I like Songaila as bench depth, but the other two guys were just bodies. Rubio might make this deal look silly later, but by adding Foye and Miller, Washington now has five proven scorers. Do something, Flip.
3. Magic acquire Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson from Nets for Courtney Lee, Rafer Alston, and Tony Battie. Lee was a solid producer for Orlando last year, but Alston is a constant headache. Carter, for all his flashiness, is a reliable scorer who can also fill up the rest of the stat sheet.
4. Knicks acquire Darko Milicic from Grizzlies for Quentin Richardson and cash. Richardson had become an overpaid underperformer in a crowded backcourt. Milicic gives the Knicks a solid defender with decent hands who can start fast breaks in Mike D'Antoni's high-powered offense.
5. Cavaliers acquire Shaquille O'Neal from Suns for Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, Cavs' 2010 second round pick, and $500,000. I'm not in the camp that thinks Shaq is going to be the difference in Cleveland, but he's certainly better than Ben Wallace. Moreover, he's got a $20 million contract that ends after this upcoming season, so even if he's a total bust, he'll have value for teams like Memphis, who'll undoubtedly be looking to shed more payroll, just as soon as they find any.

I'd like to write a section about the Wizards, and perhaps I'll get an article together in the future, but if I were to write it now, it'd basically just be re-hashing the Mike Miller trade and the passing on DeJuan Blair. Let's wait a little while for some new news. See you next year, NBA draft.

NBA Draft Debriefing 2009 Part 1: How Did We Do?

The NBA draft is in the books, and while the talent level of the players available in this draft may not be as exciting as it was in past seasons, the amount of talent that changed teams over the past week is astonishing. We'll start with a review of my picks and how they compare to what actually happened. The number after the player is how early or late I was in picking them. A plus sign means I was early, a minus sign means I had them going later.

1. Clippers - My pick: Blake Griffin. Correct!
   
2. Grizzlies - My pick: Ricky Rubio. +3
   
3. Thunder - My pick: Hasheem Thabeet. -1
   
4. Kings - My pick: Jordan Hill. +4
5. Timberwolves - My pick: Tyreke Evans. -1
   
6. Timberwolves - My pick: Stephen Curry. +1
7. Warriors - My pick: DeJuan Blair. +1...ROUND
8. Knicks - My pick: James Harden. -5
9. Raptors - My pick: DeMar DeRozan. Correct!
   
10. Bucks - My pick: Gerald Henderson. +2
11. Nets - My pick: Jrue Holiday. +6
12. Bobcats - My pick: Brandon Jennings. -2
13. Pacers - My pick: Terrence Williams. -2
14. Suns - My pick: Austin Daye. +1

So obviously DeJuan Blair was my big misread. How he managed to slip through all those teams at the bottom of the first round is utterly beyond me. I knew I put him higher on my projections than most mock drafts had him, but the fact that no playoff team thought he was worth their first round pick is astonishing.

Jeff Van Gundy said all night that maybe the most reliably predictable aspect of a game is rebounding, and Blair was a monster on the boards. He's long, he's strong, and he's got a serious motor. No joke, when the Wizards passed on Blair with their second round pick, I felt like I was watching a championship piece slip through their fingers. And of course, the San Antonio Spurs were happy to gobble him up at pick 37.

The other surprise for me was Jonny Flynn going at number six to Minnesota. He's undersized even for a point guard, and you simply don't find many NBA stars who are undersized. I honestly like Ty Lawson more than Flynn. Time will tell whether I'm seeing this correctly, but I stand by my mock.

Other than Blair and Flynn, though, I think we here at Joe & Joe did a pretty good job of handicapping the draft. We got two lottery picks correct, four more we missed by just one slot, and two more by just two slots. That's pretty good in my book.

Part 2 of our 2009 NBA Draft Debriefing will look at how teams tried to improve themselves through the draft, as well as through trades in the days leading up to the draft. And I'll probably bring up DeJuan Blair seven or eight more times. See you then.

NBA Draft Preview 2009

I may not be as tuned in to college basketball as I once was, and I have never known anything about international basketball, but as always, I'm more than happy to talk about a topic I have no business talking about. As such, let's dive right into my 2009 NBA draft predictions!

I'll just be covering the lottery. "My hypocrisy only goes so far."

1. The Los Angeles Clippers select Blake Griffin, forward from the University of Oklahoma. No surprise here, Griffin is the highest caliber player in this draft by a wide margin. Most analysts I've heard talk about Griffin say he'll be a fine player, but never a star. He's still got work to do on his offensive game, but he's got the best hands I've seen in five years in the draft. A guy that strong and with those rebounding instincts won't be able to help being a double-double producer on a daily basis. I expect him to be a star.
2. The Memphis Grizzlies select Ricky Rubio, guard from Spain. There's talk about other players at this pick, but I really think the Grizzlies will look at Rubio as the most talented guy available, and since they're not exactly brimming with talent in Memphis, they'll grab him. He doesn't have tremendous physical skills, but at point guard, you need instincts and polish, and despite being only 18, Rubio has both in spades. Could end up being the best player from this draft.
3. The Oklahoma City Thunder select Hasheem Thabeet, center from the University of Connecticut. Thabeet is a junior, but he's still extremely raw. He's got good physical skills and surprising touch on his shot, but he'll be drafted mostly based on his defensive upside. He's 7'3" with long arms, but he'll have to work better on his positioning at the next level, because he won't always be a half-foot taller than his opponents anymore. He's a ways off from knowing what to do on offense, but he's capable of becoming a very solid two-way player.
4. The Sacramento Kings select Jordan Hill, forward from the University of Arizona. Talk about a team with needs all over the place. While SG James Harden is more of a known commodity, the Kings don't need the safe pick. They need to hit the jackpot. Hill would give Sacramento three recently drafted interior players, and you have to think one of them will pan out. He's got a lot of potential, but right now is just an athlete. His development will depend heavily on his commitment to improving. If he's game for it, though, Hill could be as good as Amare Stoudemire.
5. The Minnesota Timberwolves select Tyreke Evans, guard from the University of Memphis. Minnesota really just needs players, especially after trading Randy Foye and Mike Miller, but Evans happens to fit a particular weakness at point guard. He's big, athletic, and can create his own shot. There are attitude concerns, specifically that he likes being a one-man show, but I don't generally put too much stock in "character" in the NBA; they're all so young that it's unfair to judge them. And say what you will about Evans being a ball-hog, but his teams were successful, which is all that matters.
6. The Minnesota Timberwolves select Stephen Curry, guard from Davidson College. This is all assuming the Timberwolves don't make some sort of trade on draft day, which seems more and more likely every day. Curry's stock has risen steadily since the end of the NCAA season, and while they say you can always teach someone to shoot better, it's nice to not have to. Curry still has work to do to become a legitimate point guard and avoid becoming a Stephon Marbury on the court, but he can shoot so well that he should be able to become a scorer for Minnesota immediately.
   
7. The Golden State Warriors select DeJuan Blair, forward from the University of Pittsburgh. I've seen Blair fall as late as 21 in mock drafts, but he seems to be a perfect fit for the Warriors. They're overloaded with backcourt and wing players, and while Andris Biedrins is a solid big man, they've got nobody to complement him. Blair is strong and plays with big time energy. He may need some conditioning to keep him going over the longer and rougher pro game, but he can give Golden State worthwhile minutes right away.
8. The New York Knicks select James Harden, guard from Arizona State University. Harden is a polished player who can fit into a lot of offenses. He's got a good ability to get to the hoop, and I've seen him go all the way up to #2 in mock drafts. I think his limited upside will make some teams sour on him, but he can certainly be a contributor going forward. Rarely do the Knicks make value picks, usually electing to go outside of convention to get their picks, but I think if Harden somehow slips this far, New York has an easy pick.
   
9. The Toronto Raptors select Demar DeRozan, guard from the University of Southern California. DeRozan is another guy who's seen his draft stock fluctuate as we get close to the big day. He jumped a lot after workouts, then teams cooled a little as they continued to watch college film. Right now, he's really just an athlete, and in the short term will allow as many points as he scores. Still, he could develop into a great wing guard, and while his range will never scare anyone, he's got the tools to take over games down the road.
   
10. The Milwaukee Bucks select Gerald Henderson, guard from Duke University. The Bucks just traded Richard Jefferson for some big men who won't be around in a year. They'll need someone to play a G/F position for them for the foreseeable future, and Henderson fits pretty well. He won't ever be a big time scorer, but like most Blue Devils, he's got good fundamentals and plays good defense. He's a smart player who projects to a high caliber sixth man on a good team, or the third best player on the Bucks.
11. The New Jersey Nets select Jrue Holiday, guard from UCLA. The Nets feature a point guard who has just started to come into his own (Devin Harris), so why would they grab another potential point guard in Holiday? Well first, this draft is very guard-heavy at the top. If you draft a forward here, you're giving up a good amount of value. Second, Harris and Holiday both sort of play like shooting guards, so you can work around the perception that you've got two point guards. Holiday is raw, and won't become Allen Iverson, but his upside might be Andre Miller, someone both of us Joe's just love.
12. The Charlotte Bobcats select Brandon Jennings, guard from Italy. Jennings is the nightmare for the NBA and NCAA hoops; he told the league to take their "one-and-done" system and shove it, playing in Europe for a year after graduating high school. He honed his skills against professional competition, and now he's draft-eligible. The Bobcats will look at Johnny Flynn here as well, but they've already got a point guard who shows poor shot selection and is prone to turnovers. I think they'd rather roll the dice with a potential star in Jennings.
13. The Indiana Pacers select Terrence Williams, guard from Louisville University. Williams is sort of an anomaly among college athletes. He's a great defender with questionable scoring ability. On a team that needed scorers, Williams would be a bad fit, but on Indiana, he can slide into a role immediately and take time to work on his offensive game. I don't think Williams will ever be a star, but my guess is he ends up on a lot of winning teams due to his work ethic and intensity.
    
14. The Phoenix Suns select Austin Daye, forward from Gonzaga University. Daye doesn't have much of a defensive presence, but he and Robin Lopez could give Phoenix a pleasant inside combo. The more guys you can work into a frontcourt rotation to keep Shaq healthy and fresh, the more frequently Shaq will be able to take over games. Daye is more of a wing player, but he's tall enough (6'10") that he can block passing lanes and disrupt things on the interior. Daye is a better fit on the 2004 Suns team than he will be on the 2009 one, but he'll still be solid.
    

In doing these projections, I've started to see why teams are always willing to take chances on power forwards and centers. There's never any depth at frontcourt positions in the draft, so when you see a guy who you think could pan out, you lunge at him. That's why I expect DeJuan Blair to be scooped up early this year, and why I probably made a mistake not projecting someone to take a chance on B.J. Mullens in the lottery. It's just tough to find good big men these days.

Tune in Thursday night to see how things pan out. Even with the Wizards out of the first round, I'm still excited. What can I say? I just love the NBA draft.

Wizards Lose Lottery Again

I guess by this point we really shouldn't be surprised, but the Washington Wizards have managed to fail in the draft lottery once again. The Sacramento Kings suffered the greatest disappointment, receiving the 4th pick despite having the league's worst record, but the Wizards' bad news was almost predictable. Even when they don't get dropped in the lottery, they manage to find a way to lose. Let's roll the video tape of the past ten years:

2004 - The Wizards have the 3rd worst record in the NBA, but the lottery pushes the Clippers ahead of them, and the expansion Bobcats take the #2 pick, dropping Washington to the #5 pick. The selection there is Devin Harris, who is traded to Dallas along with Jerry Stackhouse and Christian Laettner for Antawn Jamison. Jamison has ended up being a solid acquisition, thankfully, though it looks like Harris would've been fine as well.

2003 - Washington held the league's tenth worst record, and the draft lottery went pretty much according to plan, giving the Wizards the tenth pick. So while the earlier teams were drafting LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, Chris Kaman, Kirk Hinrich, and T.J. Ford, the Wizards brought Jarvis Hayes to town. Later selections included David West (18), Boris Diaw (21), and Josh Howard (29). Oops.

2002 - Once again, the Wizards hold steady at their prescribed pick (#11). This time, though, it's as if the intriguing players disappear literally right before the Wizards' selection. The last two interesting pieces to go off the board were Amare Stoudemire at nine and Caron Butler at ten (who the Wizards thankfully acquired two trades and several years later). Washington's selection? Jared Jeffries. Try not to vomit.

2001 - Ahh, the year when everything should've fallen right. The Wizards were the third worst team in the NBA, but a couple friendly (?) bounces of the ping pong balls and Washington had the number one pick. This was, of course, a year in which there was no surefire NBA talent, with the closest thing being #6 pick Shane Battier. The eventual top four picks were three high-schoolers (the Wizards' #1 overall pick Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, and Eddy Curry) and a European player (Pau Gasol). The only saving grace of drafting Brown, who was a bust on multiple levels, was that we were somehow able to trade him for Caron Butler a few years later. I still don't know why the Lakers were willing to do that trade, but I guess when you have Kobe Bryant, you think everything you touch turns to gold, and Kwame was always a guy high on potential.

2000 - Though the Wizards' pick was traded, it was top three protected, but with the 6th worst record in the league, they weren't likely to hold on to it. They ended up at number seven, and the Bulls received the pick. FYI, they took Chris Mihm with that pick.

1999 - And finally, ten years ago, the Wizards had a nice turn of events on draft day. While they dropped from sixth to seventh as a result of Charlotte lucking into the #3 pick (and Baron Davis), Washington was able to nab Richard Hamilton. He was a productive scorer for the Wizards for several years, and ended up being one of three former Wizards/Bullets to be in the starting lineup for the 2003-2004 NBA Champion Detroit Pistons (Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace were the other two).

The early draft projections have Arizona State guard James Harden or Arizona forward Jordan Hill going to the Wizards, but I've also heard that the Wizards' cap situation has them itching to trade the pick if they can. All I can say is that the $120 million man Gilbert Arenas had better be healthy this season, or public opinion may turn in a hurry. With Arenas healthy, the Wizards are a playoff team. If he can't stay on the court again, we're probably looking at another bottom 5 finish.

Re-Seeding: A Really Stupid Idea

I was discussing the NHL playoffs with a friend, and he mentioned that the teams in the Eastern Conference who had won their series already would have to wait until Tuesday night to find out who they'll play in the second round. I was confused, and asked for clarification: "What are you talking about? The Bruins were the #1 seed, the Penguins the #4 seed. They'll play each other."

"No," he says. "If the Rangers beat the Caps, they'll play the Bruins. Otherwise, the Bruins will play the winner of the other game." I was astonished. The NHL re-seeds teams after the first round. The NFL does the same thing and I don't like it. I enjoy being able to fill in a bracket when talking about playoff predictions. I like being able to map out the "road to the Super Bowl" for different teams, and with re-seeding, you can't really do that until after the first round games have been played.

What are the advantages of re-seeding? No, seriously, I'm asking. What does it do? It ensures that the highest-seeded team remaining will play the lowest-seeded team remaining in the second round. So, for example, if Anaheim completes the upset against #1 seeded San Jose, their reward will be to head to Detroit and face off against the third best team in hockey this season. I think that's just dumb. By beating San Jose, the Ducks should earn the opportunity to play against the 4/5 winner, not the opportunity to get thrown up against the boards by the Red Wings.

And that's not even the best argument against re-seeding your playoff teams. Think about the best postseason in sports: the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament. You may know it as March Madness, and it's one of the most widespread and exciting playoff in the world. Everyone fills out a bracket (or twelve), everyone checks scores all day long at work, everyone goes out to bars and restaurants to watch some of the games, everyone has something to talk about to everyone else between Selection Sunday and the national championship on Monday, three weeks later. It's as important as the Super Bowl when it comes to market penetration into people's everyday lives.

Now, add in a re-seeding mechanism, where #1 seeds would play the lowest seed remaining in their bracket. What happens? You lose the brackets. You lose the opportunity to project matchups through the middle rounds, because you don't know who will be playing who. By making that change, you'd be essentially crippling the marketing machine that is Bracketology. There is, of course, no way it would ever happen, but for some reason, the NHL and NFL have both decided it's a good idea. I just don't see how you gain anything from it, and you take away a little of the sports talk radio discussion you could have on it, by eliminating the possibility of a "full playoff preview show," where the commentators predict the playoffs all the way through.

Hmm...sports talk radio discussion...we'll have to get into that again sometime.

How To Get Kids To Stay In School

In case you forget, here's the draft projections that I suggested might hold the key to keeping kids in school.

Check out those salaries. In case you were unaware, players selected in the NBA draft have pre-determined salaries. They are assigned 2-year contracts with 2 more years as team options. Derrick Rose, last year's #1 overall pick, will average under $5 million a year over the first four years of his career. Corey Maggette, a career 16.3 point-per-game scorer who's thirty years old and hasn't started 70 games in any of the past five seasons, signed a contract last offseason that will pay him an average of $9.5 million a year over next five years. Rose, by the way, is averaging 16.6 points per game in this, his rookie, season.

The discrepancy here is that incoming college players don't get to negotiate their contracts; they're assigned a value. In this small part of the American economy, capitalism is completely ignored. In the sport where one player can make the biggest difference, and where the teams at the bottom of the draft are in more desperate need of superstar talents, those superstar talents are not being allowed to negotiate within the market to try to obtain their true value. I believe that this is contributing to the exodus of great college players from college basketball. How? I'll try to draw you the line.

I am a very good college freshman basketball player. I'm not the best player around, but everyone likes me and I'm sure to go around pick #15. In the current draft system, I'll make about $1.7 million a year for the first couple of years, then be eligible for free agency. As long as I play well and show promise, I'll get at least $5 million a year, and potentially a good deal more if I can really excel in my role. I don't have to be a superstar, because I'm young, and it takes time for people my age to grow into their NBA bodies.

I could stay another year and improve my draft stock to around #8, but the advantage is only $700K per year for those first four years. Sure that's a lot of money, but it keeps me another year away from my big payday. A little chart to compare (option A is to stay in college another year; option B is to leave now):

• 2010: A - $0, B - $1.7M
• 2011: A - $2.1M, B - $1.85M
• 2012: A - $2.35M, B - $2.0M
• 2013: A - $2.5M, B - $2.55M
• 2014: A - $3.2M, B - FREE AGENCY

It makes better financial sense to leave now, because I'm four years away from free agency once I go pro, and hitting free agency is when I can actually make my money. The sooner I hit free agency, the better. Every year I stay in college is a year when I'm lengthening the amount of time it's going to take for me to obtain my actual basketball worth.

Do I think this is the only factor? No, of course not. Lots of players don't want to go to school at all, but end up doing so for a year because the NBA created a rule requiring players to be 19 to be eligible for the draft. This rule again is artificially skewing the market. Who exactly is our cautionary tale among high school players? Certainly not Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Kevin Garnett, or Kobe Bryant, for these players are all superstars. Then perhaps it's the ill-fated 2001 crop of high schoolers: Kwame Brown, Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, and Sagana Diop. Well, each of them is making at least $4 million this year.

No, this isn't for the good of the players. It's an image thing. The average, ignorant American thinks that it's "wrong" for an 18-year-old to be making millions of dollars, so they shout about how these kids should be forced to go to school, "for their benefit." All of the cries were that these kids should be forced to go to school because, hey, maybe they actually want to go to school; we're just giving them an easy way out. Turns out they all stay one year and then head to the pros anyways. So now, the discussion has moved to a 20-year-old minimum age.

If your goal is to have a greater number of people enrolled as freshman in college, then the 19-year-old limitation is a great idea. But if your idea is to re-establish the continuity that made college basketball great for so many years (which is really all I care about), then allowing elite high school players to enter the NBA draft will prevent them from being the one-and-done players who skew college basketball from year to year (see the aforementioned Rose).

Do I wish the best 18- to 22-year-old basketball players were all playing college basketball and helping to make the NCAA tournament as good as its ever been? Of course I do. But I'd rather watch the same sons of bitches at Duke for four years than get annoyed at a new bunch of bastards at UNC every year. So open up the contract negotiations, and let high schoolers go into the NBA draft. We'll get over ourselves eventually.

Anyone Else Miss The Old Tournament?

Remember back in the day, when there were superstar juniors and seniors in the NCAA tournament? Just a few years back in 2002 when Maryland won the title, their team featured a starting lineup with three seniors (Juan Dixon, Byron Mouton, Lonny Baxter), one junior (Steve Blake), and one sophomore (Chris Wilcox). Even in 2005, the North Carolina Tar Heels had two seniors and (Jackie Manuel and Jawad Williams) and three juniors (Ray Felton, Rashad McCants, Sean May) as their starters.

But the past few years have been most notable by the fact that the best players in college basketball stay for a single season and then go pro. We all understand the reasoning: money. And I don't think many of us are mad at the kids themselves for wanting to get paid to ply their craft; we're just mad that college basketball doesn't feature the long-term superstars these days. Tyler Hansbrough gets made fun of constantly, because he's stayed at North Carolina for four years. The talk is that he's "not good enough" to go pro, and the NBA draft preview sites concur.

Here's one more draft projection, and this is the one I want you to look at. When I was browsing around to see who my lowly Wizards might take in this year's NBA draft, a piece of data on here stood out to me. I think it might actually be the key to encouraging college players to stay in college. Can you spot it?

Stay tuned, I'll post my idea at the end of the tournament.

Madness

I'm not talking about a semi-permanent, severe mental disorder typically stemming from a form of mental illness (thanks Wikipedia). Nor am I talking about the British ska band made famous for "Our House."

No, I'm talking about the fanaticism that captures the nation this time of year: March Madness. There are a hundred different ways I can approach this topic. I'm not going to go into any of them. Listen, the reality is that I don't know a whole lot about college basketball, and I know less now than I've known in the past. The best players only stay for a year or two, which means that some of the lesser-known schools with senior leaders have a greater opportunity for success than in the 80s and 90s (see George Mason from a couple years ago). The moving on of the most talented players means I pay less attention, because the rewards only exist for a couple months, then they're riding the pine in the NBA, and I'm back to knowing nothing about the players on Texas or UConn.

What I am is a casual fan of college basketball who loves tournament time. I love the "underdog," as do most Americans, and the great stories like Davidson last year are what make watching the tournament so exciting. The possibility that a 10 seed from a no-name conference can rumble to the round of eight is a great, great thing. One of the amazing things about most of the first round matchups involving 1-4 seeds is that almost every neutral party in the arena or at a bar will be rooting like crazy for the 13-16 seeds. As a country, we root for Hickory High School. We root for Rudy (even those of us who wish Notre Dame would implode). The NCAA Tournament gives Americans twenty or thirty chances to root for underdogs.

Well, except for this season. This season, 30 of the 34 at-large bids went to teams from power conferences (also known as BCS conferences). Four teams from mid-major and small conferences were invited as at-large teams, down from six in each of the two previous years. The selection committee chose Arizona over Saint Mary's, which seems to be the most derided choice this season. I don't know enough about either team to say which is the better squad, though my guess would be Arizona. But I don't (and can't) know that for sure. All I know is that I have a lot tougher time seeing #12 seeds Wisconsin or Arizona as Hickory High than I would have with Saint Mary's or San Diego State. And that makes the tournament less fun to watch, which is all I care about. Thanks a lot, committee.

Don't forget, you can go here to see how Joe and Joe picked and how we're doing when compared with fans of Joe and Joe Sports.

Joe and Joe Sports NCAA Tournament Bracket

Like most sports fans, we find the NCAA Men's college basketball tournament to be an exciting time of the year. The best part of the tournament is filling out a bracket and, as a result, caring about every single game in the tournament. Sure, you'll still cheer for 16th seeds to pull off the greatest upset in tournament history, but if you've got UNC winning it all, you'll (perhaps secretly) be pulling for them nearly every round.

The unofficially official Joe and Joe Sports tournament bracket is accessible here, on ESPN.com. Join up and compare your choices with ours. Any ideas for what we should give the winner of our bracket? Post them in the comments.

Please note: cash is not an option. We're broke.

Ty Lawson is staying at UNC.

http://www.tylawson.org/steele.php

Unfortunately, it looks like Ty Lawson won't be available when the Wizards draft at the 18th pick in the NBA's 2008 draft this Thursday night. Current projections have the Wizards going big at their pick, selecting either Roy Hibbert, the center out of Georgetown or Darrell Arther, power forward from Kansas. Neither of them makes the team substantially better, but I guess that's what happens when you're at the beginning of the non-lottery portion of the draft. You get okay players and just stay around the 12th best team in the NBA.

Tournament "Home" Games

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a Georgetown fan. The collapse on Sunday against Davidson was brutal, but to those of us who watched the Big East championship game against Pittsburgh, not altogether unpredictable. Also, as a Minnesota Vikings fan, I'm used to my favorite teams coming up short in important games.

But I do have a problem with (at least) one aspect of the NCAA tournament committee and their rules. There's this idea that teams can't play on their own home court, regardless of seed. That's lovely, and I get that you shouldn't have most teams play on their home courts. But #1 and #2 seeds have earned the right to play some games in "their house." With at least one set of games almost always in North Carolina (one first round and second round set this year), it's obvious that Duke or UNC is going to get what essentially constitutes a home game if they grab a #1 seed. Nobody has really questioned the fact that UNC doesn't have to leave the state of North Carolina until the Final Four, but Georgetown and Duke played on courts substantially closer to their opponents' schools.

Davdison is just over 100 miles from Raleigh, where they faced Georgetown. Georgetown's campus, meanwhile, is 250 miles away. And the "in-state" versus "out-of-state" difference is more substantial than you might think. When #15 Coppin State defeated #2 South Carolina in 1997, I didn't care where in Maryland Coppin State was located, just that a Maryland team had pulled a big upset. At these games, where the underdogs already get extra cheers, an in-state team will get even more support, and the only people cheering for Georgetown on Sunday were students, alumni, and people who had a lot of money riding on the Hoyas.

I include Duke in this argument because I really hate Duke, and I hope their inclusion will give some merit to my point of view. Duke is only about 80 miles farther from Washington, D.C. than West Virginia, but DC happens to be very close to College Park, where the University of Maryland takes residence. You'll be hard-pressed to find a Maryland fan who wouldn't cheer for a North Korean team against Duke.

But then where should these #2 seeds played? How about at each other's locations? Put Georgetown on their home floor in DC, and let Duke play down the street from their campus at N.C. State's gym in Raleigh. The "pod" system from a few years ago that has apparently been scrapped wasn't a bad idea. Giving the top 4 seeds in the tournament the opportunity to play in front of friendly crowds was a reasonable goal, and generally an attainable one. I get that the logistics behind scheduling true home games for these teams on 2-4 days notice is daunting, but when you've already got the locations booked, I think the tournament committee should do their best to put those top seeds in their local regions.

Would it have made a difference if Sunday's game was played in DC? Maybe, maybe not. Stephen Curry is obviously a tremendous talent, and it seemed like he became unstoppable when he figured out Georgetown's defense in the second half. And even in DC, you'd find a lot of those classic underdog fans, so Davidson would still get plenty of cheers. So maybe I'd still be lamenting the Hoyas' lack of second half defense and frustratingly frequent turnovers today. And it certainly looked like West Virginia was simply the better team against Duke.

But as it stands, #1 and #2 seeds are only marginally valuable in that you get a very winnable first round matchup. An entire season of extremely high caliber performance should warrant a little bit of accommodation in the championship tournament. And make no mistake, your #2 seeds were all tremendous teams this season. Georgetown, Texas, and Tennessee all won at least a share of their conference's regular season titles, and Duke won 27 games and finished the ACC regular season behind only the overall #1 seed in North Carolina.

In most other sports, you get to play at least your early postseason games in your own gym/stadium. It's not unreasonable that NCAA basketball go in a similar direction.

Basketball (not Base-ketball)

This week's episode of Joe & Joe Sports will focus on hoops in America, and we'll get into both professional and college basketball. But not women's basketball. Come on.

As a treat, we've got a guest expert to talk about NCAA basketball, which is good because neither of us Joe's are experts on that topic....or any topic, really. Anyways, it's a step in a positive direction for our show. Speaking of positive steps for the show, don't forget you can e-mail the show any questions or comments at joe.joe.sports@gmail.com, and in all likelihood, we'll respond to your e-mail on the air, since we don't really have any independent thoughts.

And remember, you can always listen to any old episodes by using the link to the right.