buddha

i know this makes me a bad person and a hater, but seeing the leafs in last place just makes me happy.

22 minutes ago, Betrayer said:

They score a lot of points in the paint, but I think Del was pointing out that they shoot a poor percentage from the paint as well. They win games because they win the possession battle by forcing turnovers, getting offensive rebounds, and limiting opponents shots. Offensive efficiency is a real problem for this team in nearly every phase of the game, even from the free throw line.

if you are going to bet on duren's continued development and give him a big deal this summer, you better use those draft picks to find an athletic shooter who can take some of the load of cade.  they cant continue to exist with zero spacing.

ausar is great but cant shoot.

holland tries hard but cant shoot.

ivey means well but hasnt recovered from getting cheap shotted...and cant shoot.

this is the group that was destined to be your core.  you found your star in cade, now use your future picks to get a pippen to his jordan.

8 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

True, but saying that one team spends a lot without winning isn't evidence that having the extensive funds to purchase talent doesn't give an advantage. 

In the last six years, yes they have. Between 2001-2019 they've always been in the bottom half, and usually in the mid or low 20s. Regardless, the point here isn't that small markets can't spend more... they can and should be spending more! Rather the small market teams can't equal the amount the major market teams spend consistently. And what handouts are being given to them with the luxury tax aren't controlled in anyway to force them to use that to better their team.

Are you saying these are small market teams that also spend? Honestly not sure if I'm understanding that right. If I am I'll run the numbers over the last 25 years for them as well. (For the record I don't consider Detroit really a small market.)

My argument is that it's not that simple. I would agree that that is PART of the problem, yes, definitely. But only part. If you and I have a competition to see who can sell more magazine subscriptions but I'm allowed to talk to 10,000 people and you're only allowed to talk to 1,000 people, I'm probably going to sell more subscriptions, even if your sales pitch is better.

i dont really agree with any of this.

1) i disagree with the basic theory behind it, which appears to be that every team needs to be on an "equal playing field" or a "more equal playing field."  i believe you should be rewarded for success and punished for failure, not the american sports way, which is to reward failure (the ability to get the best young talent at an extremely cheap price) and punish success (the more you spend on labor, the more you have to pay a penalty).  so we will never agree because i value this more than you.

2) historically, teams that dont spend can also win.  the royals won.  the rays were in the world series.  the brewers and cleveland won divisions.  lower payroll teams can and DO compete.  and win!  the current system allows them to do so.  it does a really good job of it, quite frankly.

i dont care that small payroll teams dont win every year, or every other year, or even once every five years, but they DO WIN.  And they are in the playoffs every season, winning divisions over much higher payroll teams.

the yankees didnt win every year in the 80s, 90s, and 00s when they had the highest payroll and the dodgers likely wont win every single year either.  and even if they did, i'd be fine with it, just like i'm fine woth baseball in the 1950s when the yankees DID almost win every year.

3) higher payroll teams can make up for mistakes easier.  sure.  they can sign big, fancy free agents like juan soto, alex bregman, aaron judge, gerrit cole, or xander bogaerts that supposedly guaranteed championships but turned out not to. 

4) competing and not winning is ok.  sport is fun because it's sport.  and baseball is better when it has a villain to root against.  

26 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

Give me Rob Thomas!!!

Also, for harder-to-play forwards with some offense... Could the Columbia Blue Jackets be talked out of Marchenko? Or Voronkov? Or both?

I realize I'm talking significant packages here...

But I would trade Danielson for Thomas. Plus other pieces and draft picks.

And MBN for Marchenko. Plus other pieces and draft picks.

I dream of a 2nd line with Voronkov-Thomas-Marchenko!

Just my 2 cents.

thomas is a 26 year old, in his prime, talented two way center with tons of compete signed to a very very team friendly deal.  why would st louis trade him?

and if they did, why would they trade him for nate danielson - a prospect rated by most in the back end of the top 100 prospects - and a pick likely to be in the 20s (if the wings got thomas)?

i dont see it.  you'd have to throw in genborg and/or mbn plus a pick to even consider it.  this isnt quinn hughes, thomas is SIGNED.  hughes was going to walk for nothing.  you'd have to blow st louis away.

if i'm st louis, i start the bidding at seider.  detroit won't do that.  but then i say edvinsson and danielson and a #1.  

that said, i hope youre right.  i'd love to have thomas, even if that's not what detroit needs.  detroit needs a top 4 defenseman more than it needs a center.

1 hour ago, slothfacekilla said:

Friedman saying that the Wings and Jets are talking, thinks Stanley and his cohost said maybe Schenn.

 

Not super thrilled by either guy

🤮

3 hours ago, RedRamage said:

Just for the fun of it, while I was looking at those numbers for my previous post, I also looked at the lowest MLB payroll as a percentage of the highest:

I expected to see much more of a downward trend, but it it looks like it's stay semi-consistent. I mean, obviously there's a lot of fluctuation year to year, but for the past 25 years, with a few exceptions, it's always been between 10 and 30%.

Now, imho that range, even at the best of times when it was around 30%, is WAAAAYYYY too big of a gap.

why?  baseball owners are billionaires, why shouldnt they have to pay the product?

3 hours ago, RedRamage said:

Obviously this is subjective based on what you want a league to look like or how it should function.

To me it's broken. It's become a pay to win league. If you have more money coming in you can buy the best players and you're more likely to win. Some of that "more money" is because you're putting a better product out there and so you get more fans. But a large part is also that major cities have more people so even if a smaller percentage in general are fans, you still have much more money coming in.

On the flip side, way too many small market teams aren't even trying, and that's just as bad, if not worse.

For the fun of it I looked at the last 25 years of World Series. I checked the two teams that made it and where their payroll ranked for that year using this site: https://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm

Over the last 25 years, of the 50 participates, 38 of the teams were in the upper half of payroll for the year they made it to the WS. 15 of those 38 were in the top 5. Only 12 out of 50 of the teams were in the lower half of payroll in the year they appeared. Only 1 time in the last 25 years have we had a WS that featured two teams that were BOTH on the lower half of payroll.

none of that is a problem for me.  you have to pay talent, or replenish your talent by turning your expensive assets into less expensive but more valuable assets.  you have almost the entire prime years of a player's development at below market cost, the fact that you have to pay them over market cost for their final years is not always a good thing, but is rather a choice. 

everyone cries about the dodgers, but what about the mets?  they dont win ****.  everyone cries about small markets but what about the padres?  they spend money.  small markets cant compete with small payrolls?  what about the brewers?  cleveland?  detroit?

so what that more teams with higher investment in a certain type of product (older declining players) win more games?  i see no problem with that.  its ALWAYS been that way in baseball.  to me, it should be more like that in other sports too.  invest in your product if you want to win, either through paying higher end talent higher end salaries, or investing in its development.  simple.  salary caps are ways for owners not to spend on their product.

this american sports obsession with "every team having an equal chance to win a championship every year" is uniquely american and, in my opinion, unnecessary to enjoynent of the sport.

The east is so bad that this team might just survive any playoff series, but their flaws are well known, and the strategy to exploit them is too.

the key to them winning in the playoffs will be cade's ability to shake double teams and a second scorer to emerge, and how do they cover for duncan robinson's defense?  can tobias be a reliable #2 scorer every night?  can cade carry them despite constant double teams and making him work on defense?  can anyone else space the floor besides robinson?

is jb the coach to come up with this plan?

i dont know.  they need a trade pretty badly, imo.  ivey was supposed to be that guy but injuries have apparently sapped him of all his previous explosiveness.

use those #1 picks and get something of value for this year.  grab yourself a porter: michael or bobby will do.  get a second point guard.  do something!

better than nothing, but not good enough in the atlantic.

were doomed.

there's nothing to fix.  baseball's system aint broken.

On 1/28/2026 at 10:32 AM, gehringer_2 said:

IMHO, the biggest issue for baseball fandom is too much player mobility. Whatever they come up with needs to allow players to get paid without having to move to do it so teams can build their identities long term around their stars. Perez has identified the issue but his proposal does nothing for teams not paying the tax, and they are ones losing their players.

bring back the reserve clause!  screw you, curt flood.  you ruined everything.

56 minutes ago, slothfacekilla said:

 

hmmm

oh no...

someone check on 84....

"detroit police today arrested a man for suspected assault of hockey legend steve yzerman.  the man was said to be aggressively repeatledly yelling "where's wallinder, steve!  where's wallinder?"  police are baffled.

All athletes in top sports leagues have great athleticism and/or great skill.

except the wnba.  that sucks.

i cant wait for this summer when half this board suddenly becomes an expert in a 4-3-2-1 formation, and the other half keeps posting how boring it is because no one ever scores.

1 hour ago, oblong said:

Metric Football

Do people gamble on soccer?  Are there fantasy soccer leagues?  I ask not to make fun but to wonder if that's why it's not taken off to the degree in this country as it has in others?  I've long suspected the reason the NFL is so big is due to it's being favorable for fantasy and gambling interests.

I began my career with a UK based company and soccer was part of everyday life in the office and out of the office.  Everyone were West Ham fans. When my oldest son was born in 2000 I got a care package of clothing for him.  But I just couldn't get invested in it.  I appreciated the drinking.

soccer betting is massive.

if you think there are betting scandals in america, i point you to asian betting houses placing millions of euros/yuan/yen/bhat on 3rd division filipino games.

anyone who watched south korea in 2002 world cup will know first hand how money can buy referees.  or juventus in italy being relegated to serie c for "irregularities" or barcelona putting former refs' consultancies on the payroll.

fantasy soccer is also huge.

its the biggest sport in the world.

you re-sign be chairot for toughness, you've spent the last 3 or 4 drafts talking about getting players who are hard to play against, tough, and able to work the corners, and then you give it all away to take the softest, least reliable, least playoff tested player you can find?

why?  WHY?

to play devils advocate to myself, you think you'll never be able to sign a skilled player, ep40 will blossom surrounded by the comfort of swedish players in detroit (fact: vancouver has more swedes than detroit), you already have toughness and now you need skill....

i have a hard time talking myself into this.

28 minutes ago, lordstanley said:

 

i liked steve dangle's piece on "can someone pkease get berube a hat?  please?"

1 hour ago, Deleterious said:

It confuses me why some Pistons fans want DeRozen.  Team lacks shooting, so let's bring in a guy that doesn't shoot the three?  On top of that, Cade is great in the mid-range.  So let's bring in another mid-range guy to crowd that space for Cade?  It doesn't make much sense to me.  

the only scenario would be for bench scoring.

kcp may not be a hall of famer, but he is a solid nba player with a good career and certainly better than trey burke.

dumars screwed up a ton, but at least he got that one right.

its a lot easier to score a run in a high level baseball game than it is to score a goal in a high level soccer game, therefore scoring a goal in soccer takes more skill than scoring a run in baseball and soccer players are more skilled than baseball players.

#chaslogic

3 hours ago, slothfacekilla said:

It is funny to see how much analytics people hate the contract

i remember analytics people going gaga for troy stecher.  then he got traded for a 7th rounder.

The bulls just lost to the pacers for the THIRD TIME THIS SEASON.

2 hours ago, Betrayer said:

You're assuming that a trade bringing back Giannis is going to leave all of Ausar, Duren, and Holland on the team?

i'm assuming that the guys who replace them wont be able to shoot well either.

2 hours ago, Deleterious said:

Would love to make a play for Giannis, but I doubt management would.

They should be on the horn for Portis though since he fits in the TPE.  I would try to get him for a couple of seconds.  But more than willing to give up this years first for him.

 

giannis and cade together?  sounds good, but how would it work with no other spacing?