Is "Baller" Trademarked Yet?

On April 3 rd , the WNBA will hold an expansion draft between two new teams, the Toronto Tempo and the Portland Fire.  Since I have no idea who they would select given that I don’t know what their philosophies are, it doesn’t make sense for me to do a mock draft; instead, I did a draft based on who I would select for each of the two teams (I know that sounds weird to have me drafting for the only two teams, but I did have slightly different approaches with the teams).  I will refer to an excellent article by Her Hoop Stats to discuss the rules (it’s a little tough to explain everything), but there are a few rules I would like to highlight for those uninitiated to look at the article.   Each team can protect up to 5 players; while there were restrictions about non-coreable players being eligible, these appear to be removed.   The draft is broken into two rounds, with Toronto and Portland each selecting up to 6 picks each round, with no WNBA team being able to have ...

March Madness is back, and in this post, we will discuss the Women’s side!  My post for the Men’s tournament was released yesterday , but I am especially excited for the Women’s because we could have a Final Four featuring all four 1-seeds…which is something that never feels right. For the Women’s tournament, there are four main metrics I use:   record against top 25 teams, three-point percentage, free throw percentage, and defensive rating.   Unlike the men’s tournament where there is one or two metrics that are key in predicting a winner, it really is a balance of each and how the team plays, especially since some teams have dominated while rarely shooting threes (South Carolina) while others have had struggles due to a lack of consistency from deep.   Defensive rating is usually a better indicator in the first few rounds since most of the higher ranked teams are also strong defensively. In my bracket, I have UConn beating UCLA in the Championship, which is a r...

March Madness is back, and in this post, we will focus on the madness that I expect will ensue on the Men’s side (my post about the Women’s tournament will be released tomorrow).  The reason I word it this way is because for the first time, I have absolutely no idea who will win the tournament, let alone make the Final Four. For the Men’s tournament, there are four metrics I use:  draftability score (a metric I created that looks at players who could be drafted while favoring those who are older), three point percentage, defensive rating, and free throw percentage.  The best of these metrics at predicting the winner has been the draftability score, while free throw percentage has been an predictor of upsets in the early rounds. Historically, a score of at least 10 has been a strong indicator of a team winning the championship.  There is a slight problem:  there are 17 teams remaining that have a score of at least 10, while another has a score of 9 that shoul...