Is "Baller" Trademarked Yet?

Now that the NBA Draft has passed, I thought it would be good to analyze the NBA Draft.  Despite having an abysmal set of predictions (I accurately predicted 4 picks:  picks 1-3 and pick 32), I didn't feel like there were any picks that were necessarily bad and that every team had a decent draft night.  With that, I would like to grade each team's picks.  I didn't necessarily focus on why teams valued chose another player still on the board that I liked more because just about every player seemed to be valued differently by teams; rather, I focused on whether I think it makes sense for the team depending on their short term or long term goals.  I will account for draft selections and trades made on the day of the draft.  Teams are listed in order by location. Atlanta Hawks Draft picks Onyeka Okongwu (#6) Skylar Mays (#50) Atlanta got one of my favorite players in the draft in Okongwu and another player who I thought was a steal in Mays.  Okongwu is a g...

Now that the draft starts at 8 P.M. tonight, I decided to release my mock draft a couple hours before.  I originally hoped to release this earlier today, but I waited due to the possibility for trades.  Ultimately, one first round pick and two second round picks were traded today:  the Pistons acquired the 16th pick in the most recent Trevor Ariza trade, the Bucks acquired the 45th pick and the Thunder acquired the 34th pick in an Al Horford trade that happened recently.   In the past, my mock drafts have been very accurate in the lottery, shaky in the first round, and totally off in the second round.  The second round picks are always off due to trades, but I am still including them to give you an idea of some players to watch out for.  I expect that not all of these players will be drafted, and there will be other players I did not include who will be drafted instead, but that's part of the fun of it. Before starting the mock draft, I will confess th...

Now that trades will be allowed starting noon today (November 16 th ), teams will be rearing to begin trading again.  In this post, I predict which assets from each team are most likely to be traded.  While I omitted second round picks, I am including players, first round picks, and trade exceptions in this list.  While certain trades have reportedly been agreed upon (such as Dennis Schroeder to the Lakers), I did not confirm any of these trades and did not act as if they had been confirmed.   Atlanta Hawks The Hawks are in an interesting place where they have 8 guaranteed spots filled, no dead money from cutting free agents, and they could have north of $40 million in cap space.   I also don’t expect they will resign most of their free agents; it’s possible they try for Jeff Teague (I expect he’ll have some suitors) or Damian Jones and guarantee Brandon Goodwin’s contract for next season.   They’re also at a spot where it’s probably best to rebuild b...