Is "Baller" Trademarked Yet?

After one of the most chaotic WNBA seasons and finishes to any season I have ever seen (entering the final game, the top seed was still in play for 2 teams and the last 2 playoff spots were in play for 4 teams), the regular season has ended, and the WNBA playoffs are starting!  I consider this year to be extremely exciting since I don’t believe there is one definitive frontrunner since different sources would point to different factors (Vegas ironically says Las Vegas, depth says Chicago, most analytics say Connecticut, experience gives Seattle a slight edge, and the logic of best defense goes to Washington), making it quite interesting to see what happens.  In this post, I will give my prediction for each round and a player to watch.  What I will say is that it I expect every series after the first round to be extremely competitive and exciting so there are a lot of directions this can go.   Standings 1.        Las Vegas Aces (26-10...

On July 31 st , 2022, legendary NBA superstar Bill Russell passed away at the age of 88.  I imagine most basketball fans (and majority of Celtics fans) at least have an idea that Russell was one of the most dominant players in NBA history.  While he is an all-time great basketball player and athlete (he was also an elite high jumper through college), I found his life and impact on both basketball and society to be fascinating. At this point, the lore of Russell is that he was a good defender and the epitome of a winner, both of which were true.   He won 11 titled in 13 seasons and, per a recent episode of the Basketball Illuminati podcast, the Celtics went 20-27 in regular season games he missed after his rookie season (in other words, the dynastic Celtics were a team with a 0.426 win percentage without Russell).   While we can look at his numbers and see that he put up insane rebounding numbers and advanced metrics on defense, he revolutionized the way defense was...