Is "Baller" Trademarked Yet?

We have reached the NBA Finals, and we have just the series that everybody predicted from the start…just kidding.  While I didn’t predict either team to make it to the Finals, I thought Denver had a chance to make it and thought they would beat the Lakers entering the Conference Finals (I thought Denver would win in 6 games, though they ultimately swept the series), and I unofficially (as in not publishing this prediction on the blog) thought that Miami would beat Boston in 6 games in the Eastern Conference Finals (it took them 7) after they beat the Knicks (that said, I wouldn’t have predicted them beating Milwaukee).  Even though Miami stunk in the regular season, I am excited that we have these teams in the Finals since we have two competitive teams who are consistently talented and have amazing coaches, three characteristics that weren’t always consistently the case for any other team in the playoffs this year. On paper, this series should be a no-brainer for Denver to w...

Now that the lottery for the NBA Draft has been completed, I am releasing my first Mock Draft for the 2023 Draft!  This has been known as a great draft in large part because of the talent at the top of the draft, but I think this draft has a lot of impressive depth as well.  As a note, these selections are not who I would select, but rather where they are currently projected based on the aggregate I have done.  Combine results have not been incorporated into this or accounted for; the order was also determined prior to the combine.  With the “Reminds me of” section, this is not an analysis of what their ceiling/floor is, but rather who their playing style seems like.  There are 58 picks this year due to the Bulls and 76ers being stripped of a second round pick each due to tampering.     1:   SAS – Victor Wembenyama, C, 7’4, 230 lbs., 8’0 Wing, Metropolitans 92 (France), 19 Reminds me of:   Modern version of Yao Ming Wembenyama is ...

The WNBA season is finally here!  After a chaotic offseason with several superstars moving teams, a controversy surrounding Las Vegas trading a player who was recently pregnant (as much as I want to discuss the issues surrounding the Dearica Hamby trade, I won’t be because I really don’t feel qualified enough to do this in this situation), and several interesting storylines from the business side, the season is set to get underway for a potentially extremely exciting 2023 season!  In this post, I am predicting where each team will finish, give a brief description of each team, discuss one player who could make a massive difference (I normally discuss non-stars as the x-factor, which is something I tried to do with a couple exceptions), and made my predictions for the playoffs.   1:   Las Vegas Aces While New York might feel flashier, Vegas returns a good part of their core with some major additions.   They already had what I considered a super team consist...

One of the most common responses to the March Madness this year is to discuss how surprising the results were.  There absolutely were surprises in both tournaments; in the Men’s tourney, a number 1 seed lost in the first round and the highest seed to make the Final Four was a 4 seed, and in the Women’s tourney, two number 1 seeds lost in the second round (at home) and no 1 seed made the Championship game.  That said, I don’t believe that these results were as surprising as many are making it sound.  Of course, hindsight is 20-20 and it’s easy to say that these happened now.  On top of that, my brackets were not particularly accurate (especially on the men’s side, where I predicted no Final Four teams), so it seems weird saying there weren’t too many surprises.  That said, I think there were many teams that could do well (particularly in the Men’s tournament), something I don’t think I expressed as well as I wish I had prior to the tournament.  As such, I wo...