bird_dirt

Quote: I am thrilled with what I have seen from Cano, Wang, and Cabrera. Those 3 young kids have very high ceilings. that's the problem with george/the yankees. the 3 players you're so thrilled about are all young players making their way up. honestly, it's amazing they they have even been given a chance to play, much less start, in pinstripes. steinbrenner's m.o. has always been so much WIN NOW/don't think about later that he out prices the rest of the market for any free agent, and what players he doesn't get through free agency, he trades what few remaining prospects they do have. the yankees have been dealing with a horribly depleted farm system due to this very reason (though cashman has been trying his damnedest to change that). i find it very amusing when they so obviously overpay for players (like "the big unit")just to make sure they get them and no one else does, and then that player has maybe one good year followed by spinning decline in the remaining 3 years of an overblown contract. serves them right. when they are so willing to pay so much for so little, it makes every other crap player believe they deserve they should get that and then some. i know, it's a free market, so i won't fight for some communist control over the game, it just makes yankee bashing that much more worth while. honestly, as far as a-rod goes, i really, really, really wished he would've stayed in texas for the remainder of his contract. i think the rangers should have been forced to keep the burden of his rediculous contract they gave him. it's sad that if a player has any amount of above average skills, then there is always a "get out of jail free" card in the yankees if their team signs them for too much. i really believe teams sign players to contracts with escallating salaries with the intention of trading them to the yankees down the road, because they are the only ones dumb enough willing to pay them. really, though, what george does with his money is his own business, so i don't really care that much. it's just seems boring to me when a team collects all those players because that's the only way they know they can win. it's like playing a video game. i can trade for all the best all-stars and win it all easily, but it's not that much fun. it's much more interesting and exciting to be able to do it with a bunch of players that came up through the same team's system and a patchwork of other players that could've just as easily have been a .350 win club as a .750 win club.

Quote: Don;t you guys think it's kinda cliche to hate on the rich all the time? it's not about hating the rich--it's just fun to hate on the rich when they're also arrogant and stupid to boot!

i could maybe see it become some kind of nbdl thing (like nfl europe, but better), but it would be absolutely shocking if it were included in the actual nba league itself. when baseball players were saying how difficult it was to travel to games in puerto rico (expos/pre nationals), i would find it harder to see teams managing travel across a whole ocean without ill effect.

good post diesel--i like the spurs analysis. good response northcyde--that's the best (realistically speaking) comments on the hawks on the defensive end i've read here. extra points for bringing up the bengals--who dey!

i'd like nothing more than to see marvin to blow up huge, but i would have to say i'd probably rather see dwight and josh s. in hawks' uniforms than marvin and josh. i wouldn't mind seeing marvin and dwight, either. if i'm not mistaken, the bobcats will be plenty under the salary cap and able to make a huge offseason aquisition, too. seems like the bobcats and hawks perenially have capspace to sign f.a.s. hopefully the hawks leagal problems will be resolved and they can start spending that cash, and johnson and jordan will continue to just be cheap owners and not sign anyone major.

Quote: I wanted Deron. Paul was too much of a defensive liability. you aren't alone. this is pathetic how long this cp3 thing is dragging out. EVERYONE in the nation had bogut at 1, marvin at 2. bk said if we got the first draft pick, we would've taken bogut. if he would've taken a pg, it would've been deron williams anyway, largely due to his size. no one is saying anything about utah taking deron over paul, why can't people let the chris paul thing go? LET IT GO! cp is good, marvin is good. it's sad when a player you want wasn't picked, but there is still some room for being happy that at least we did get a good player. there's no telling what would've happened if cp was here--it's pure speculation and conjecture. for all we know, he may not have meshed with the rest of the players, he may have gotten hurt, he may have spent significant time on the bench his first year, he could've gotten arrested late night in buckhead... ANYTHING could've happened and people could just as easily been b!tching about why did we take chris paul and not deron, or marvin, or whatever other ROY candidate may have stepped up in that alternate universe. LET IT GO YOU WALTER SHEEP!

i'm in. it's been a few years since i last played fantasy basketball, i'll give it another spin.

great for jj. i hate espn. their site sucks and anymore they want you to pay for an "insider" subscription for nearly anything that isn't just regular ap wire stuff. i most often go to the sports illustrated site for generic sports info.

okay, i'm home now and can repeat what a book i was reading says (encyclopidia of serial murders--my wife checked it out from the library!) "Specifically, Wayne Williams had no access to the vehicles in question at the times when three of the six "fiber (evidence)" victims were killed. Wayne's father took the Ford in for repairs at 9:00am on July 30, 1980, nearly five hours before Earl Terrell vanished that afternoon. Terrell was long dead before Williams got the car back on August 7, and it was returned to the shop next morning (August 8), still refusing to start. A new estimate on repair costs was so expensive that Wayne's father refused to pay, and the family never again had access to the car. Meanwhile, Clifford Jones was kidnapped on August 20 and Charles Stephens on October 9, 1980. The defendant's family did not purchase the 1970 Chevrolet in question until October 21, 12 days after Stephen's death..... In November 1985 (almost four years after ww's conviction), a new team of lawyers uncovered once-classified documents from an investigation of the Ku Klux Klan, conducted during 1980 and '81 by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. A spy inside the Klan told GBI agents that Klansmen were "killing the children" in Atlanta, hoping to provoke a race war.....In early 1981, the same informant told GBI agents that "after twenty black-child killings, they, the Klan, were going to start killing black women."" police records note the unsolved murders of numerous black women in Atlanta in 1980-82, with most of the victoms strangled. that is all just a small portion of pro ww innocence/pro klan-gbi conspiracy. he's been repeatedly denied a retrial based on suppressed evidence, as recently as i know of in 2000. i know atl, ga, the south as a whole has a horrible history of racism, capitol crimes being covered up, particularly for kkk members and such, but it's nuts just how recent so much of it has gone on. i told my family and friends with pride while i was living there how the mayor was an african american woman (franklin) and the 2nd in command (city council president) was the nations highest raking elected official who was openly gay. that's a huge deal, and says a lot of the level of acceptance the citizens hold. i'm sure a lot of the "good ole boy" network behind the scenes conspiracies continue on to this day, though.

i was just reading about this last week. it is weak. he had solid alibis during many of the killings. also, the car was in the repair shop (with receipts to prove it) at the same time that the killings occured that had supposedly had the same fiber as the trunk of the car. it was a total set up. there have been other reports of various members of the klan taking part in the killings. they apparently started with kids, then began moving on to women, all in an attempt to slow their reproduction rates. absolutely disgusting. it is yet another example of the atl police deptartment botching a major murder investigation (like ray lewis & co. episode, and the dekalb sheriffs case - can't remember their names)

Quote: I don't see how anybody can really argue that Clinton got him. Maybe it's not the strongest argument on Bill's part. Just saying "I Tried, but failed" doesn't really answer everything, but he still made Chris Wallace look like a fool. I personally avoid the whole right wing vs. left wing thing because it's all propaganda IMO. I see pretty much all political figures as crooks. Clinton is no different. Still a good interview anyway. ditto that.

yeah, when it comes down to it, it's all about entertainment.

Quote: If anything I'd like us to bring back someone like Schmidt who's more of a power pitcher. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from bringing over Hudson who I see as more of a finesse guy. I tend to think that as long as a pitcher can hit 90 and get some amount of movement on the ball, they're a safer bet than a technical guy who could lose track of the strike zone. i've usually read the opposite. power pitchers lose some gas, wear out their arms faster than finesse pitchers (like maddox). although, given that line of thought, clemens seems like a freak of nature.

al harrington

not to knit-pick or anything, but couldn't you also consider the blues to be all whining, depressed alcoholics? can instromental play by druggies or alcoholics be more inspirational than their lyrics? i think heavy drug usage is pretty rampant across all of the music industry, regardless of the genre. that's a pretty well documented fact.

Quote: It was his attempt @ sarcasm. i appreciate the clarification. between that, and the "most responsible for the destruction of..." thread, the line between reality and sarcasm was getting a little blurry for me.

Quote: ...and use there NBA money to buy kilos of cocaine to sell to elementary school children. sounds like just another average miami junior acheivement aferschool program. community action at work!

Quote: Walter please stop your Bitching!!. It isn't written in Stone that Shelden will be the starter. Ideally they won't SHelden to start because he played for 4years as a PF in College. i'll agree with the first sentence. walter, if you quit bitching, it doesn't mean you need to automatically start becoming an apologist for bk, it just means that you need to move on. i thought shelden was actually duke's center primarily, not their pf. there is the slimmest of chances that that he could become enough of a defensive presence that he could pull off being an undersized 5, a'la ben wallace. not saying i honestly believe he WILL be the next ben wallace, but really, no one thought ben wallace would be who he has been, that's why he went undrafted. if the league truely is evolving to a smaller, faster game, then maybe there is a chance that we could have sw, js, mw, and jj all starting, or at least playing fairly significant time together. if shelden is to be used to make up for zaza's lack of defensive presence, then why not just get rid of zaza more anyway, since js and mw should be able to create as much or more offensive numbers than zaza does. if shelden doesn't show much more promise than he did in the summer league (which i doubt), then we won't have to worry about him taking many minutes from marvin or josh anyway, since he'll be collecting fouls so fast that he'll spend most of his time on the bench.

i guess it can make for some interesting speculation, but i for one am relieved he isn't still the gm. i don't think billy is a great gm, but anything is better than babcock. i thank god he's still not drafting for us. he wouldn't be drafting so much for us as he would be trading for second and third option players on the downsides of their careers who don't even want to be here. at least when billy trades away our picks, it's for a young, rising player who actually wanted to come here!

Quote: I really enjoyed that video, but only because there wasn't a single white person in it. Seeing white people makes me boil over with rage. reading dumb sh!t makes my mind numb over with absurdity. if this isn't a joke, then you must live one painful existance.

despite his apparent lack of defensive presence, al harrington was a model player for the hawks. first of all, he was one of the first players in a long while to publicly say he WANTED to come play here. secondly, he always gave more of a supportive "just taken our hits while we grow" kind of stance when discussing the team despite failing to reach 40 wins over two seasons. that alone would cause 90% of nba players to shut down and cause an ugly mass dissent in a locker room. lastly, he stayed remarkably positive and cordial despite the long, drawn-out process of his sign and trade this summer. any player would be viewed as being justified to take any number of major parting shots at an orginization like this after such an ordeal, but he generally did the exact opposite. yes he got paid (and not even as much as he was seeking), but still played well here, and generally provided a positive model for younger players. was he the best all around player? absolutely not, but i still appreciate what he did while here. will we miss him on the court? i hope not. but just the fact that he is coming back to atl to throw a going away party shows the level of mutual respect he and the hawks community share. you may not care for his play, but he still deserves a certain degree of respect for his time here as a whole.

we only want them to tank so far...it's a top ten protected pick. got the new dime magazine today--nice spot on ronald steele. yes, i really want the hawks to get him after spending the past 3 drafts primarily on 2/3-5s (i'm not really counting cenk and royal).

Quote: I am a fan of the Braves, Falcons, Hawks, Thrashers. In order of desire for a championship: Hawks Falcons Braves Thrashers i would ditto this list. hawks first since i would be so absolutely unbelievably increadable. we could seriously laugh in every espn/si/fox/etc. member's face. it would be fun. falcons second since they haven't won the big one yet, but they have at least been there in the last ten years. braves third since they did win it (once) ten years ago, though for as many times they've been in the post season, it'd be nice if they got another one. thrashers last because they've only just begun their long road of futility of professional sports in atlanta. i don't think there'd be enough fans in atlanta to fully appreciate the thrashers winning the stanley cup (oldest professional sports trophy in north america) as they would for any other team. i'm also a big cincinnati (birthplace) fan, so i'd really want to see a reds/braves nlcs and a bengals/falcons superbowl.

i'll follow you on a lot of that soul...stevie, marvin, otis, prince. i'd definately add isaac hayes to that, plus al green, curtis mayfield, o'jays, among others. that's what i like to listen to when i'm in a smooth/chill mode. most of the rock i listen to, though, is more of the college/punk/hardcore stuff. i like it more raw, edgy, stretching sounds. stuff like anything from pixies, iggy pop and the stooges, dinosaur jr. (j mascis, now he's a great guitarist) to harder jesus lizard (older stuff), unsane, the cows, slint, the misfits. i just enjoy the different noises, feelings. i'm sure you'd find any of this stuff absolute hell out of a speaker. i'd agree that bad rap is half @ssed, but there's a lot of good stuff out there too, beyond what i had already mentioned above. punk was seen as crap when it came out. rock n roll was when it came out. jazz, too. pretty much any new form of music gets noses turned up by the previous generations at it. if it sticks around long enough (like rap, and punk, and rock has) artists are able to develop it to levels often comparable to more established forms. seeing rap grow from sugar hill gang, to kurtis blow, to eric b. and rakim, to tribe called quest, digable planets, to jurassic five today. the booty sh!t (nelly, bubba sparxx, etc.) is dumbed down crap, but even that has its place for me when i don't want to think about the music and just want something mindless with a heavy beat to move to. i don't know many of the artists, never buy their cds, but still feel guilty when i find it fun when i hear it on the radio or in a club. i don't always try to listen to the best, end-all kind of stuff, just music i can enjoy in the right place at the right time.

hotatl,man you're funny. you obviously have nice taste with the ladies, but for music....you're crazy, man, crazy . saying the roots are like nails on a chalkboard is nuts, especially when you'd prefer to listen to warrant or other hairbands. i still occationally listen to led zeppelin though, when i want to reminisce about the eighth grade...maybe play a little dungeons & dragons--good times, good times.