Randy

Well, ESPN has a whole lot more problems than they think the Hawks have. Looks like they ought to worry about their own power rankings. "Sports-TV powerhouse ESPN, a profit machine that has long towered over the media landscape, is showing signs of stress as the pay-TV industry goes through an unprecedented period of upheaval. A decline in subscribers as customers trim their cable bills, coupled with rising content costs and increased competition, has ESPN in belt-tightening mode, people familiar with the situation say. The company, majority owned by Walt Disney Co., has lost 3.2 million subscribers in a little over a year, according to Nielsen data, as people have “cut the cord” by dropping their cable-TV subscriptions or downgraded to cheaper, slimmed-down TV packages devoid of expensive sports channels like ESPN. At the same time, the prices ESPN pays for the rights to show games are ballooning. Rivals including 21st Century Fox Inc. ’s Fox Sports and Comcast Corp. ’s NBC are aggressively pursuing sports properties to feed their own outlets, which is also driving up prices. (Fox and News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, were part of the same company until 2013.)" http://www.wsj.com/articles/espn-tightens-its-belt-as-pressure-on-it-mounts-1436485852

Wally can't feel too bad. Took two guys to replace him. btw - I can do the airplane thing. I call it the airplane crash......

https://twitter.com/erikasouza14 "Can't find words to thank the @AtlantaDream and the fans for this. You made me cry! ❤ #allrespect4you Erika de Souza #14 added,"

After this weekend's action, our Magic Number for the Stewart Lottery ticket is 2. This team remains as unpredictable as ever - beating the (formerly?) hot Indiana team on their home court, then losing to a beatable Sky team (Delle Donne out) on our home court. But it was an exciting game and the Erika tribute was quite memorable. In the end, she put the dagger in our hearts by making the free throw that put the game out of reach. Since the Mystics were mistaken in Seattle, (and they now face LA and Phonix before showing up here next Sunday) it will be up to the Liberty to try to take another breath out of our playoff hopes. If we lose to NY tommorrow night our playoff hopes will be on the verge of going from life support to DNR.....

Happy Birthday! Keep up the great work.

Our playff hopes lie in the passing the Mystics. It would take a mirical to catch Indy or the Sky, and I think we could never catch NY since they hold the tie breaker. The tragic number is still four. Mystics play Phoenix (in DC) then go to Seattle, Phoenix and LA before coming to Altanta Sept. 6. If they lose 3 of those games (it could happen) and we win 3 in a row, the game on the 6th would take on huge importance. Who do we play? Only @Indy, then the next night at home against the Sky, and @NY. So, the race could be over by then, or just getting started (as we have 4 games from Sep 6-13, including the season ender in DC on Sep. 13.) Sat. will be the only return to Atlanta for Erka this season (barring a playoff matchup). I expect a big ovation for her, and it would be really nice if the Dream did a tribute to her like the Hawks have done some former players and the Jazz did for Sap, Kyle and DMC.

Sadly for the Dream it only applies to determining lottery odds - the rest of the teams go according to record. So losing this year only helps if we are in the lottery again next year and the teams in the lottery go by single season record. (Not as complicated as the NBA salary cap, but pretty twisted.)

The tragic number is still 4 against DC, but chances are not great, though they Mystics have a pretty tough schedule and we play them twice. We have already beaten them twice this year. So playoffs are still possible, but unlikely. All the East teams are playing each other a lot, and fighting for playoff position, so expect a lot of tough games - we play NY again, and Indy twice - the two best teams in the East who are fighting for first. Equally unlike is the chance of improving the draft position by losing. The WNBA is now using a 2 year average record for the lottery teams to decide the odds. Bottom line - Dream won too many games last year to do any better than 4th in the lottery odds. We are pretty much stuck at about 11% chance of No. 1. (Of course, if we make the playoffs we move in the draft from 4th to maybe 5, 6, or even 7 (though I haven't checked the math). Because Seattle lost so many last year and this year they are pretty assured of the best odds, followed by San Antonio and the Sun. The Sun might catch the falling Stars but it seems unlikely given the Stars commitment to getting blown out every game. We can't catch Sun either. So its probably for pride.

On the tragic number front: 3 against Fever and Sky, 4 againt the Mystics. The good news is Sky and Mystics play today as do Fever Liberty. Two of those teams will lose so we won't lose ground against 2 teams (but will against 2 others. Not sure about tie breakers but don't think they have been decided yet, except for Liberty, which really doesn't matter anyway.

Great writeup! It sounds like the Sun may also be without backup post Kayla Peterson, leaving only Nicky Green for back up. Not sure it matter much though - the Sun still have Jas Thomas, Lacy and Little to start 3 former Dream players against us, Bone and Stricklen along with Faris so they can field a tough team. Lacy plays like an All Star against former teams (Tulsa and Atlanta at least) - guess she takes it personally when teams let her go. Career high after ten years in the WNBA - talk about a late bloomer. One advantage we should have - Dream just had to take a bus from NY to UnCasinoville - the Sun had to fly from Tulsa (going through Atlanta???) to NY - then take a bus. BTW - check that start time - I'm seeing 6:00 PM on WNBA .com (which is not always right.)

Did you mean love affair? Sort of a bromance?

That's really funny.

New York tonight. Our Tragic Number is down to 5 against the Sky, Fever and Mystics (ignoring tie breakers). Indy plays Seattle and Sky plays DC, so Indy should win and one of the Sky/Mystics has to win. NY has always been a tough win for us, though we did beat them last time out on the strength of some out of character 3 point shooting. We need it again tonight and we need one of the Sky, Fever or Mystics to go on a losing streak.

Nobody met Isiah Rider in jail?

Surely someone here must have had Cal Bowdler as his account rep..... I never met any, but used to see Jon Konkak in the building I worked in from time to time. I assume he was there to meet his agent, or financial adviser. I thought he was terrible and must have been embarrassed to so bad, I pretended not to know who he was. I had my picture taken with Wilkins recently in front of Phillips arena. He's way bigger than I recall and seemed frozen in place. Kind of stuck up. Never said hello or anything.

I like Bud's chances a lot better than Mike Scott's. One thing that seems odd is that Bud's DUI was almost 2 years ago. If Scott's lawyers can get that much time before trial, it leaves this up in the air for a long time. (Might be a lot harder to do in Banks County, which is very small, and looks to be a very conservative place to get busted.)

I was sitting there for the first 25 minutes or so of the game thinking "We have no offense whatsoever." Suddenly things changed and we got the win. I thought Ajavon and Gray were the keys. I feel the same way about the trade - too early to tell, but both Gray and Dantas have had some good games - they are both doing better than Erika is in Chicago. Not sure how much we will get of Dantas in the "Blame it on Rio" season next year, but she looks like she will become a solid starter. Gray is a bit harder to figure out. She looks sort of clumsy, but strong as bull. She was thought to be a mid first round draft pick, but fell in the draft, I guess, because she fouled too much in college. She could get a lot of playing time next year when Dantas is gone. If she can get a good job overseas this year (guessing it will be in Brazil) and develop some she could be a steal. Taylor has stepped up her trading - now she needs to do the same with her drafting. We have 4 picks in what will probably be the first 16 or so - so there's a great opportunity.

Pretty sure we are getting close to our "Wait till next year" moment. It was good to see Sancho back. Shoni had her best game of the year. Angel was pretty awesome, though it took her a lot of shots. I wonder if Cooper is thinking that putting Shoni and Angel in the backcourt and starting 3 powers is now a good idea? Tomorrow is SUNday. We might be in good shape to get win due to their injuries (A. Thomas and Liz Williams out), though we have a really thin guard corps if Hayes and Hodges can't play.

BTW - playoff considerations are starting to be important. Indy, Chicago and DC are all in a virtual tie 2.5 games back of the NY. We are 7.5 back, or 5 out of the playoffs with 12 games left. Sky play Seattle tonight so they have an easier matchup than us. I think the only real hope for the Dream is that one of the 3 teams falls off completely, which seems a bit unlikely.

Great analysis lw3, Hopefully this game goes better than the last one against the Lynx.

During the TMZ video of his confession he seemed to be unaware that the amount of weed and molly was enough for a felony charge. When he found out that he could do 25 years it had to be a complete shock. I doubt he gets anything above the minimum, but likely he can't play for a long time - probably a career ending prison sentence.

As I understand it, the original Dream owner wanted to be awarded the No. 1 pick in the as part of his deal for buying an expansion team, but either he didn't drive a hard enough bargain, or it was never going to happen. So the Dream ended up with the No. 8 pick in that draft. They picked Tamera Young, now with the Sky. They did, of course, get the No. 1 pick the following year and got Angel. I think the new lottery rules were known for a while - they were reported on Rebkell, a few months ago. He's a very credible source, but he never mentioned it again - so maybe he let something slip. The way I have it figured the new rule probably lowers the Dream's chance of getting No. 1 from about 17% to about 10%, since they probably would have a hard time "catching" San Antonio or Seattle in the loss column (but who knows) and probably won't catch another east team in the win column. Either No. 1 (Stewart) or No 2. (Jefferson?) would be great additions, but I don't know much about who would come after that. The biggest screw job might be that the Dream may have no chance of getting No. 3, since the worst team (probably Seattle) is guaranteed no worse than 3 and if 1 and 2 go as per the odds, then 3 and 4 go by the 2 year record. (I think - its all pretty vague.) BTW - Seattle has now won 6 games, but 4 came against the Sparks, so they probably won't be getting many more of those. They are not very good against any other team. The new rule may "help" the Dream in the following (2017) draft if we have the misfortune of getting into the lottery two years in a row.

Carla Cortijo has now been approved to play in the WNBA by the Puerto Rican basketball brass. So, it is reported Milton Jones is on a 7 day that expires before the next game (not to mention Carter has not exactly been killing it). Might explain DMJ's resurgence yesterday. So connecting the dots - we might see another PG on the Dream squad. Oh, and Friday is Hispanic Heritage night.....

All is not lost - probably a good chance Splitter and Dennis will make the Olympics....

WE WON!!!! Tulsa is offically now the worst team in the WNBA (since Seattle and San Antonio just beat us.) Great game by Dantas! And Milton Jones just set a hard pick on Father time and sent him to the floor. (I'm sure he'll be back on his feet soon enough.)