The Week of 1000 Trades: Carmelo Anthony Edition

With the NBA just days away, I figured I commemorate the occasion with 1000 (give or take) trade ideas venturing from entertainingly absurd to soberly realistic.  Today, Carmelo Anthony scenarios.

Ranking The Careers of The Dunk Contest Winners

Today, I continue All-Star week at Diminishing Skills by ranking the careers--in actual games, not just dunk contests--of the past dunk contest winners.  Because aren't you just dying to know once-and-for-all who was better:  Harold Miner, or Fred Jones?

Why Cavs fans should cheer for an NBA lockout

On Monday's BS Report, NBA commissioner David Stern discussed the very real possiblity of the owners deciding to contract the New Orleans Hornets in the event of a lockout.  While I am almost positive this is just posturing by Stern to gain a little negotiating leverage on the owners' behalf, and while I most certainly don't wish any city to lose a sports franchise after what Cleveland went through with the Browns, if contraction is something that could happen, I definitely want it to happen this year.

 Why?  Dispersal draft, baby.  And, if things hold as they have, the Cavs would almost definitely be holding the first pick, which means hello Chris Paul (although that could then mean goodbye Chris Paul in 2012, but let's dream a little for now).  Going by the standings as of February 15, here's how I see a dispersal draft shaking out.

50 Most Wanted Jerseys Part 2: All-Star Edition

With the NBA All-Star Weekend coming up, Diminishing Skills will be dedicating an entire week to the festivities.  Today, we start things off with part 2 of our riveting 50 Most Wanted NBA Jerseys series.  Appropriately, this installment's focus is on desirable All-Star Game jerseys.  Enjoy.

One and Counting: That was fun while it lasted

Yikes.  If there has been a play that serves as a microcosm of the nightmare that is the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers' season, it has to be John Wall's coast-to-coast layup with 4 seconds left at the end of the first half of the Cavs' 115-100 loss to the Washington Wizards Sunday night.  Wall's score came after a monstrous Christian Eyenga jam (whom some pals and I watched a minor league hockey game "with" one luxury suite over at the Q on Saturday night, and who by all indications does not understand the sport of hockey) that seemed to build some momentum for the hometown Cavs heading into the locker room.  And then Wall waltzed down the court to the opposite hoop, and the game was over, Eyenga's slam all but forgotten.  It was like Friday's exhilarating win over the Clippers (Eyenga's dunk) followed by Sunday's pathetic showing against the Wizards (Wall's layup) compressed into a 5-second sequence.  What a turd sandwich.

Bracket-OGRAPHOLOGY! 2/14/2011

Happy Valentine's Day!  As a very special valentine from me to you, dear reader, I present the 2nd installment of Diminishing Skills Bracket-OGRAPHOLOGY!  All projections are based on an average of ESPN's RPI, Ken Pomeroy's Ratings, and Jeff Sagarin's Ratings, and automatic qualifiers are in italics.  Enjoy.

One and counting: Let's celebrate!

By now, you should know how we like to celebrate here at Diminishing Skills.  That's right, trade ideas!  In honor of the Cavs' first win in over 50 days, I've decided to forgo the usual boring old salary dumps and instead present a couple of fantasy trades.  The first is my fantasy (well, one of my fantasies), while the other is based on Dan Gilbert's wet dream that this crazy win over the Clippers will propel his beloved Cavaliers back into playoff contention (they're only 15 games back!).  Enjoy.

UPDATE: The Cavs Win...because of witchcraft?

Via Ball Don't Lie:

19 Action News Meteorologist Jason Handman will be attempting to lift whatever curse has befallen Cleveland's beloved home town hoops team with the assistance of Kathy Curran, a local Witch and High Priestess. Curran is a self proclaimed expert in all aspects of the metaphysical realms, including Wiccan culture, astrology, fairies, magic, and an extensive knowledge of herbs and spell casting.
Jason and Witch Kathy will attempt to break the losing spell of the Cavaliers live today in today's 19 Action News at Four, Five, and Six. Fans from around the country can watch these newscasts as they are streamed live, online, at 19 Action News.com
"Kathy has assured me that she has the perfect spell to lift this curse already prepared. If she proves to be successful, she will be forecasting the weather for us as well." Jason Handman says.

Oh, snood, is that Fred McLeod in the corner? (video)


At least that explains him speaking in tongues.

Cavs Win!

What the hell is Fred McLeod saying? (video)

The Case Against Rajon Rondo

Last week, on his podcast the BS Report, Bill Simmons was discussing his upcoming NBA trade value column (here is last year's; it's an absolute must-read) with his buddy Joe House.  As they made their way through the list, I was not at all surprised that Rajon Rondo made his top 13.  While I allowed for the fact that he was probably 5-10 spots too high thanks to Simmons's Boston leanings, I accepted such a lofty ranking for Rondo thanks to his standing among Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook as the premier young point guards in the league and his relatively team-friendly contract.  The more I thought about it, though, the more I wondered if Boston would really turn down a Chris Paul-for-Rondo deal (as Simmons ascertains*), or even a John Wall-for-Rondo deal.

INTERNET Road Trip: 2/11/11

Here's some interesting items to get you through the rest of your work week:

• Mocking The Draft explores the NFL pipeline that has developed at Kent State, and explains why it will continue to flow this year.
• According to the NY Times, the Browns are the 26th most popular team in Madden. (via Dawgs by Nature)
• The Shutdown Corner gives us a tour of Deion Sanders $5.5 million ranch (which is for sale, so get in while it's still a buyer's market!).
• Let's Go Tribe has a quick breakdown of the Orlando Cabrera signing.
• Basketball Reference looks at team W-L record in games in which a specific player was the leading scorer.  The all-time worst record when a player led his team in scoring?  Former Cav Lamond Murray, who's teams went 30-92 when he paced them in points.  Who has the best record?  Click and find out!
• Every slam dunk from every NBA dunk contest...ever.
• The Basketball Jones have uncovered the flier for Derrick Rose's All-Star party, "Rose Petals." (probably NSFW).
• Rob Neyer continues his look at the MLB Players of the Decade today with a look at the top shortstops (SPOILER ALERT: Jhonny Peralta didn't make the cut).
• Get your weekend started right with a little Fart Touch (via the hilarious MBMBAM podcast).

Josh Cribbs Is Your Greater Cleveland Sports Professional Athlete of The Year

I was alerted of this news mere moments ago by Diminishing Skills buddy and sometime-contributor MattyWill.  His reaction is the same as I'm sure yours is right now:  what?  Cribbs had a career-low in just about everything, averaging 20.4 yards per kick return and failing to reach the end zone on special teams for the first time in his career.  Since I'm working on a couple of big projects that are taking a little longer than anticipated, here is a lift of more deserving successful Cleveland pro athletes from 2010 to hold you over until I get that ish didz.

1. Um....
2. Didn't Hafner, oh, nope...
3. Carlos Santan--shit, that's right, his knee...
4. Christian Enyega?  No, too foreign...
5. Joe Thomas?  No, too Wisconsin...
6. Does (do?) the Force still exist?  How about the Crunch?
7. Rick Vaughn?  Roger Dorn?  Jake Taylor?
8. WWE World Champion the Miz?  He doesn't play here, but he is from Parma.  Wait a minute!  Home-grown boy, finding success elsewhere, I've got it!
8.You're 2010 Greater Cleveland Sports Professional Athlete of The Year is...

LEBRON JAMES!!!

Congratulations, douche bag.

26 And Counting: Shuffling Furniture On The Deck of the Titantic

Well, the Cavs lost again, this time in humiliating fashion to the Detroit Pistons.  So why not celebrate with a trade with those very Pistons?


Trade #1

Cavs get:
Richard Hamilton
Charlie Villanueva
Ben Gordon
Jason Maxiell
Detroit's 2011 2nd Round Pick

Pistons get:
Antawn Jamison
Mo Williams
Anthony Parker

Who is the Cavs best player, or, Who will the Cavs dump within the next 18 months?

Hoops Analyst has yet another great post up (seriously, you should check them out) about the Cavaliers' futility.  The first section deals with essentially the same stuff you've probably already read or seen elsewhere, but it's the second part that really caught my eye.  "Bill James once observed that one of the problems with bad teams is that they tend to blame their best players for futility when, in fact, the ire should be focused on the bad players," the section begins, and then the author goes through the worst teams of the past 22 seasons and relays the fate of each of those teams' best player.  It is interesting that really the only "best player" to stick it out is Big Z after the Ricky Davis/Darius Miles year, but what really got me thinking is if the Cavs have the worst best player of that time period (Ramon Sessions, with an 18.1 PER)?

Probably not, considering the 2004-05 Atlanta Hawks were led by Tyronn Lue's 16.2 PER (which I guess is why they passed on Chris Paul and Deron Williams in the 2005 draft).  The only competition Lue has is Johnny Newman's 14.9 PER for the 1997-98 Denver Nuggets, who at 11-71 are one of the most criminally forgotten terrible teams ever.  I was always convinced Newman would become a head coach since I figured he must have some kind of insane intangibles or basketball acumen to consistently get work in the NBA for 16 seasons despite never posting a PER above 15.5, but instead, Johnny got himself a sweet website.



   

Duke V. North Carolina, in the Battle of Who Could Care Less

It's Duke-North Carolina night, and while I'm sure ESPN is promoting the hell out of it (I don't really know, since I don't get the channel), but all the match-up does for me is produce an audible "Meh."  (Apparently ESPN.com agrees, since there is nary a mention of this famed and storied rivalry on their front page as of 12:45 PM Wednesday.) 

When's the last time this game actually mattered?  Going by rankings in the main polls, 2009, when Duke lost twice to North Carolina but both teams were firmly in the top 10.  I'd argue, however, that it didn't really matter that year because the Tar Heels were a juggernaut, as they soon proved in the NCAA tournament.  In 2008, #2 Duke beat #3 UNC in Chapel Hill, but I wonder how much that result really meant considering #1 UNC beat #5 Duke in Durham a little over a month later.

More importantly, I don't think any ACC game matters this season.  The ACC is garbage, with Duke and the late-charging Tar Heels looking like the only teams capable of doing anything in March.  While it is nice to have two very good teams in a conference, the same thing can be said about BYU and San Diego State in the Mountain West, and those teams are hounded by UNLV and New Mexico while Duke and UNC feast on the likes of mediocre squads such as Maryland and Florida State.

Is this sour grapes from a bitter cynic absolutely exhausted by Duke-UNC coverage, who's first college basketball experience was heartbreak watching that douche Christian Laettner knock Kentucky out of the tourney with a lucky shot, who's roommate at Kent State constantly sang Petey Pablo whenever the Tyler Hansborough was on the TV screen, and who hates Roy Williams and Coach K with equal vitriol?  Perhaps.        

Playing The Lotto #1

As the Cavs continue their march towards infamy, it is increasingly likely (if not assured) that the Wine & Gold will have the worst record in the NBA.* 


*At 8-44, Cleveland has a 4.5 game "lead" on Minnesota, who are next worst at 12-39.  The Cavs are also the only team with a double-digit point differential; unfortunately, it's a negative double-digit point differential (-11.9 points per game; the next worst is Washington, at -6.5).  The NBA record is -15.2 points per game, held by the 1992 Dallas Mavericks, so at least the Cavs should avoid that infamy.  This terrible deficit in points has of course led the Cavaliers to not only be at the bottom of the major statistic-based ranking systems (30th in John Hollinger's Power Rankings; 30th in Basketball Reference's BBR Rankings), but be at the bottom of those rankings by a healthy margin (3.489 points behind #29 Toronto in Hollinger's, with the next biggest gap between consecutive teams being #25 Sacramento's 2.072 lead on #26 Minnesota, with their -11.06 rating at BBR coming in a whopping 4.85 behind #29 New Jersey, which is overwhelmingly the largest gap between consecutive teams).  So, yeah, the Cavs are bad.

25 And Counting

I wouldn't mind seeing Bill Walker do this in the Q.

As the Cavs firmly plant themselves in the record book for all of the wrong reasons, let's celebrate with another trade idea to save them from themselves.


Trade #1

Cavs get:
Eddy Curry
Bill Walker
Anthony Randolph
Jamal Crawford

Knicks get:
Carmelo Anthony
Al Harrington
Mo Williams

Nuggets get:
Wilson Chandler
Toney Douglas
Kelenna Azubuike
Jeff Teague
Danilo Gallinari
Miami's 2013 #1 pick ( via Cleveland)
Atlanta's 2012 #1 pick

Hawks get:
Chauncey Billups
Timofey Mozgov

Diminishing Skills Bracket-OGRAPHOLOGY!!!

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Diminishing Skills Bracket-OGRAPHOLOGY.  Really, I just wanted to see how the NCAA tournament field would look if it started today (actually, late Sunday night), and since it took me about 3 hours to work my bracket out, I figured I might as well make a post of it.  I'm going to try to do this every Monday until the actual tourney field is announced, but I'm not going to promise anything.  The field was filled by putting in the 32 automatic qualifiers (the leaders of each conference as of Sunday, February 6), and then determining the remaining 36 teams by taking an average of Ken Pomeroy's ratings, ESPN's RPI, and Jeff Sagarin's ratings.  The results are as follows (AQs in CAPS):

Three Trades To Change The Cavs

(Who the hell is Alonzo Gee?)


When my girlfriend and I decided to forgo getting cable, I was concerned I would miss watching the Cavs.  As the losses pile up in ever-more humiliating fashion, however, I feel more and more like not getting cable was the the best decision I've made in years.  It has become exceedingly apparent that even though there may be some talent on the roster, the Cavs need to turn that roster over, and soon.  There is just too much of a funk hanging over these guys, and it would probably be best if they all tried to reclaim their careers elsewhere.  Hence, my three trade ideas to change the Cavs.  Notice I'm not promising to make the Cavs any better; in order for them to win at the the level Clevelanders have become accustomed to the past 5 or so years, the Cavs are going to need some serious lottery luck (in very likely more than one lottery).  No, these trades will only clear out the bad vibes of the post-LeBron era, while hopefully leaving the roster flexible for future building.  There is no building happening this year; instead, the goal for the remainder of the season should be exorcising every last vestige of this horrible, horrible team.  (Please note: I don't really understand how the trade exception works, so it is entirely possible all three of these trades cannot happen congruently.  Please forgive me if this is the case.)

Super Bowl Facts: Receiving

• In the past 10 Super Bowls, seven different players have gained over 100 yards receiving, led by Deion Branch's 143 in Super Bowl XXXVIII.  The others include: Mushin Muhammed (140, also in XXXVIII); Branch again (133, XXXIX); Terrell Owens (122, also in XXXIX); Hines Ward (123, XL); Wes Welker (103, XLII); Larry Fitzgerald (127, XLIII); and Santonio Holmes (131, also in XLIII).
• Of those seven players, three were named Super Bowl MVP (Holmes, Ward, and Branch in XXXIX).  
• Three different players have caught at least 10 passes, led by Branch (XXXIX, although he also caught 10 in XXXVIII) and Welker's 11.  The other player is actually running back Joseph Addai, who caught 10 balls in XLI.
• Fitzgerald and Keenan McCardell (XXXVII) are the only two players to catch 2 touchdown passes in a single Super Bowl.  They share the lead for total touchdowns in the decade with Muhsin Muhammed (XLI & XXXVIII); Mike Vrabel (XXXVIII & XXXIX); Ricky Proehl (XXXVI & XXXVIII); and David Givens (XXXVIII & XXXIX).  Vrabel, of course, is the only defensive player to score an offensive touchdown.
• The lowest yardage total to lead a team is Ike Hilliard's 30 yards for the Giants in Super Bowl XXXV.  The lowest reception total to lead a team is Ben Coates and Brandon Stokely's 3 for the Ravens in that same Super Bowl.
• The best performance by a tight end is probably Dallas Clark's 7 catches for 87 yards in last year's Super Bowl.  Other than that, there haven't really been any tight end performances of note in the past 10 years.
• The longest pass reception is Muhammed's 85-yard touchdown in XXXVIII, the longest play from scrimmage in Super Bowl history.  The next longest is Fitzgerald's 64-yard TD catch in XLIII.
• Kevin Faulk is the only player to finish in the red in receiving yards, tallying 1 catch for -1 yards in Super Bowl XXXVI.
• Priest Holmes had one catch for 4 yards for Baltimore in Super Bowl XXXV.  I forgot that he had played for them.
• Muhammed (Carolina and Chicago), Proehl (Carolina and St. Louis), Jermaine Wiggins (Carolina and New England), and Joe Jurevicius (Tampa Bay and Seattle) are the only players to catch a pass for two different teams.  Muhammed and Proehl both caught TD passes for each of their respective teams, as well.
• Antwaan Randall-El is the only non-QB to throw a touchdown (to Hines Ward in Super Bowl XL).