Recent content by hrdboild

The Oakland A's bullpen is currently in the process of blowing their third save in the last three games. It's times like this that I wish I didn't like baseball so I could remain joyfully ignorant of such feelings.

Fox routinely played pressure full-court defense at Kentucky. I had hoped this would translate to the NBA but it doesn't look like that was a point of emphasis for him in his rookie year and his levels of defensive focus and intensity have diminished year-to-year as his offensive workload...

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your point of view) the top prospects we traded weren't even that good anyway. We have like 6 decent minor leaguers in our entire system right now. 17-0 games are fun though! I hope they bring this kind of firepower to our 6 remaining meetings with...

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. It's not surprising, just disappointing.

Yeah, I saw that too. That's just heartbreaking. At the 2013 MIT Sloan Analytics Conference one of the published papers went into extensive detail on why Larry Sanders was the most effective defender in the entire NBA. In 2015 after just 27 games playing under Jason Kidd, Sanders announced...

I agree that Simmons is not a realistic target unless we include Fox or Haliburton. He's a 25 year old 3-time All-Star with 4 more years on his contract. He's only being talked about as available because of special circumstances and Morey seems to be upping his asking cost as the relationship...

In NBA terms, 6'1.25" in shoes comes out to 6'2" on roster sheets following the "always round up" rule. They've been doing it this way for as long as I can remember. You might as well take an inch off everyone's official height if you're wondering about Mitchell's height relative to other...

I'm not sure what exactly you mean here, but if it's that Toronto is covered at PG because they picked up Dragic in the Lowry deal... I don't think a 34 year old on an expiring contract is any kind of long-term answer for a rebuilding team. He's a trade asset they're going to try to move to a...

I'm sold on Siakam to the point where I wouldn't mind throwing in two picks. It's probably an overpay considering his salary but we're going nowhere with Bagley and Buddy. Siakam isn't going to be a #1 option on a playoff team but we have Fox as our #1 option. Siakam can create from the wing...

That's right. Looking at this from the other angle, if Monte manages to complete a trade for Pascal Siakam without giving up Fox or Haliburton and the team commits to playing defense for the full 48 minutes next season, I wouldn't count us out against anyone. Fox established himself as a go-to...

I was hoping Japan would win the gold as the host country. I tried to get up for this one but my work schedule didn't cooperate. Looks like it was a good game though as the US team brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the 9th. I was going to say "our own" Nick Allen got three hits...

This is probably the toughest the Pacific Division has ever been. The good news though is that the Lakers have gone all-in on a veteran model which is only going to carry them for a couple seasons and Golden State is relying on two oft-injured superstars getting close to the end of their...

The Lakers are obviously still interested in Buddy so I wonder if a Denis Schroder sign-and-trade could be combined with a Siakam trade to get Denis to Toronto as their Kyle Lowry replacement? A Buddy+Bagley+lotto protected first round pick for Siakam would be perfect for us but I don't know if...

Khris Davis is back with the A's on a minor league contract! The lack of productive lefty hitters in the organization is becoming a real problem (all hopes are on you 19 yr old Tyler Soderstrom) but having KD waiting in the wings now for a likely September call-up is encouraging from a morale...

Agreed. Also, isn't he kindof just Bagley without the upside? I'm not the biggest believer in Bagley's future but I feel like he's already giving us the same production we'd get from Markkenen -- mostly just scoring and some floor spacing and size on paper that doesn't have a huge impact in...