Yahoo! Sports has the list, which averages the salaries for a starting player.
It’s interesting to see six NBA teams on the list, but it makes sense. Since only five players can play at a time in basketball, franchises can spend more money on their starters. NBA rosters are quite a bit smaller than baseball, football or even soccer rosters.
That makes the Yankees’ top-ranking that much more amazing.
Rick Reilly, ESPN.com: There’s no point in going over all the reasons Huggins is bad for basketball. That’s just kicking a man when he’s up. And boy, is Huggs up. Eighteen years after his last Final Four, eight years after his heart attack in the Pittsburgh airport, six years after his DUI, five years after choosing to “resign” over “be fired” at Cincinnati (where he had four years of 0.0 graduation rate), three years after pulling a one-and-done at Kansas State and leaving them with a crazy-eyed, death-staring Huggins wannabe named Frank Martin, the world is cuddling The Huggy Bear again. “The first time I heard he was coming,” remembers West Virginia’s best player, Da’Sean Butler, “I was like, ‘I’m getting ready to go to Michigan.’ But I’m glad I didn’t leave. It’s been great. I’d be doing all kind of nothing right now.”
John Feinstein, Washington Post: There may not be such a thing as a perfect Final Four, but the one that will begin on Saturday in Indianapolis comes pretty close. It has a Cinderella practically playing on its home court. It has a team that hasn’t been to the Final Four in 51 years but is going back after a prodigal son came home. It has a team whose coach always seems to find a way this time of year, playing in its sixth Final Four in 12 seasons. And it has a villain, the team people love to hate, whether because it wins so often or because people have to have someone to root against once their team has gone home.
Bob Kravitz, Indianapolis Star: History and common sense tell you a school with an enrollment of 4,200 students, a mid-major affiliation and, most important, mid-major revenues, shouldn’t be able to stare down the likes of No. 1 seed Syracuse and No. 2 seed Kansas State. The coaches and players, though, weren’t satisfied with being this cute little underdog story who upsets one or two teams and reaches the Sweet Sixteen every few years… How many times have they been told this year they were too small and too, ahem, un-athletic (which, let’s be honest, is code for “too white”)? Here’s what we saw all tournament, and especially Saturday against massive Kansas State: Butler outrebounded the Wildcats by 12. Twelve… The “Hoosiers” comparisons began again after the game, when players and Stevens were asked how often they’d seen the movie. (There are some parallels: Two small schools. Two teams who built up to the moment; recall how good Milan was the year before the Milan Miracle. The shocking resemblance between Gordon Hayward and Jimmy Chitwood. Fine. I mean, it’s unavoidable, right?)
Michael Rosenberg, Detroit Free Press: Unless Durrell Summers or Kalin Lucas pulls a surprise and leaves for the NBA, MSU should be the preseason No. 1 team in the country next fall. The Spartans will lose Raymar Morgan but bring back everybody else in the rotation and a highly regarded freshman class. What does that have to do with this year’s Final Four? Maybe nothing. But sometimes a surprise national champion is simply a team that peaks before we expect it. In 1991, Duke was a surprise national champion … but the Blue Devils dominated college basketball the next year and won a second title. In 1992, Michigan was a surprise national runner-up … but the next year, the Wolverines earned a No. 1 seed and made the title game again. In 1997, Arizona was a surprise national champion … but the Wildcats were probably the best team in the country the next year, before losing in the Elite Eight. In 2006, Florida was a surprise national champion … but the next year, the Gators were the best team in the country and won another title.
Thomas George, FanHouse: [Coach K’s] trio of seniors — forward Lance Thomas, center Brian Zoubek and guard Jon Scheyer (left to right, photo right) — took the old-school route to Final Four glory. There was nothing microwave about their journey. They went 22-11 as freshmen, 28-6 as sophomores and 30-7 last year. Yet, no Final Fours. They were labeled underachievers. They lacked Duke blue and royal blood. A sham. A bunch of louses. But this trio never stopped fighting, believing, working. Old-school values, sure, but the difference when you’re “not that good.” The Duke assistant coaches will tell you that Scheyer, Thomas and Zoubek did not spend a second griping and moping and doing the things that kill a team, that kill a program. That this trio is the team’s rock. And they have been that for each other. When it was over, after they had popped Baylor 78-71 in front of a Baylor-friendly crowd of 47,492, Zoubek said the seniors just looked at each other. No words needed.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
Chris Bosh answered questions from the South Florida Sun Sentinel about the chances that he lands in Miami this this summer.
He knows Wade “a little bit, not a lot,” he said. So scratch the friendship angle.
“It’s nice here, but there are a lot of nice places,” he said. So scratch the South Florida angle.
“Winning,” Bosh said when asked what his decision will hinge on. “I’m fortunate enough to have enough money. After seven years in the league, I want to play on a contender.”
The Miami Herald has more about how well Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh know each other.
“I know Dwyane a little bit, not a lot,” Bosh said. “We haven’t spent that much time outside of USA Basketball. People always are going to look for some kind of connection. That’s understandable. People are going to try to make things up. There is always going to be speculation. So I’ll let everybody write their stories and keep going about my business.”
Bosh also said that he expected it to take a while for the big names to make up their minds.
`I think it’s going to drag out for a while,” Bosh said before Sunday’s game against the Heat. “There are so many possibilities and scenarios, with guys staying with their own teams and trying to get other guys [to sign].
“You have to look at combinations and possibilities of what could happen. So I don’t expect it to be over too quickly.”
First off, this sure sounds like a guy who’s leaving town, doesn’t it?
There’s still a feeling that Toronto could swing a sign-and-trade for Bosh, so that he can sign for an extra season and more money, but that would require enough in the way of assets to get Toronto to bite. Why would Bosh bother to agree to such a scenario when it would only fleece his new team of their draft picks and/or young players? That would hurt his new team’s championship chances, correct?
The only scenario I can see at the moment is the Lakers. If Bosh wants to play in L.A. with Kobe, the Lakers could send Andrew Bynum to Toronto in return. However, Bynum’s long history of injury is only getting longer.
I still stand by my prediction that Bosh is going to walk and the Raptors will get nothing in return.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
Admittedly, I wasn’t a big believer in Milwaukee’s decision to trade for John Salmons, but after his terrific play has ignited the Bucks’ recent run — 16-4 since the trade, with Salmons leading the teams in scoring 10 times — it doesn’t bother me that the Bulls will have enough cap space this summer to sign a max free agent. Salmons’ positive impact already outweighs whatever might happen this summer.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the aforementioned Bulls, because as a throw-in to the Salmons trade, the Bucks have the right to swap picks if Chicago picks outside of the top 10. The Bulls have won two straight, and are now sitting at 35-38, just a half game back of the Raptors for the #8 spot in the East. More importantly for the Bucks, Chicago is sitting in the #12 spot in terms of the draft, and outside of the Hornets (34-40), no one is going to slip past them.
What does this mean? Well, barring a complete meltdown by the Bulls, the Bucks will be able to swap picks, meaning that they’ll move up from their current position (#18) into the #11-#15 range. Per the mock draft at DraftExpress, that’s the difference between Baylor’s Ekpe Udoh and Marshall’s Hassan Whiteside.
Keep the faith, people.
I know my official bracket looked rough there for a while, with a spotty performance in the first round and the loss of my overall winner (Kansas) in the second. But with Syracuse, Ohio State and Kansas State losing, along with West Virginia’s win over Kentucky and Duke’s tight win over Baylor, I ended up with two Final Four teams in a year when almost no one will have three or more. That means that if you followed my picks, you’re probably sitting somewhere near the top of your pool. (Anthony Stalter didn’t look at his bracket after Kansas lost and just discovered that he’s in fourth place out of 54 entries and has a shot at second place.)
Anyway, even though I’m a Duke fan, I picked the Mountaineers over the Blue Devils at the beginning of the tournament, and now I’m regretting it a little. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Let’s take a closer look at each game and try to predict what’s going to happen on Saturday night.
By now everyone knows that Butler will be playing just a few miles away from campus. The pundits are suggesting that the Bulldogs will have a big homecourt advantage, but I’m not for sure. The Final Four crowd is largely made up of corporate types that are both neutral and non-vocal, so unless the Butler contingent can somehow get a hold of these tickets, I don’t think there will be much of an advantage. However, if Butler wins on Saturday, its fans could buy up all the tickets from the losing teams. This, coupled with a villain in the title game (Duke) could create more atmosphere. Still, it’s not like we’re talking about Indiana or Purdue — I just don’t know that the Butler fan base is that broad.
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