I picked up my copy of this year’s THN Yearbook the other day, and I’m slowly making my way through it.  I nearly didn’t; given some of the other options out there, the $20.14 (including HST) I spent on the Yearbook and Ultimate Fantasy Pool Guide was pretty hard to justify.  I told myself I’d write about it here and that would help make up for it.

There are certainly some good points to the yearbook.  THN contracts the team reports out to 30 different beat reporters, and the quality of some of the write-ups is excellent.  To pick one example, I thought that the Bruins article, done by Mike Loftus of the Patriot Ledger, was informative and surprisingly even-handed for a writer describing a team fresh off a humiliating playoff defeat.

John Vogl’s article on the Buffalo Sabres was less enjoyable.  He took the playoff disappointment and projected it across the season, repeatedly highlighting a lack of passion by the fans that he felt he saw:

 

“The thing is, [the Sabres’ regular season] didn’t feel all that special.  The fans filled the arena, yet they seemed to sit on their hands just waiting for their team to fail them.  Once the playoffs rolled around, the Sabres did.  A quick, first-round exit to the Boston Bruins proved what fans were thinking: The team wasn’t ready for the big time.”

“The 40th anniversary figures to be a big deal in town, so if there’s passion on the ice it’ll be more evident in the stands, too.” 

Just for the sake of context, this was the Sabre’s first playoff appearance since 2007 (when The Sporting News named them the best hockey city in America), and the team’s outdoor “Party in the Plaza” started filling up three hours before playoff games started.  The Sabres, anticipating that kind of excitement, brought in a 40’ x 120’ tent to guarantee the party against rain, and despite beer restrictions and a disappointing loss, the level of energy was “just as high” after Game Two. 

And while I’m on the subject of playoff disappointment, here’s how Vogl opened his section on the Sabres’ 2nd-ranked penalty kill and 17th-ranked power play:

“Failure.  Check that.  Abject failure.”

After 82 games with the second-best penalty kill in the league (the Sabres finished one goal out of first in the league) and six games of struggling against the Sabres, it took five paragraphs to discover that the penalty kill was actually pretty good.  The other four paragraphs documented those six playoff games.

Despite the pessimism, Vogl remained optimistic about Sabres’ goaltender Ryan Miller:

“As good as Miller was last season while winning the Vezina Trophy, there’s reason to think he’ll be even better in 2010-11.  He’s in his prime at 30 years of age.  An astute student of the game, he reads plays with the ease of a Dr. Seuss book.  He’s the reason Buffalo has a chance to win every game in which he plays.”

Leaving aside the fact that the only reason offered to support the contention that Miller could improve is the fact that he’s 30, how likely is it that Miller will take another step forward?  Given that Miller’s save percentage was 0.929, 0.015 better than his career average and 0.011 better than his previous career high, that he’s 30, it seems unlikely.  Given that Miller’s numbers this year were bolstered when his historically below-average penalty-killing numbers led the league this season, it seems even more unlikely. 

Then there’s Vogl’s take on Kaleta:

“[The Sabres perceived softness is] one reason why players such as Patrick Kaleta have pledged to fill a bigger role.  Tenacious, hard-hitting and willing to do anything, Kaleta and his ilk are hoping to not only spark the team but be its long-lasting flame.”

I’m not sure which is worse: that Patrick Kaleta, who ranked 16th of 18 Sabres forwards in average ice-time per game, gets a whole paragraph lauding him as the cure to what ails the Sabres, or that his one area of incredible skill didn’t get mentioned once in it.

I’m being harsh to Vogl here, harsher than I’d originally intended (or than he probably deserves) because his article highlights a lot of areas that have bothered me about THN (and to some degree, hockey reporting in general) for years: broad, self-serving narratives of questionable accuracy, drawing results from one playoff series and projecting them as orders of magnitude more important than results over the 82-game regular season, and poorly supported statements about players that may or may not be grounded in reality. 

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The new Umbro England kit made it’s on pitch debut today as England beat Bulgaria 4-0. Gotta admit, the blue shorts are growing on me.

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Stephen Hart tells The Footy Show all may not be lost on the Jonathan De Guzman for Canada front.

Meanwhile dialogue is also open regarding Junior Hoilett and Teal Bunbury.

Full stories surrounding Stephen Hart, as well as Iain Hume and Simeon Jackson will be coming to The Footy Show is the next couple of weeks.

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The Denver Nuggets’ new vice president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri has quite a conundrum on his hands. He’s trying to convince Carmelo Anthony to sign a three-year, $65 million contract extension but multiple sources close to Anthony have reported that he has no intention of staying in Denver beyond this season. To make matters worse, rumors abound that Anthony really wants to play for the Knicks so any other team wanting to acquire him might not have any more success than the Nuggets in getting him to sign an extension.

If you’re a Nuggets fan, you most likely want Ujiri to hang on to Carmelo at least until the February trading deadline in the hopes that the Nuggets will emerge as one of the top teams in the West and therefore convince Anthony to change his feelings about his future in Denver. This remains the most likely way this drama will play out, but that doesn’t stop fans of the other 29 teams from salivating over the idea of seeing Anthony in their jersey.

(A fan of both the Knicks and Anthony posted this Photoshop of ‘Melo in a Knicks jersey on Twitter and @carmeloanthony re-tweeted it. Make of that what you will.)

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of Ujiri and pretend that we’ve concluded that we have to trade Anthony or risk losing him to free agency after the 2010-11 season. Obviously, there would be no shortage of interested parties — especially the Knicks. So let’s head to the ESPN Trade Machine and see what kind of deal we can work out between Denver and New York.

The trade machine doesn’t let you include draft picks in your proposed trades, but that’s a moot point with the Knicks because the Rockets have the option to swap first round picks with the Knicks in 2011 and they also own the Knicks’ first round pick (top-five protected) in 2012. Anyway, here’s what I came up with in terms of a theoretically possible Nuggets-Knicks trade.

That’s Anthony Randolph, Danilo Gallinari and the obese, expiring contract of Eddy Curry for Carmelo Anthony. Since Randolph was traded to the Knicks on July 9 and a player can’t be traded as part of a group within two months of being acquired in a trade, this transaction couldn’t take place until about a week from now.

The funny thing about this proposal is that I’m quite sure the fanbases of both the Nuggets and the Knicks would hate this. Nuggets fans will think it’s not enough to get in return for ‘Melo (since only Randolph and Gallinari are actually usable players) and Knicks fans will think that’s too much to give up for him since they can just sign him outright in the summer of 2011.

So here’s where I try to convince these fanbases that this is actually a good deal. Let’s start with Nuggets fans. Gallinari and Randolph are both very good, very young (Gallinari is 22 and Randolph is 21) prospects and if you can get two young players of their caliber in return for Carmelo, that’s a very good starting point for the rebuilding project your team will likely need to undertake. As for Curry, he’s obviously never going to put on a Nuggets jersey but that $11 million expiring contract could potentially be a useful trade chip later in the season — and even if it isn’t, it will help your team on its journey to the other end of the cap.

Now for the Knicks fans. I’m well aware that most of you think that you shouldn’t have to give up Randolph AND Gallinari because you’re convinced Anthony is just going to sign with your team regardless. I’m both amused and surprised that so many Knicks fans would feel this way considering what happened with LeBron James this past off-season. Even if Carmelo has his heart set on New York at the moment, who is to say he won’t change his mind between now and next July?

This trade could potentially make the Knicks a top-four team in the East this season, assuming both Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire stay healthy. From there, it simply becomes an issue of adding supporting pieces and we can probably assume that New York would become a particularly attractive free agent destination if the Knicks had a one-two punch of Anthony and Stoudemire.

I’d like to hear from both Nuggets and Knicks fans about this proposal, but I’d also like to read what fans of other teams think. Feel free to propose Anthony trades to other teams, but keep in mind that those teams might not be willing to offer very much if they think Carmelo could be a one-year rental. As for me, if I was the GM of either the Nuggets or the Knicks, I think I could talk myself into this deal.

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This week on the podcast the fellas talk about fantasy football, the MLB Triple Crown race, and the long awaited special announcement. We are daily! Sid impersonates Brett Favre and Ozzie Guillen. Plus as usual they get off topic and rant about females. Shaq and Carmelo’s internet girls are discussed…and Brenda Warner is mentioned early and often.

Subscribe To Tim and Sid: Uncut Podcast via iTunes (free of charge)

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