So now the excuse for why the Rainmen have to go to Quebec to see if they can go to Quebec is that the Halifax Metro Centre is not available on the required date. Is this the fault of the ABA or the Rainmen?
This is totally the league’s fault. The idea of a league is that there is is some central organizing body that handles little things like PLAYOFFS!
Surely, the teams who are still around were viable months ago when the playoff schedule should have been set up. A playoff schedule could have been made earlier than the same month as the playoffs are to be held.
As I have said before, if there was some minimum number of games that must be played to be eligible for the playoffs, like say 50% or 67% of a 36-game schedule (or whatever the schedule would work out to be, depending on the number of teams in each division and the overall league), then teams who do not meet that minimum don’t play after the regular season. This would get rid of the teams with a 10-1 or 1-7 record getting the chance to maybe beat teams that have played a full (or fuller) slate of games.
At the very least, the method of getting to the playoffs should be consistent. I suggest that there should be 2 conferences in the ABA: East and West. The top 4 teams from each conference who have played at least the minimum number of games go to the playoffs. Voila! The playoffs are set up!
Instead, the ABA makes each division up at the last minute (remember Boston was originally in the North division, not the Northeast?) because their original divisional plan collapsed with so many teams going under during the season. Then they devise a Machiavellian method of multiple-level preliminaries for each different division and include such powerhouses as 4-23 Maywood and 1-7 Georgia.
The ABA is nothing more than what the people on OSC say it is: a money grab for Joe Newman, who makes up the rules as situations arise. That is no way to run a league, or a business. A pox on the ABA!
Showing posts with label playoffs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label playoffs. Show all posts
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Curiouser and curiouser
I am feeling a bit literary today. The above quote from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" seems appropriate to the ABA Playoff SNAFU. Apparently, Joe Newman didn’t want the NCAA to have the most March Madness. I have personally set up playoffs that weren’t this complicated or ridiculous.
At least the Rainmen get to go to Quebec, at least for one game. I am sure they would have rather hosted that game for the revenue and not have the travel costs for a game that may be their only one in the playoffs.
I truly wonder who gets paid to make these decisions. Perhaps Maywood’s owner paid someone a bit extra to get his playoff game. Another literary quote, from George Orwell's "Animal Farm", “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
P.S. Congrats to Eric Crookshank for being named to the league All-Star team. Only the ABA would play an All-Star game the week before the playoffs, risking injury to their self-described All-Stars.
At least the Rainmen get to go to Quebec, at least for one game. I am sure they would have rather hosted that game for the revenue and not have the travel costs for a game that may be their only one in the playoffs.
I truly wonder who gets paid to make these decisions. Perhaps Maywood’s owner paid someone a bit extra to get his playoff game. Another literary quote, from George Orwell's "Animal Farm", “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
P.S. Congrats to Eric Crookshank for being named to the league All-Star team. Only the ABA would play an All-Star game the week before the playoffs, risking injury to their self-described All-Stars.
Sometimes I just have to shake my head
So the Rainmen will not get to host a playoff game en route to Quebec. Chris Parsons and I agree in the speculation that the New York area teams (Jersey and Westchester, who both cancelled games against Halifax) refused to travel to Canada if they won their preliminary games. If Montreal wins to face the Rainmen, maybe we should host the game anyway? The way I see it, the ABA should grow some and tell the teams that refuse to travel that they will forfeit the game, in regular season as well as the playoffs.
The playoff format, as reported by the ABA, was that the higher-seeded team would be the home team. The fact that 4 teams must play off to match up against the Rainmen tells me that we are the highest-ranked team of these 5, otherwise we would not get a bye in this preliminary round.
While the iconoclast in me says, “Yeah! Leave the ABA!”, the realist in me says, “If there are no other viable leagues that will have teams within a day’s travel by road, then it doesn’t make sense to cut off one’s nose to spite the face.” The PBL only has future expansion teams (Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo) that are anywhere near Halifax. The CBA’s nearest team is in upstate New York. The IBL has no teams east of Michigan. The USBL has a couple of New York teams, but the others are south and west of there.
Unless a group of Northeast teams makes a move, I don’t see how the Rainmen could make a go of it.
Other than the playoffs being a complete SNAFU and a couple teams cancelling away games on us, I don’t see how the ABA is ruining our enjoyment of the Rainmen. The haters will always find some reason to no attend the games, the ABA is the obvious scapegoat (and rightly so). Mr. Levingston and his team have gone above and beyond all expectations to bring a full slate of home games to Halifax, for which I am grateful, as possibly the first retail season ticket holder. Just look at the travesties that are some of the other teams in the league (those that are still existing). We Halifax fans are truly fortunate to have a committed organization like the Rainmen who have provided 18 entertaining games, along with the teams who filled in for lesser organizations who either folded during the season or refused to travel to Halifax.
While I sincerely hope that the Rainmen find a better league (fingers crossed for NBA-D League), I wonder if the problems of the ABA are symptomatic of minor professional leagues, like PBL, CBA, IBL, USBL, etc. The teams in these leagues play in small markets that cannot support a more expensive franchise. Quite often, the city population of these minor league teams is insufficient to really support a team, or the management skills of the team front offices is lacking. Neither of these seem to be a problem for the Rainmen.
The movie Semi-Pro is funnier because it is based on the facts of minor-league teams:
1. The team owner often has delusions of grandeur, e.g. the Corning Bulldogs and Georgia Gwizzlies
2. The owner does not has enough money to see the team through the difficult times, usually the first few years
In short, they are poor businessmen who don’t realize that professional sport is a business. Again, neither of these situations appear to be the case with Mr. Levingston. By all accounts, he is a self-made man who wants to help make a difference wherever he can.
I will continue to support the Rainmen and root for them, despite that they are in an abusive league. I hope they can get out of this relationship, because it hurts me to see them hurt. OK, that metaphor has gone far enough. Anyway, let’s show the Bahama Pro Show what a stadium full of fans looks like, while our guys proceed to dunk, lay-up and rain 3-pointers on the way to two victories to end the regular season.
The playoff format, as reported by the ABA, was that the higher-seeded team would be the home team. The fact that 4 teams must play off to match up against the Rainmen tells me that we are the highest-ranked team of these 5, otherwise we would not get a bye in this preliminary round.
While the iconoclast in me says, “Yeah! Leave the ABA!”, the realist in me says, “If there are no other viable leagues that will have teams within a day’s travel by road, then it doesn’t make sense to cut off one’s nose to spite the face.” The PBL only has future expansion teams (Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo) that are anywhere near Halifax. The CBA’s nearest team is in upstate New York. The IBL has no teams east of Michigan. The USBL has a couple of New York teams, but the others are south and west of there.
Unless a group of Northeast teams makes a move, I don’t see how the Rainmen could make a go of it.
Other than the playoffs being a complete SNAFU and a couple teams cancelling away games on us, I don’t see how the ABA is ruining our enjoyment of the Rainmen. The haters will always find some reason to no attend the games, the ABA is the obvious scapegoat (and rightly so). Mr. Levingston and his team have gone above and beyond all expectations to bring a full slate of home games to Halifax, for which I am grateful, as possibly the first retail season ticket holder. Just look at the travesties that are some of the other teams in the league (those that are still existing). We Halifax fans are truly fortunate to have a committed organization like the Rainmen who have provided 18 entertaining games, along with the teams who filled in for lesser organizations who either folded during the season or refused to travel to Halifax.
While I sincerely hope that the Rainmen find a better league (fingers crossed for NBA-D League), I wonder if the problems of the ABA are symptomatic of minor professional leagues, like PBL, CBA, IBL, USBL, etc. The teams in these leagues play in small markets that cannot support a more expensive franchise. Quite often, the city population of these minor league teams is insufficient to really support a team, or the management skills of the team front offices is lacking. Neither of these seem to be a problem for the Rainmen.
The movie Semi-Pro is funnier because it is based on the facts of minor-league teams:
1. The team owner often has delusions of grandeur, e.g. the Corning Bulldogs and Georgia Gwizzlies
2. The owner does not has enough money to see the team through the difficult times, usually the first few years
In short, they are poor businessmen who don’t realize that professional sport is a business. Again, neither of these situations appear to be the case with Mr. Levingston. By all accounts, he is a self-made man who wants to help make a difference wherever he can.
I will continue to support the Rainmen and root for them, despite that they are in an abusive league. I hope they can get out of this relationship, because it hurts me to see them hurt. OK, that metaphor has gone far enough. Anyway, let’s show the Bahama Pro Show what a stadium full of fans looks like, while our guys proceed to dunk, lay-up and rain 3-pointers on the way to two victories to end the regular season.
Friday, March 7, 2008
ABA 2008 Playoffs
Latest news on the playoffs from ABAlive.com
5 out of 8 teams will receive byes!?! OK... Anyway, the teams getting byes are Vermont, Manchester, San Diego, Texas Tycoons and the host team, Quebec.
Beijing has 5 players trying out for the Olympics, so they are not participating.
Unfortunately, the other 12 teams still in contention will have to battle for only 3 regional spots. No one said the ABA made sense.
Below are the respective press releases for each division playoff and my thoughts on them:
South Division
Three teams in the South division: West Texas Whirlwind, Georgia Gwizzlies, and Atlanta Vision. West Texas (3-6) will play Georgia (1-7) -- what a clash of the Titans!
The winner will go on to lose to Atlanta (6-2), who is pretty much guaranteed a spot, even though they have only played 8 games, beating such notable teams as the aforementioned Gwizzlies and the incomparable Bahama Pro Show (1-5, to be 1-7 after next week in Halifax).
I reiterate my protest that a team like Atlanta, who has so far played only 8 games of an 18-game season does not deserve to be in the playoffs against teams like Halifax, who have laboured to play as many games as possible.
West Division
Four West division teams:San Fran (5-10), OC (14-12), Maywood (3-23) and Long Beach (10-7) will play off to send their representative to Quebec.
My guess is that the doormats of the league -- Maywood, as if I had to say their name, which should be Maywouldn't -- and San Fran will fall to OC and Long Beach, who appear to be fairly good teams. Both OC and Long Beach have recently beaten higher-ranked teams, so they are both feeling good. Their matchup should be a good one.
Long Beach pretty much owns OC, winning all five of their matches this season, although the margins have been getting closer over the past few games. I'm going to say Long Beach goes to Quebec.
Northeast Division
Five teams from our Northeast division will play for the chance to play in Quebec. Jersey (7-10) will play Boston (8-16) and Montreal (8-17) will play Westchester (8-6). The winners of those games play off to see who will go against Halifax for the Northeast spot in the Awesome 8, or whatever they call it.
You may not remember Jersey or Westchester. They both cancelled games with us (which should have been forfeits for the record books, but I am not the league statistician).
Jersey appears to have a defensive game, with most of their opponents scoring an average of only 108 points per game. Unfortunately, Jersey has an average score of 103 points. They lost big to Vermont (but who hasn't?) and luckily they had First State to beat up on, to help Jersey's record with 4 of Jersey's 7 wins coming against the Fusion.
Westchester has beaten Jersey 4 out of their 5 matches of the season, with close scoring margins in 4 of the games (between 1 and 9 points), so Jersey is probably a weaker team than their record shows.
This is a bit of a toss-up, given the lack of exposure to Westchester or Jersey, but my guess is Jersey will win over Boston (Jersey did beat the Kebs, after all) and Montreal should beat Westchester. Montreal whupped the Phantoms in their only match-up this season, 130-96.
In the play-off, I think Montreal will win over Jersey, based on Montreal's record versus Jersey's record against common opponents, as well as Montreal's experience against a variety of teams, rather than Jersey's history of only playing a few teams who happen to be within an hour's drive, except for getting trounced in Vermont and Beijing. Come to think of it, maybe that's why Jersey doesn't travel much, they get destroyed away from home.
Our game against Montreal should be a good one. Even though they won the season series 3-2 against us, our team is by far the strongest it has ever been and we are riding a high of wins (assuming the Bahama Pro Show don't stack their team with Vermont players). If Montreal plays their scheduled end-of-season games in Beijing, I think they will lose to us in the playoffs, either because we will play better than them, or they will still be suffering from jetlag or depression after probably losing both games in China. Getting past Westchester will likely empty Montreal's gas tank, just in time for our well-rested players to run up and down the court against them on the way to victory.
So there you have it: we have a playoff game, probably at home, since the other teams are playing off to get to us, and probably against Montreal.
Looks good for us going to Quebec!
5 out of 8 teams will receive byes!?! OK... Anyway, the teams getting byes are Vermont, Manchester, San Diego, Texas Tycoons and the host team, Quebec.
Beijing has 5 players trying out for the Olympics, so they are not participating.
Unfortunately, the other 12 teams still in contention will have to battle for only 3 regional spots. No one said the ABA made sense.
Below are the respective press releases for each division playoff and my thoughts on them:
South Division
Three teams in the South division: West Texas Whirlwind, Georgia Gwizzlies, and Atlanta Vision. West Texas (3-6) will play Georgia (1-7) -- what a clash of the Titans!
The winner will go on to lose to Atlanta (6-2), who is pretty much guaranteed a spot, even though they have only played 8 games, beating such notable teams as the aforementioned Gwizzlies and the incomparable Bahama Pro Show (1-5, to be 1-7 after next week in Halifax).
I reiterate my protest that a team like Atlanta, who has so far played only 8 games of an 18-game season does not deserve to be in the playoffs against teams like Halifax, who have laboured to play as many games as possible.
West Division
Four West division teams:San Fran (5-10), OC (14-12), Maywood (3-23) and Long Beach (10-7) will play off to send their representative to Quebec.
My guess is that the doormats of the league -- Maywood, as if I had to say their name, which should be Maywouldn't -- and San Fran will fall to OC and Long Beach, who appear to be fairly good teams. Both OC and Long Beach have recently beaten higher-ranked teams, so they are both feeling good. Their matchup should be a good one.
Long Beach pretty much owns OC, winning all five of their matches this season, although the margins have been getting closer over the past few games. I'm going to say Long Beach goes to Quebec.
Northeast Division
Five teams from our Northeast division will play for the chance to play in Quebec. Jersey (7-10) will play Boston (8-16) and Montreal (8-17) will play Westchester (8-6). The winners of those games play off to see who will go against Halifax for the Northeast spot in the Awesome 8, or whatever they call it.
You may not remember Jersey or Westchester. They both cancelled games with us (which should have been forfeits for the record books, but I am not the league statistician).
Jersey appears to have a defensive game, with most of their opponents scoring an average of only 108 points per game. Unfortunately, Jersey has an average score of 103 points. They lost big to Vermont (but who hasn't?) and luckily they had First State to beat up on, to help Jersey's record with 4 of Jersey's 7 wins coming against the Fusion.
Westchester has beaten Jersey 4 out of their 5 matches of the season, with close scoring margins in 4 of the games (between 1 and 9 points), so Jersey is probably a weaker team than their record shows.
This is a bit of a toss-up, given the lack of exposure to Westchester or Jersey, but my guess is Jersey will win over Boston (Jersey did beat the Kebs, after all) and Montreal should beat Westchester. Montreal whupped the Phantoms in their only match-up this season, 130-96.
In the play-off, I think Montreal will win over Jersey, based on Montreal's record versus Jersey's record against common opponents, as well as Montreal's experience against a variety of teams, rather than Jersey's history of only playing a few teams who happen to be within an hour's drive, except for getting trounced in Vermont and Beijing. Come to think of it, maybe that's why Jersey doesn't travel much, they get destroyed away from home.
Our game against Montreal should be a good one. Even though they won the season series 3-2 against us, our team is by far the strongest it has ever been and we are riding a high of wins (assuming the Bahama Pro Show don't stack their team with Vermont players). If Montreal plays their scheduled end-of-season games in Beijing, I think they will lose to us in the playoffs, either because we will play better than them, or they will still be suffering from jetlag or depression after probably losing both games in China. Getting past Westchester will likely empty Montreal's gas tank, just in time for our well-rested players to run up and down the court against them on the way to victory.
So there you have it: we have a playoff game, probably at home, since the other teams are playing off to get to us, and probably against Montreal.
Looks good for us going to Quebec!
Friday, February 22, 2008
A flurry of thoughts on the Rainmen
Here are some posts that I put on Chris Parsons's fansite about the Rainmen, with some minor edits and additions for context.
On Rick Lewis's coaching ability:
If a game is lost with 12 minutes to go, try subbing in the guys who wish they could play enough so they might actually make a difference. Being down 20 points going into the fourth, against Vermont no less, means that this leaves 12 minutes for our bench warmers to get some real time, not the garbage 90 seconds that Lewis deigns to give them.
Rick Lewis seems like a nice enough fellow and gives good interview on the Q, but proper player utilization, gametime decision making and clock management are not his fortes. Maybe he could be the PR talking head for the team, but please can we have a different head coach? How about the 2 assistant coaches? Give them a crack at running a game or two. Why not? At least they know the players and their respective strengths and weaknesses. We may have next year’s coach already on the payroll and I don’t mean Rick Lewis.
On Halifax vs. Vermont:
Looking at the box score of this game, it seems like it was the Lantrice and Eric show. Fine, they are supposed to be our best scorers, but 2 guys can’t match up against 5. Looking at the amount of time the starters played makes me cringe. Of course we ran out of gas! Eric played all 48 minutes of the game! Lantrice, Brian and Ferg got a combined 15 minutes off! Lewis treats his backups like they were made out of glass and he doesn’t want to risk breaking them by taking them out of the wrapper and actually playing them.
On the rest of the season:
I was looking forward to watching the Rainmen whup the Maywood Buzz (3-21), but now I think we’ll be lucky to split the games with them.
I highly doubt the Bahama Pro Show will come all the way to Halifax, considering they only have 6 games under their belts, according to the ABA website (if that site can be trusted). The Bahama website is current as of November 2007, so no help there.
I admire Mr. Levingston for trying to finish the season off without missing any home games, but it seems that just as the Rainmen are getting some PR traction in Halifax, our team is collapsing on the court. I hope we can finish off the season in a strong way, to bring our record closer to .500. Luckily, we have a home stand of games with only Vermont being a clear favourite against us. I would love to see us take at least 4 of the 6 games to end the season.
On the Rainmen's recent additions to the team:
I am glad they sell programs at the games, it’s hard to keep track of our players. Is this common for ABA teams or is Mr. Levingston trying to find the right mix, even as the end of the season approaches? The two new additions sound promising, we certainly can’t do much worse.
James Tyler is listed on a basketball recruiting website as 7′1″ and 360 pounds!!! That’s heavier than Shaq, although he is also 16 years younger than the Diesel. In fact, his nickname was/is “Baby Shaq”.
I hope his weight doesn’t make him too slow. If he has some speed, he will definitely make his presence known on the court. Another website shows his strengths as: “Low Block Scorer” and “Rebounding”, while he needs to improve as a “Finisher” and his “Intensity/Passion”. This site also mentioned that Tyler “got serious about basketball and shed some weight, thus opening up his low post game.” Some other sites list Tyler at 310, 320 and 330 pounds, respectively.
As for Akeem Clark, a few years ago he was praised as being one of the U.S. best 3 point shooters. Interestingly, Booyer and Clark were on the same USBL team Gary Steelheads and were activated at the same time last year. In addition to being teammates on the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis team for a year, they were also together on the Black Hawk East Junior College team in 2002. Either they were separated at birth and are karmically connected, or James is one heck of a salesman at getting Akeem on his team. Hopefully Akeem can stay healthy and contribute to the Rainmen this year, unlike Booyer, who was released again due to a chronic leg injury after playing only 5 games for the Rainmen.
On the 2008 ABA playoffs:
I just found this 2008 playoff tree, reportedly from the Manchester Millrats.
Apparently we will be playing the Atlanta Vision, in Georgia. The top 4 teams (Vermont, Beijing, Manchester and Texas) get byes, as does the host team Quebec. 4 California teams as well as Atlanta and Halifax make up the rest of the roster. For some reason, there is no 10th seed.
I don’t think a team (Atlanta Vision) that has played only 8 games should be in the playoffs. The Atlanta Vision have beaten the Gwizzlies 4 times, the Bahama Pro Show twice and lost to Beijing twice. That’s it. That is their whole season so far, with 15 games cancelled. The Vision will play the Gwizzlies 3 more times and Bahama once more. So we get to play a team that has played a total of 3 other teams, while Mr. Levingston and the rest of the Northeast division, who have worked to provide as complete a schedule as possible, are penalized by not advancing to the playoffs.
edit: Apparently the link above was a bracket that another fan had made up, as his projection of how the playoffs will go. It is not an official playoff bracket. Read the entry below to see that this fan playoff bracket is the best info that we have so far on the playoffs, since no one, not even the CEO of the league, is giving the answer of exactly how the playoffs will be seeded or played.
Here is correspondence between a Rainmen fan and Joe Newman, the CEO of the ABA.
This just shows that Newman has no idea how the playoffs will go. In a real league, the format would be set well in advance, with teams — and fans — knowing ahead of the end of the season whether or not they will be in the playoffs.
Having most of the teams fold or play incomplete seasons messes up the seeding, but there should be a rule that teams must play at least 50% of their scheduled games (50% is the absolute lowest, it should probably be higher, like 67% or 75%) to qualify for the playoffs. Otherwise, a team like the 6-2 Atlanta Vision who are only successful at beating up on the Gwizzlies (1-7) and the Bahama Pro Show (1-5) would get in while a team that actually plays different teams, including ones that are better than they are, gets the shaft.
The fact that the league CEO doesn’t directly respond to a fan’s e-mail is disappointing. The fact that there is no apparent clear-cut rule on which teams will make the playoffs is disturbing. I smell a rat in the state of Denmark, to mix my metaphors.
On the Rainmen's end-of-season home stand and another blast at Halifax's newest free tabloid, Metro:
I think the new guys may be the key to rounding out our formerly guard-heavy team with some big offense. Will Lewis’s program fit them in to actually make a difference? That remains to be seen, but we will have a half-dozen chances to see it, over the next 3 weeks.
I read this Metro article on the Rainmen. Chris and I consistently write longer passages on rainmenblog.wordpress.com than that 178-word footnote. Other than talking to Mr. Levingston for a couple of sound bites, the reporter did less research than Chris (or I) do for most of our posts. While I am pleasantly surprised that there is even local news in the paper, the length of the piece shows what I said about the tabloid’s editorial slant towards stories that can be read in 30 seconds or less.
On Rick Lewis's coaching ability:
If a game is lost with 12 minutes to go, try subbing in the guys who wish they could play enough so they might actually make a difference. Being down 20 points going into the fourth, against Vermont no less, means that this leaves 12 minutes for our bench warmers to get some real time, not the garbage 90 seconds that Lewis deigns to give them.
Rick Lewis seems like a nice enough fellow and gives good interview on the Q, but proper player utilization, gametime decision making and clock management are not his fortes. Maybe he could be the PR talking head for the team, but please can we have a different head coach? How about the 2 assistant coaches? Give them a crack at running a game or two. Why not? At least they know the players and their respective strengths and weaknesses. We may have next year’s coach already on the payroll and I don’t mean Rick Lewis.
On Halifax vs. Vermont:
Looking at the box score of this game, it seems like it was the Lantrice and Eric show. Fine, they are supposed to be our best scorers, but 2 guys can’t match up against 5. Looking at the amount of time the starters played makes me cringe. Of course we ran out of gas! Eric played all 48 minutes of the game! Lantrice, Brian and Ferg got a combined 15 minutes off! Lewis treats his backups like they were made out of glass and he doesn’t want to risk breaking them by taking them out of the wrapper and actually playing them.
On the rest of the season:
I was looking forward to watching the Rainmen whup the Maywood Buzz (3-21), but now I think we’ll be lucky to split the games with them.
I highly doubt the Bahama Pro Show will come all the way to Halifax, considering they only have 6 games under their belts, according to the ABA website (if that site can be trusted). The Bahama website is current as of November 2007, so no help there.
I admire Mr. Levingston for trying to finish the season off without missing any home games, but it seems that just as the Rainmen are getting some PR traction in Halifax, our team is collapsing on the court. I hope we can finish off the season in a strong way, to bring our record closer to .500. Luckily, we have a home stand of games with only Vermont being a clear favourite against us. I would love to see us take at least 4 of the 6 games to end the season.
On the Rainmen's recent additions to the team:
I am glad they sell programs at the games, it’s hard to keep track of our players. Is this common for ABA teams or is Mr. Levingston trying to find the right mix, even as the end of the season approaches? The two new additions sound promising, we certainly can’t do much worse.
James Tyler is listed on a basketball recruiting website as 7′1″ and 360 pounds!!! That’s heavier than Shaq, although he is also 16 years younger than the Diesel. In fact, his nickname was/is “Baby Shaq”.
I hope his weight doesn’t make him too slow. If he has some speed, he will definitely make his presence known on the court. Another website shows his strengths as: “Low Block Scorer” and “Rebounding”, while he needs to improve as a “Finisher” and his “Intensity/Passion”. This site also mentioned that Tyler “got serious about basketball and shed some weight, thus opening up his low post game.” Some other sites list Tyler at 310, 320 and 330 pounds, respectively.
As for Akeem Clark, a few years ago he was praised as being one of the U.S. best 3 point shooters. Interestingly, Booyer and Clark were on the same USBL team Gary Steelheads and were activated at the same time last year. In addition to being teammates on the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis team for a year, they were also together on the Black Hawk East Junior College team in 2002. Either they were separated at birth and are karmically connected, or James is one heck of a salesman at getting Akeem on his team. Hopefully Akeem can stay healthy and contribute to the Rainmen this year, unlike Booyer, who was released again due to a chronic leg injury after playing only 5 games for the Rainmen.
On the 2008 ABA playoffs:
I just found this 2008 playoff tree, reportedly from the Manchester Millrats.
Apparently we will be playing the Atlanta Vision, in Georgia. The top 4 teams (Vermont, Beijing, Manchester and Texas) get byes, as does the host team Quebec. 4 California teams as well as Atlanta and Halifax make up the rest of the roster. For some reason, there is no 10th seed.
I don’t think a team (Atlanta Vision) that has played only 8 games should be in the playoffs. The Atlanta Vision have beaten the Gwizzlies 4 times, the Bahama Pro Show twice and lost to Beijing twice. That’s it. That is their whole season so far, with 15 games cancelled. The Vision will play the Gwizzlies 3 more times and Bahama once more. So we get to play a team that has played a total of 3 other teams, while Mr. Levingston and the rest of the Northeast division, who have worked to provide as complete a schedule as possible, are penalized by not advancing to the playoffs.
edit: Apparently the link above was a bracket that another fan had made up, as his projection of how the playoffs will go. It is not an official playoff bracket. Read the entry below to see that this fan playoff bracket is the best info that we have so far on the playoffs, since no one, not even the CEO of the league, is giving the answer of exactly how the playoffs will be seeded or played.
Here is correspondence between a Rainmen fan and Joe Newman, the CEO of the ABA.
This just shows that Newman has no idea how the playoffs will go. In a real league, the format would be set well in advance, with teams — and fans — knowing ahead of the end of the season whether or not they will be in the playoffs.
Having most of the teams fold or play incomplete seasons messes up the seeding, but there should be a rule that teams must play at least 50% of their scheduled games (50% is the absolute lowest, it should probably be higher, like 67% or 75%) to qualify for the playoffs. Otherwise, a team like the 6-2 Atlanta Vision who are only successful at beating up on the Gwizzlies (1-7) and the Bahama Pro Show (1-5) would get in while a team that actually plays different teams, including ones that are better than they are, gets the shaft.
The fact that the league CEO doesn’t directly respond to a fan’s e-mail is disappointing. The fact that there is no apparent clear-cut rule on which teams will make the playoffs is disturbing. I smell a rat in the state of Denmark, to mix my metaphors.
On the Rainmen's end-of-season home stand and another blast at Halifax's newest free tabloid, Metro:
I think the new guys may be the key to rounding out our formerly guard-heavy team with some big offense. Will Lewis’s program fit them in to actually make a difference? That remains to be seen, but we will have a half-dozen chances to see it, over the next 3 weeks.
I read this Metro article on the Rainmen. Chris and I consistently write longer passages on rainmenblog.wordpress.com than that 178-word footnote. Other than talking to Mr. Levingston for a couple of sound bites, the reporter did less research than Chris (or I) do for most of our posts. While I am pleasantly surprised that there is even local news in the paper, the length of the piece shows what I said about the tabloid’s editorial slant towards stories that can be read in 30 seconds or less.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
I just read that Halifax is #1 in fan attendance in the league! Wow! And we thought there weren’t many people showing up. Having said that, we can always do better.
Looking at the ABA Power Rankings of the Top 15 teams, it appears that only the lowly Maywood Buzz (1-15) are not on this list. The ABA says it will have 16 teams in the playoffs. Considering there are only 16 teams left, I think it’s safe to say that we are in the playoffs.
How bad do the Buzz players feel (other than because they are 1-15)? They are the only team in the league that is not listed on the Power Rankings. You would think the ABA would just list all 16 remaining teams now. What happens if more teams fold? Will they have a Top 14 list? Top 13 list?
Looking at last year’s playoff tree, I think we want to stay around the middle of the rankings to last longer in the playoffs. It looks like a typical #1 plays #16, #2 plays #15, etc. playoff.
If there are an odd number of teams, I think Halifax, as the #1 in attendance figures, should get any available first round bye as a reward (if there are an odd number of teams).
Looking at the ABA Power Rankings of the Top 15 teams, it appears that only the lowly Maywood Buzz (1-15) are not on this list. The ABA says it will have 16 teams in the playoffs. Considering there are only 16 teams left, I think it’s safe to say that we are in the playoffs.
How bad do the Buzz players feel (other than because they are 1-15)? They are the only team in the league that is not listed on the Power Rankings. You would think the ABA would just list all 16 remaining teams now. What happens if more teams fold? Will they have a Top 14 list? Top 13 list?
Looking at last year’s playoff tree, I think we want to stay around the middle of the rankings to last longer in the playoffs. It looks like a typical #1 plays #16, #2 plays #15, etc. playoff.
If there are an odd number of teams, I think Halifax, as the #1 in attendance figures, should get any available first round bye as a reward (if there are an odd number of teams).
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