Superbowl Sunday....

First of all, congrats to the Packers on their impressive Superbowl victory. I watched the game with my Dad and we ate our faces off (well, I did, and my 84 year old Dad did his best to keep up). My heart was rooting for the Packers but my gut told me the Steelers would win. Today, my heart won.

Was it just me or were the Superbowl commercials sub-standard this year? Although, the Doritos one was quite funny.

www.superbowl-commercials.org/3009.html

Now, onto the more important stuff...the busy Sunday in the JBL.

Things got rolling with a shocking trade between Idaho and Arctic. Idaho obtained Lebron and gave up Kevin Martin and Brandon Jennings. Some are already hyping this deal as the worst trade ever in the history of the JBL. I have heard from at least 3 JBL owners supporting this theory.

I don't think any analysis is needed from the Idaho perspective. We get it. You got Lebron.

From the Arctic side, I'm not sure why he did it. Jennings is a good ATO man - but the Arctic is already on pace to set the all-time JBL record for the best ATO ever. Jennings can't shoot at all - so that's not it. Kevin Martin is a good keeper, can score, and can shoot the 3 well - but is that enough to make this deal?? I'd love to hear why Arctic pulled this deal. Is it purely for the keeper potential of Martin? So, as Chilliwack correctly pointed out...Arctic essentially traded Blake Griffin and Jose Calderon for Jennings and Martin. Hmmmmmm.

With Idaho acquiring Lebron it put his team's salary over $340!! Something had to be done. Idaho offered me Brandon Roy for Anthony Parker. I countered with a couple other players in attempt to secure an additional asset like Boris Diaw. No go. So I countered with Sam Young for Brandon Roy which Idaho accepted about an hour later. Idaho had to make a deal for a cheap player - but Sam Young? Really? I just signed him for $1 dollar the other night. Was that the best player he could get for Brandon Roy? And hey, I get it, Roy is not going to be a superstar in the NBA anymore. And maybe Roy doesn't even play again this season...but really, was that all he could get for a guy who could be back this season?? I had to take the chance on Roy if all it was going to cost me was Sam Young. We'll see if Roy can return. Word out of Portland is that he could return as soon as after the all-star break. I'd be very happy if he could play 20-25 minutes off the Blazers bench. Having Roy as a 4th or 5th guard could be a potential luxury.

With Idaho still over the cap I did try to wrangle David Lee or DJ Augustin out of him. But Tuna wasn't selling for what I was offering. Ultimately he had to drop Mario Chalmers and Marvin Williams. So, the Idaho team has its 12 starters and his bench is the injured Goran Dragic. So, he has no depth. And the icing on the cake is that Idaho has just $1 buck left for a Free Agent if necessary. So, needless to say, Idaho is screwed if one of his 4 All-Stars goes down with an injury. However, with some health and some luck, this Idaho team could be a title contender. He's done everything he could do in attempt to improve his team this season - and adding Lebron now for the stretch drive could be magical.

French Lick and I also had lengthy chats today about possibly deals as he needed to add salary to get up to the $200 salary cap minimum. We had some interesting chats about some guys. I really do like chatting trades with Chris. He gets it. He's crafty. He doesn't get offended over an offer. And he approaches the offers with some common sense and understanding. Now, all that being said, I think we were close on a deal at times - but we just couldn't get it done. From his side, we discussed Fields, Sessions, Gibson, and Hill. The Golden players discussed were Biedrins, Brooks, and Delfino. I know, I know, certainly not superstars by any means but French needed to add salary but he didn't want to give up more than he had to.

We were close on Fields late this evening. He offered Fields/Garcia and Fields/Douglas for Biedrins and Brooks. This was really a 2 for 1 deal as Garcia is injured and Douglas is FA fodder. And I know that Fields is a good potential keeper and is having a great season - but I just didn't want to give up 2 guys for him. Afterall, as good a year as he's having, he's still averaging just 10ppg. Yes, he is a stat stuffer and rebounds VERY well for a SG, but I have come this far with Aaron Brooks now and I really hope he gets traded at the deadline to somewhere where he can start again and hopefully find his jumpshot. And I didn't really want to move Biedrins because of his shot-blocking abilities.

So, when it was all said and done, French made a smart FA signing in grabbing Mehmet Okur for $1 buck. Okur was drafted at Auction for $12 so he keeps that salary and pushes French over the $200 floor. However, French is another team with just $1 FA dollar left for the rest of the season. Will this come back to bite him? Hard to say...

The Showers just completed a very poor week 15 but I am blaming most of it on the number of man games my main players played. I had 5 guys play only 2 games (Ellis, Wright, Biedrins, Boozer, Thomas). Seoul won another week and is right on Bangkok's tail now. The last 8 weeks should really be exciting to watch.

Plus, we are just 2 weeks away from the keeper trade deadline. Remember, the keeper deadline is February 20th. And as an added bonus, we'll be having a mini-summit with Belgrade on the 18th when he's in town. I'm looking forward to meeting Marko and hanging out with the JBL boys for an evening.

I wonder if all the big deals will happen before the Feb 19/20 weekend? I wonder how many Sunday deals (Feb 20th) will go down? Will JBL teams use the next 2 weeks to gauge where there team is at and then make a move??

Will French use Stephen Curry as leverage for a big name player? Say, Kevin Durant? Or will the temptation of having the best group of keepers coming back in 11/12 be too much to pass up?
Will Golden give up Greg Monroe for the right price?
Will Seoul move Tyson Chandler so he can get the red hot Chuck Hayes into his lineup?
Will someone be able to pry Andrew Bogut out of Maui?
Will Bangkok stay with his current roster? Can he win with the current group? For sure?
I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks and the last couple of hours on Sunday, Feb 20th.

And I'm looking forward to seeing how the Golden squad can do this coming week. I have a lot of man-games and I am going with a big team so it will be interesting to see if Golden can compete with the big boys and get back into the top 5 race. We'll see...

Have a good week JBL'ers.

JE