A huge NBA trade went down today. Kevin Garnett, the Big Ticket, possibly the best player never to win a ring, was traded to the Boston Celtics for an incredible 5 players and 2 draft picks. That has to be the biggest trade ever for just one person.
So did the Celtics get the best end of the deal? They had to give up Al Jefferson, Theo Ratliff, reigning dunk champion Gerald Green, Ryan Gomes, wannabe thug Sebastian Telfair, and two first-round draft picks. Jefferson is really the only starter out of the bunch, and he definitely has a chance to be a superstar. The rest of them? I really wouldn’t be surprised if the TWolves had nothing left to show from this trade except for the draft picks. But they did get some cap relief for next year to go after some free agents. But I can’t imagine anyone wanting to play basketball in Minnesota without Garnett there though. So I’m pretty sure the Toto HK cemented their position in the lottery for the next 4-5 years. The Celtics, however, are prone to make a run at the title for the next 2-3 years. Boston fans have to be stoked. They now have Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen, three extremely hungry superstars with no NBA titles. Unfortunately, they don’t have much else to work with. Still, in the East, when one player (Lebron) can single-handedly take a team to the finals, the Celtics could certainly make some noise. Can they compete with the Pistons, Cavs, and Bulls? Yeah probably.
But I still like the Pistons to take it next year, especially if Amir Johnson and Jason Maxiell step up like they’re expected to. They better do better than the Celtics too, because I kind of made a big bet with a friend from Boston. Can NBA bobblehead dolls be used for voodoo?
FullTilt Day
Between working most of the weekend, I actually played a little poker at Full Tilt. Sunday morning, I checked up into some old e-wallet accounts, and sure enough I had $100 in one of them. So I put the cash into Full Tilt and had a nice little day. I played mostly heads up sit-n-go’s, winning something like 9 out of 10. I don’t know if the players are worse at the $20 level, but it sure seemed easy. It’s probably just variance though – I’ll end up losing 4 or 5 in a row next time. As 6:00 was rolling around, I was up $215 on the day, just enough to play in the $500k guaranteed tournament. So I decided to do it. If I didn’t cash, I’d be even on the day. If I cashed, I could win anywhere between $100 and $120,000. I played great, finishing in the top 300 out of 3300 entrants. It was only worth $400, but hey I’ll take it. So I ended up turning $100 into $500 on the day. Time to cash out. The structure of that tournament is great, just a ton of play. It took around 3 1/2 hours to get into the money. Plenty of chips, slow moving blinds. I doubt too many donkeys cashed.
