AEG: ‘Our Last Billion For LA .. Take It Or Leave it’

If Los Angeles is going to get a stadium that can house an NFL team, it needs three things:

1) The unmitigated financial backing of billionaire Phil Anschutz
2) State political support
3) The Chargers
At the moment, the financial support of AEG founder Anschutz for an L.A. Stadium is not yet a certainty, though AEG CEO Tim Leiweke [...]
SPORTSbyBROOKS

Sun sets on Sussex baseball — for the last time?

11th and Washington

‘Twas Alabama’s 1st Fight Xmas Since .. Last Year

Here’s a photo titled “SnowCam” that was posted Christmas day on the BIRMINGHAM NEWS official website.

The “family” is not amused.
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SPORTSbyBROOKS

Looming QB Battle Won’t Last Long

Roll ‘Bama Roll

Late Pick 6 Seals Win In Urban Meyer’s Last Game At Florida (Video)

Urban Meyer coached his last game with the Florida Gators today, a come-from-behind, 37-24 win over Penn State. Florida safety Ahmad Black sealed the win with an 80-yard interception return for a touchdown – see it after the jump.
SportsGrid

Cowboys Dangerously Close To Last Place In NFC East

The Dallas Cowboys are dangerously close to capping off their disappointing 2010 season by finishing as the last place team in the NFC East. If Dallas winds up at the bottom, it would mark the first time they finish in the NFC East cellar since 2002.
In order for Dallas to stay out of last place, they need to win next Sunday afternoon against the Eagles and have the New York Giants beat the Redskins.
If Dallas marches into Philadelphia and loses, they would finish the season at 5-11 in last place. The only positive would be a higher draft pick. The [...]
The Landry Hat | A Dallas Cowboys blog

Best Games Against a Team You Played For Last Season (1987-2010)

Facing his former team in Cleveland last night, LeBron James played like his vintage Cavs-era self, pouring in 38 points on 15-25 shooting with 8 assists in 30 minutes. That had me wondering, where did James’ performance rank among historical instances of a player facing his ex-’mates the season after he left town?

So I ran a database query on all games since 1987 where a player was facing a team he had played for the previous season. And for the performance metric of choice, I want to introduce an adjusted plus/minus-based game score-style metric called “APMVAL”. I basically ran an intercept-free regression between APM value over replacement (minutes * (APM + 6)) and raw box score totals, coming up with this formula:

APMVAL = 45*pts – 35*tsa + 18*reb + 30*ast + 72*stl + 41*blk – 75*tov – 39*pf

The best APMVAL game of the overall 1987-2010 period was Michael Jordan’s 69-point outburst vs. Cleveland in 1990 (Kobe’s 81-point game was 2nd). Here were the best games against a player’s former team in the first season after his departure:

Player Date Tm Opp MP FG FGA 3P 3A FT FTA RB AS ST BK TO PF PTS APMVAL
Willie Burton 12/13/1994 PHI MIA 43.0 12 19 5 8 24 28 8 3 1 2 1 2 53 1524
Terrell Brandon 3/19/2000 MIN MIL 36.0 11 13 2 2 4 4 3 13 4 0 1 2 28 1322
Tony Delk 1/2/2001 PHO SAC 50.0 20 27 0 1 13 15 6 0 1 0 2 1 53 1200
Tom Gugliotta 1/5/1996 MIN GSW 41.0 14 17 1 1 7 10 10 3 5 0 2 5 36 1156
Charles Barkley 3/3/1993 PHO PHI 44.0 14 19 2 2 6 6 17 9 2 0 4 4 36 1127
LeBron James 12/2/2010 MIA CLE 30.0 15 25 2 7 6 9 5 8 1 1 0 1 38 1100
Devin Harris 12/19/2008 NJN DAL 38.6 14 25 5 9 8 8 3 13 3 0 4 3 41 1090
Tom Chambers 2/15/1989 PHO SEA 38.0 12 16 2 2 9 10 8 4 2 2 2 3 35 1084
Shaquille O’Neal 12/6/1996 LAL ORL 41.0 9 18 0 0 7 10 18 2 5 7 2 4 25 1066
Vince Carter 4/15/2005 NJN TOR 43.0 15 26 3 8 6 7 9 4 3 0 1 3 39 1043
Reggie Williams 11/5/1991 DEN SAS 30.0 7 14 3 3 7 9 3 4 7 0 0 3 24 1012
Mario Elie 3/7/1993 POR GSW 31.0 7 8 0 0 3 3 5 4 5 1 0 1 17 1011
Moses Malone 1/29/1992 MIL ATL 30.0 10 18 0 0 8 9 13 3 2 1 0 0 28 1000
Rasheed Wallace 3/14/2005 DET ATL 43.0 10 18 4 6 4 4 12 3 3 3 2 2 28 985
Mookie Blaylock 12/10/1999 GSW ATL 41.0 4 12 1 3 0 0 4 19 7 0 1 2 9 978
Player Date Tm Opp MP FG FGA 3P 3A FT FTA RB AS ST BK TO PF PTS APMVAL
Nick Van Exel 2/1/2003 DAL DEN 26.0 11 13 7 9 1 1 2 7 0 0 2 0 30 976
Jason Kidd 3/15/1998 PHO DAL 44.0 9 16 1 4 1 2 13 12 5 2 4 2 20 967
Dikembe Mutombo 3/9/2002 PHI ATL 36.0 7 7 0 0 3 3 9 1 3 3 0 1 17 966
Micheal Williams 4/9/1991 IND CHH 32.0 6 12 0 0 9 9 7 7 7 0 2 3 21 959
Boris Diaw 2/24/2009 CHA PHO 41.4 10 12 1 1 6 8 10 6 1 2 2 2 27 958
Jim Jackson 1/28/2004 HOU SAC 37.0 11 12 5 5 1 1 9 0 1 0 0 3 28 942
Dudley Bradley 4/23/1988 NJN MIL 28.0 8 12 5 7 1 2 3 2 4 0 0 0 22 941
Sleepy Floyd 1/20/1989 HOU GSW 40.0 12 25 4 7 7 10 7 12 4 1 3 5 35 941
Sam Cassell 4/8/2000 MIL NJN 34.0 8 15 0 0 4 5 5 11 3 0 0 0 20 934
Danny Ainge 12/27/1989 SAC BOS 45.0 12 21 2 5 13 13 6 9 1 2 3 5 39 932
Micheal Williams 4/7/1993 MIN IND 43.0 6 13 2 4 16 16 3 9 1 0 0 3 30 928
Ruben Patterson 1/8/2007 MIL DEN 37.9 13 21 0 0 3 6 12 7 4 0 2 3 29 925
John Lucas 2/14/1987 MIL HOU 26.0 13 15 2 2 1 1 4 7 4 0 5 1 29 921
Rod Strickland 3/26/1991 SAS NYK 45.0 6 12 0 0 9 10 4 16 3 0 3 0 21 914
Armen Gilliam 4/17/1992 PHI CHH 41.0 10 17 0 0 10 11 10 1 2 2 1 1 30 908

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