Posted 6/27/08 - Kellex

If you were lacking on post ideas over the last couple of weeks you should have looked towards the NBA and its NBA Draft. Each sport has events that take place that just fuel the blog world and in order to create a top notch sports blog, you need to hit on these events and exploit the hell out of them.

The NBA Draft was the most recent, and just to give you an idea of its power, we'll throw up the top draft posts from BallHype so you can see how creative people can get.

• Hollywood NBA Lottery Mock Draft - The Money Shot

• OJ Mayo's NBA All-Food Team - NE Patriots Draft

• Top 10 NBA Players Not Drafted in the 1st Round - Hoop Doctors

• Ballads and Rhymes: Draft Previews in 30 Words - Daily Basketball

• NBA Wonderlic Test - Word of Isaac

• 25 Ways to Guarantee Yourself as a Bust - Le Basketbawl

• Frederic Weiss (Forgotten) 1st Rounders - Legend of Cecilio Guante

So you can see that the big time bloggers just eat up these events and you should be thinking about the next one. Is it the Olympics? Is it the upcoming NFL season? How about the baseball All-Star game? There are plenty of them out there that you should already be thinking about.

Time to join ClickBooth to help monetize your site, don't you think?

Posted 6/26/08 - Kellex

Even with a nasty sore throat in full on "suck" mode, we did have a chance to post this up late last night on the possibilities of NBA draftee's turning into "busts." It's worth a read and it actually got some nice play from Digg today thanks to a certain someone who has been filling up the NBA season with ridiculous videos.

Check out our 25 Ways to Guarantee Yourself as an NBA Draft Bust.


Have you signed up for the PepperJAM Network and eBay.com, their newest affiliate?

Posted 5/27/08 - Kellex

I may not be the hugest FreeDarko fan on the planet, but it is always cool to see a fellow sports blog become successful enough to actually take a book to print.

FreeDarko is definitely known for writing some of the more creative and thought provoking (hilarious too) material in the NBA world and it has obviously been good enough to take it to that next step.

Their first book is titled FreeDarko presents: The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac and looks to contain tons of their signature art along with some amazing material on their favorite ballers. You can pre-order this now in it's hard cover form.

Make sure to always support your fellow sports bloggers!


Time to join ClickBooth to help monetize your site, don't you think?

Posted 4/3/08 - Kellex

Finding the next Jashaun Agosto should be on your list of "to-dos." If you aren't familiar with Jashaun go to Google and type in "Jashaun Agosto Ellen" and you should come up with plenty of hits including a few from my basketball blog.

That's right! I wrote about this kid at least a month before he blessed the daytime show Ellen and sure enough once he made that appearance, people from all over the country hit the internet in search of more info on the next big basketball star.

And what did they find? My blog of course!

Here is a quick video of the kid just so you can understand what I am talking about.

This is the appearance on Ellen plus a highlight reel:

Finding the next big thing or breaking some interesting news should always be one of your major goals. As one of the first to write about this story, my blog has seen steady traffic for the past month. The keywords "Jashaun Agosto" are #1 on my Google Analytics keywords list right now.

Could this have been luck? Nah, it's called research folks.

Posted 3/21/08 - Kellex

Think about this idea for a second with me. The NCAA tournament is one of the biggest sporting events each year that has people across the United States going crazy. The NCAA tourney ranks up there with the Super Bowl in the fact that your casual or non sports fan will still break away from their day to see what is happening. The cinderella story gets everyone excited doesn't it?

Can you think of a better way to grab these fans' attention than to run an NCAA tournament pick'em? I know what you are thinking with this one.

"Well everyone runs a tournament bracket pick'em, why would ours be any different?"

Hear me out now. If you decide to put on a bracket pick'em and rather than giving out cash prizes, you give away a free review, a free banner ad, 1000 Entrecard credits, or allow someone to guest blog. Wouldn't that be enough incentive to grab other blog users to jump into the competition?

If your blog is looking for traffic, you can drive traffic to it by starting the bracket and continue to keep people coming back to check out the standings, their pick sheets and to see if they are a potential winner.

You can generate prizes that cost nothing to you but mean a hell of a lot to someone else. Explore this option by running a "Sweet 16" pool this year. It is obviously too late to run a full field of 64 bracket but you can finish up with the final 16. Tons of brackets allow you to buy back in for the Sweet 16.

Give it a try!

Posted 3/17/08 - Kellex

Post pulled from our affiliate: le basketbawl: The NBA Basketball Blog


David Stern Making College Basketball Better?

There has been chatter that David Stern may look to extend the stay of high school graduates to two years in college and really piss off those youngsters looking to make millions by their 19th birthday. I definitely have some mixed feelings on this idea which would not go into effect until at least 2011.

My biggest issue is the fact that by taking away 2 years from these kids, you are also potentially taking away a lot of money that may not be available 2 years from now. Injuries and poor performance in a system that may not fit the player’s style could have a negative effect. Most college programs are not built with an NBA offense and many of the top college basketball players do not translate into good pros. If a kid coming out of high school has a ton of hype around his potential, he may risk losing that hype by sticking around the college ranks for 2 years.

Of course if a player DOES stay in college, they tend to turn into a more mature player which could, in the long run, help out an NBA career. The college game also sees a return with the fact that the game is so much more entertaining to watch with older, more mature players. Tyler Hansbrough may not become an NBA All-Star, but he should has made college basketball fun to watch again hasn’t he?

The 1 year program was a great idea from the NBA, but I’m just not so sure that taking away another year’s worth of earnings from someone is a logical step. Maybe it’s about time we pay college athletes?


Are the Houston Rockets Legit?

“No.”

Tracy McGrady and his loveable Houston Rockets have been quite the story and I have enjoyed watching their miraculous run as much as the next fan. I’m just not so sure this will continue on come playoff time.

It’s like a “feel” test with the Rockets. When you sit back objectively, do you really feel like they are a championship contender? No Yao Ming and a leader who has never been out of the first round of the playoffs do not say much to me.

They have some nice role players, but do they have role players like Derek Fisher or Bruce Bowen who have been there and done that and won championships? Has Rick Adelman really proven himself as an elite coach over the last 10 years? Are we positive Rafer Alston won’t be “skipping” into jail anytime soon? Is Luis Scola’s hair really prettier than Mike Miller’s? I keep answering “no” to all of these questions.


The NCAA Tourney is Life?

“Yes.”

I’m actually PTO’ing Thursday and Friday to pounce onto a bar stool with 10+ HD TV’s blasting in every ear on my bubbly little head! Oh the tourney! It will be one long weekend that’s for sure. I’m even skipping St. Patty’s tonight to prepare for the long haul that is awaiting.

Thursday’s Itinerary:

• Bus to local Portland State bar to join buddy and act as a loyal fan. (Look at me being responsible in 2 ways!)
• Bloody Mary & chicken-fried steak for breakfast to lather up Mr. Gut.
• Pitchers of Mirror Pond Pale Ale until lunch.
• Streetcar to local “yuppie bar” for lunch to escape “college drunk guy bar.”
• Enjoy rest of day with pitchers of something Belgian or possibly gin and tonics. (We’ll see how Mr. Gut is holding up)
• Girlfriend leaves work and joins the fun.
• We order her a late afternoon Bloody Mary (her fav) and catch her up on the upsets and ridiculous buzzer beaters of the day. (We’ll probably be talking REALLY LOUD TOO at this point)
• I attempt to eat dinner. (Burger! Ok, probably salad so I don’t pass out in the booth)
• Ride home with GF and think about blogging. (Can you imagine what might come out of me?)
• Sleep. (Thanks IKEA!)
  

Friday’s Itinerary:

• (See Thursday)
  

  
  

  
  

Winning your Work NCAA Bracket Pool

Stop picking upsets! The bracketologists have done the work for you by seeding every single team. They know a lot more than you do remember? If you pick high seeds in almost every game, you’ll dominate. I’m sure all week you will hear the guy in the office next door bragging about Coppin State or Drake, but once the first weekend is over, he’ll already be out of the money. Sucker.