Bill Simmons and Jalen Rose Pistons Preview

Love Grantland so much. Simmons does a wonderful job of writing and this year they are doing 15 minute previews of every team in order. Jalen looking like he needs some harvey jewelry.

They have the Pistons checking in at 12 overall, which puts them in the playoffs this year.

They got screwy after the top 15 and started to list them in weird sets. Just look at the bottom of the page and see "Jalen's latest" to find the next ones. 30-16 start here:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9752786/bill-jalen-nba-preview-grantland-channel/

Lions Play as Bad a Half as You Can and Still Only down by 1

Week 1, Lions v. Vikings must have been one of the ugliest halves of LIONS football I have seen and that is saying a lot. Incredibly, even with all their mistakes they still ended the half only down by 1!

Can't get a 1st on 3rd and 1.

First drive bobbled a FG

Next play AP goes 80 yards for a TD.

Get down there again and go for it on 4th and 1. Penalty. Kick FG

Calvin drops TD

Suh blows pick 6 with clipping.

Stafford throws pick

Pettigrew drops one pass and fumbles the next.

Personal foul for Delmas

tradeshow printed throws here

Bently drops Pick 6.

Aborted fetuses all over the place, and they were losing by 1.

Then the 2nd half starts and they take their 1st two possessions down for TDs to go up 27-17. Reggie Bush is having a massive debut game. Just taking a long 3rd down dump off the distance for the score. Been a long time since we have seen a guy accelerate away from the defense in the open field. What we've been missing ever since we lost Jhavid Best.

Miggy Triple Crown Watch?

Highly doubtful he can come to it this year. The nagging injuries he has right now combined with the Tigers starting to stretch their division lead heading into the final 7 weeks makes it hard for him to end up getting the ABs he'll need as long as Chris Davis keeps up his HR pace.

Of course you never know. Last year Hamilton went crazy and had another set of pansy injuries that shelved him a lot during the last month to allow Miggy to pass him over in HRs. While the HRs seem to be the most difficult part with him trailing Davis by 6 right now, he actually only leads Davis in RBIs by one as well. If the Tigers wrap up the division a week early that's a lot of ABs to go without and the RBIs will be the one that will fall the fastest. Davis could go into a slump down the last 45 games, or so, sure and god forbid he'll need an personal injury attorney in san diego because of some terrible accident, but Miggy could miss time too. The Triple Crown with Miggy could be bad news for the Tigers. It would mean that he's still having to play every night all the way until the end with the division race actually being a race again.

Dombrowski Gets Praise for Deadline Trade Moves Once Again

While not all of Dombrowski's moves have worked out in the past at the deadline, I would probably argue that at the time I agreed with the vast majority of them. He has filled holes we have needed if he could, but that wasn't always an option with the costs of some of the pieces that were needed at the time. Even the Edgar Renteria trade that sent away Jair Jurrjens to Atlanta I completely agreed with. In fact, I still don't get why they let him go after that year when he hit about .270 and brought in a guy I can't even rmeember his name for his defense and his .200 BA to play next to Brandon "I hit .200 too!" Inge for a couple years. Seriously, I have blocked the guys's name from my mind.

This year the biggest move was to send Avisail "Little Miggy" Garcia over to the Red Sox to pick up their current name of the week middle infielder Jose Iglseias. I was familiar with him due to having him on my fantasy team for about 3 weeks earlier in the season when he was still hitting over .400 after about 150 ABs. Obviously, I knew he was going to be dropped off my team sooner rather than later, and had dropped him at least 3 weeks before the Tigers acquired him in the deal. His minors numbers as a hitter are unspectacualar, and his BABIP was at insane levels where there was no fantasy benefit in the guy anymore because he brought no power,m speed, or run production for being at such a high average. You don't get points for defense in fantasy so it wasn't much of a decision to drop him after the average started to slip. Still hitting around .330 when he got to Detroit many were a bit over-excited I thought,b ut it was still a move that needed to be made in light of a possible suspension looming for Jhonny Peralta that could come at any time. Plus he was in his final year so it was a move that gave us a guy under control for a few more years at a very reasonable price much like the guys we got in the Granderson deal.

In a separate deal, the Tigers acquired relief pitcher Jose Veras from the Houston Astros for minor-league outfielder Danny Vasquez and a player to be named later.

While some may claim that the Tiges had a better team last year I highly disagree. At least from a playoff roster anyways. The pitching depth on this team is far better than it was last year and the lack of Big Potato as the closer makes a big difference. One of the best moves of the year, and I wanted this from the start, was to keep Rick Porcello. That allowed us to have 6 rotational starters on the roster with Smyly in the bullpen as a lefty that could go long relief if needed,or to spot start. This will make a huge difference in the playoffs I think as it did for teams like Texas when they have beaten us in the past. This is the year for the World Series ring rather than just ceramic rings.

Here's what ESPN.com's Jayson Stark had to say about the Tigers' moves:

"Every year at the deadline, it never ceases to amaze us how difficult it seems to be for half the GMs in baseball to make a trade -- and how easy Tigers maestro Dave Dombrowski makes it look. 'He did what he always does,' one of his admiring peers said of Dombrowski. 'He did what he needed to do. Dave is your classic old-school GM. He says, "I'm going to fill my holes." And then he did.

"He resisted the temptation to overpay, on every level, for a big bullpen name like Jonathan Papelbon and instead reeled in Jose Veras to set up for Joaquin Benoit. And with his shortstop, Jhonny Peralta, in danger of disappearing down the Biogenesis sinkhole, Dombrowski roared in quietly at the last minute and traded for Iglesias, a massive defensive upgrade for an infield in serious need of a massive defensive upgrade.

" 'I know everybody wanted them to go get some big name to pitch the back end of the game,' one NL executive said. 'But if they lose Peralta and they don't have a guy like this to replace him, that's just as big. I thought they got exactly what they needed. And I know they actually wanted more [bullpen] pieces and tried like hell to get one. But they've already done well. And I'm sure they'll be shopping that waiver wire next month.' "