Three Left In the IMBC, AnandTech Access Problems, And Quick NBA Draft Thoughts

- Yes! One of my comments finally got posted on an ESPN chat:

Matt (Las Vegas): What are the chances Portland takes Durant over Oden? I live in Vegas and plan on betting on this (since gambling IS legal... here). Can we consult Janet Gretzky?

Bill Simmons: (4:59 PM ET ) I'd put the odds like this:

Oden (-150) Durant

Bill Simmons: (4:59 PM ET ) Last week before their workouts, it was Oden (-350) Durant.

......

Peter (Tarzana, CA): Oden (-150) as the #1 pick, huh? Can I parlay that with Atlanta not taking a PG at #3 or #11 (-200)?

Yes, I know. VERY unimpressive!

- So there are only three of us left in the IMBC, with the shocking elimination of Finley. When we were down to four entrants, I figured that he was going to win for sure. I guess you can say I jinxed him.

(In my circles, this phenomenon has been dubbed the "Ung-hex"; if I pick a player/team to win anything, they undoubtedly find a way to lose. This partially explains why the New York Yankees have not won a championship in years, why the UCLA Bruins didn't win an NCAA Basketball championship, and why the Indianapolis Colts didn't win a Super Bowl until last year. It also explains why the LA Dodgers lose just about every game that I attend.

So, if you want a particular sports team to win anything, tell me to root for the other team!)

So of the three of us that are left--myself, Amy, and Hank--who's the favorite to win now? Or, who is next for me to Ung-hex?

To stick with the theme of gambling and sports odds, here are the odds that each of us remaining will win (in order from most likely to least likely to win):

• Hank 2:3
• Amy 5:2
• Me 15:1

Ok, the Ung-hex should eliminate Hank from contention, and I don't expect myself to win. So congrats Amy!

- I could not access the Anandtech Forums for about a week on three of the four computers in this house (my laptop excepted).

That's when I noticed, while surfing AT on my laptop, this little message near the top of the Forums main page:

Clear your cookies... - 06/24/2007 01:17 PM
We recently updated our forum software to fix a number of issues. As a result, some users are having problems using FireFox on the forums.

The fix for this is to delete your forums.anandtech.com cookies.

We recommend that all members delete their forum cookies, though we haven't run into any technical issues with this in other browsers.

Thanks for your patience while we continue to improve the forums.

In my defense, had my laptop not been able to access the forum, how would I have known to do this? Also, I did not clear my forum cookies on my laptop, and I was able to see the forums just fine.

The least AT could have done was to send out a mass e-mail to all forum users, so that I could ignore it and still wonder why I couldn't access the forums :P.

- So the NBA Draft is tomorrow! We all know that Oden and Durant will be the top two picks, and I expect them to be picked in that order. But who will go after those two?

I think the following will happen tomorrow:

• Atlanta will not take a PG at #3; they'll probably take Al Horford.
• Boston should take Corey Brewer, but they'll probably take Yi Jianlian.
• The three Florida players will be drafted in this order: Horford, Brewer, Noah.
  
• Atlanta won't be stupid and trade #11 for a point guard. They'll draft one here (despite what I said above).
• The Lakers make a stupid pick and take a project, and Kobe Bryant will be all over the news, critiquing that pick.

And one long-term prediction: Kevin Durant will prove to be the best player in this draft.

(Yeah, I know. Talk about going out on a ledge!)

I would have predicted Al Horford to be the best player in this draft, if not for the fact that he'll be stuck in Atlanta for the first few years of his career.

I'm too tired to talk about the end of my poker tournament. That will come tomorrow or the day after, depending on whether or not I blog about the NBA Draft results tomorrow.

Until next time!