Spotlight: Week 1

Here we'll take a quick glance at a few games of interest for the upcoming week.

Sour Snails vs 100AcreWoodPoohBears
A look at our most polarized team, the Sour Snails, versus our pre-season top ranked, and highly versatile, 100AcreWoodPoohBears. The Snails will be starting the seaon with Nash and Iverson leading a group of guards into the fray. The big question is if Jason Richardson will be ready to play. If not, Fred Jones (or another young Snail) might need to come in and pick up the slack.

The Pooh Bears are without the services of Mike Bibby and Pau Gasol, but their lineup still boasts AK47, the Matrix, Peja Stojakovic and Ben Gordon. It should be easy enough for Jose to win REB, BLK, and FG% but he's giving up the edge in PTS, 3PT, and FT% right off the bat.

The two teams will be fighting over AST and STL, with TO in doubt too. The Pooh Bears don't have any bench players capable of adding additional AST, STL and TO, so they'll have to ride this one out and hope for the victory. The Snails need to take two out of the three in order to win; maybe adding in a Rudy Gay or Rajon Rondo instead of Wally World might be a good move since they are dominant in PTS and 3PT already.

Buffy vs Squirtle Squad
Roger and Brian are in for a heated matchup this week, with quite a few categories up for grabs. Roger should take PTS and STL handily, while losing FT% and the TO battle to Brian. Aside from those four categories, AST, REB, 3PT, FG% and to a lesser extent, BLK will be up in the air. With a healthy Shaq and Tyson Chandler in the lineup, Buffy should be able to take BLK since Squirtle only has KG putting up any interior resistance (unless Alonzo gets in there).

The AST, 3PT and FG% will be particularly close so even one game could make the difference. Chris Paul, Joe Johnson, and Baron Davis better be ready to compete with Ray Allen, Boris Diaw and KG. It might behoove Brian to sub in another PG or two, just to secure those AST and 3PT numbers -- with Boykins, Watson, and Tinsley on the bench. But it's hard to decide to mess with success the first week, and not play your top ten players. Roger's bench is decidely unproven, so his substitution decisions won't be nearly as hard.

Good luck gentlemen.