In his latest blog, TSN NBA Analyst Jack Armstrong looks at the latest offseason acquisitions made and how new players will fit in on their new clubs. 1. BRAD STEVENS (Celtics): Loved the job he did at Butler and think hes an outstanding young coach with great potential. Bold move by Danny Ainge? Sure. With the Celtics in a rebuild and lots of young players coming in the next few years youll need a coach who is patient, a good communicator and a terrific teacher. He is all of those things. Will it take him a year to 18 months to get his feet on the ground as far as the differences between the NCAA and NBA games? Definitely, but with him inking a six-year deal the first two years will be lots of losses and development - you can judge him better in the win-loss category in Years 3 and beyond. Lots of chatter about NCAA coaches failing - it usually happens because you get lousy jobs. I see the NBA hiring lots of ex-players and retreads that really arent that qualified that fail mightily as well. This guy is more than qualified to coach and lead and in a few years once he gets his bearings at this level hell be fine. Risky, yes but Im tired of watching a bunch of retreads that are just on the NBA Gravy Train that are at best average. 2. JARRETT JACK (Cavaliers): Like this signing for Cleveland. Hes really matured and improved as a player and become a true pro. Did a wonderful job in Golden State and can play either guard spot for you. Hes gotten over the starter/substitute nonsense that hurt him early in his career. Hell be a good compliment to their talented young guards. With the addition as well of Anthony Bennett as the #1 pick, something tells me that well be seeing plenty of Small Ball on Lake Erie this upcoming season. Should be more entertaining, thats for sure. 3. AL JEFFERSON (Bobcats): Career 16 and 9 guy who will get more than his share of touches on a lousy team in Charlotte. Did they overpay for him? Three years at $41 million. What a great country! You run your franchise in a haphazard way and consistently make huge blunders in player evaluations and you end up having to overpay for anyone legit to come to your team. I like the Steve Clifford hiring as their coach but theyve got a long way to go. Jefferson will put up big numbers on a poor team. At some point you need proven professional consistency and productivity to begin to improve. Jefferson will give them that. 4. DARREN COLLISON (Clippers): Hes always intrigued me during his time with the Hornets, Pacers and Mavs. Hes slightly improved over the years and still has to become a better playmaker for my taste but I think his better years are ahead of him and Doc Rivers will get it out of him. Hell have a talented roster to play with and have to fight for minutes behind Chris Paul which will make him better. Short term deal that works for both sides. Good pick-up to replace Eric Bledsoe. 5. JOSE CALDERON (Mavericks): Four years at $29 million. Good for him. Leadership and consistency. Lots of teams around the league really like him and this is a good landing spot for him. Playing for a top notch offensive minded coach in Rick Carlisle, hell have the opportunity to play to his abilities. Murky picture right now with the failure to land Dwight Howard and the departures of OJ Mayo and Darren Collison. Step in the right direction for the Mavs though in getting him. Cheap Under Armour Free Shipping .Y. - General manager Billy King says the Brooklyn Nets are looking to add a big man and confirmed the team worked out centre Jason Collins, who would become the first openly gay active NBA player if signed. Wholesale Under Armour . Q: Team Canada announces their Olympic roster three weeks from today. Who is general manager Steve Yzerman watching? LeBrun: Over the last 48 hours, hes taken in the home-and-home between the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche with Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene being the obvious targets. http://www.underarmourcheap.net/ .R. Smith realized how easily basketball can be taken from him, and he wasnt going to take his place in the NBA for granted anymore. Under Armour Cheap Shoes . Calgary scored on the first shift, and Michael Cammalleri scored twice as the Flames cruised to a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals on Saturday. Under Armour Outlet Store .Y. - Free agent outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury, fresh off winning the World Series with Boston, reached agreement with the rival New York Yankees on a seven-year contract worth about $153 million, a person familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday night. Theres something important you should know about our insane attempt to rank the top 100 baseball players of all time. This list was not assembled by mathematicians, statisticians, sabermetricians, academicians or even dieticians.No sir. This list was assembled by us. By actual human beings. By a bunch of people who love baseball. Who cover baseball. Who write and talk about baseball. And who are pretty sure that we know a little something about baseball (or at least we used to be pretty sure, until we read our Twitter replies).So as you rummage through these rankings, it wont take long before the truth hits you. Some of the players on this list are way, way, way too high. Or way, way, way too low.Lets face it. Ken Griffey Jr. was not the 14th-best player in history. Roberto Clemente was not the 18th-best. Johnny Bench was not the 29th-best. Mariano Rivera was not the 49th-best. They were great. They were cool. They were awesome to watch. But you know what else they clearly were, judging by these rankings? Overrated. By us, anyway.On the other hand, Im not sure how we can possibly explain why Honus Wagner, Cy Young and good old Roger Clemens didnt even make our top 10. Heck, Tris Speaker didnt even dent our top 40. Mel Ott didnt crack our top 50. Grover Cleveland Alexander wasnt even in our top 90.Wow. Thats pretty, pretty, pretty crazy when you step back and think about it. But maybe these men always wanted to be considered underrated some day. Well, congratulations to them. They finally made it.Then there is a third group of iconic players on this list, men who fascinate me by where they wound up in these rankings. Pedro Martinez at No. 11. Joe DiMaggio at No. 15. Sandy Koufax at No. 16. Jackie Robinson at No. 30. Hmmmmm. Are we sure about those numbers? Really sure? Boy, I dont know about that.Our hearts tell us: We love those guys. Whats the problem? Then we hear a voice speaking to us from the computer command center, which may or may not (we cant confirm) be located in Bill James attic. That voice is wondering what the heck got into us. That voice has checked the numbers, apparently. Now it wants some explanations.Somehow or other, we managed to rank Pedro as the second-greatest pitcher in the history of baseball, behind only Walter Johnson. And we ranked Koufax as the fourth-greatest (with Greg Maddux squeezing in between Pedro and Koufax). Wait. We did what?We ranked both of them ahead of Cy Young (No. 17), Christy Mathewson (No. 28), Clemens (No. 19), Bob Gibson (No. 20) and Tom Seaver (No. 34)? And we ranked them so far ahead of poor Grover Cleveland Alexander (No. 97), hed need to change elevators three times just to get to check in with the receptionist in their penthouse.So whats up with that? Um, let me tell you what I think was up with that.I believe theres a mysterious force that washes over us as we watch sports, and especially as we watch certain charismatic people who play those sports. Were so drawn to them when theyre at their greatest, were willing to pretend that thats what they always were. Forever and ever.I once wrote a book on the most overrated and underrated baseball players of all time (The Stark Truth, still available wherever books are sold online, by the way). So I devoted like 50,000 words of eloquent prose to this subject. It was a book that kept coming back to one overriding theme, about how perception and reality can be two very different things. And since it generated so much conversation (polite word of the day) when I used that theme to explain why I thought Koufax was (gasp) overrated, lets start with him.If we use wins above replacement to measure Koufaxs all-time greatness, baseball-reference.com tells us he was not quite the fourth-best starting pitcher in the history of the universe. He was, well, the 117th. But hey, hes ahead of Bartolo Colon (No. 129) anyway.Maybe thats unfair, though, since were talking about a man whose throbbing elbow forced him to retire at 30 years old. So any data based on longevity doesnt apply to the great Koufax, right? His awesomeness was defined by his best years, not his staying power.So instead, well use Jay Jaffes fantastic invention, JAWS, to measure Koufaxs standing among the legends. JAWS also factors in a players seven-year peak, which would seem to be right in Koufaxs wheelhouse. Naturally then, JAWS elevates Koufaxs standing considerably -- all the way up to (uh-oh) the 88th-greatest starter of all time. Behind the likes of Tim Hudson, Dave Stieb and Chuck Finley, but ahead of Mark Buehrle and Mark Langston at least.I ccould explain more about why that is, but whatever.dddddddddddd. This is all we really need to know about how perception and reality diverge when anyone mentions that magical name, Koufax.Theres a certain romance that wraps itself around someone like him. Someone who disappears into the shadows of time at not just the peak of his own greatness but a peak that eclipses almost any pitchers greatness.That peak really lasted only four spectacular years, which you maybe can stretch to six if youre the biggest Koufax fan in the universe and you want acknowledgement of the two B-plus seasons that led up to that peak. But if you want to reflect on the very nature of perception versus reality, reflect on that.All we have, in Koufaxs case, is this: He was great. No, he was the greatest. And then he was gone. Click. So the perception of the superhuman phase of his career blots out all the reality those numbers above reflect. In reality, Koufaxs period of greatness was way too brief to merit ranking where he ranks on this list. He rode the perception express to a place he honestly shouldnt reside. And thats OK. It tells us something.Its not exactly what it tells us about Pedro, but its similar, right? JAWS would say he was the 21st-best starter ever, not the second-best. But heres the deal. Every one of us who voted remembers Pedro Martinez when he was at the pinnacle of his inimitable Pedro-esque brilliance. Grover Cleveland Alexander? Apparently, were a little fuzzier in our memories of him.So it was our vivid recollection of that Pedro, the dude firing 17-strikeout one-hitters at Yankee Stadium, that drove us to pile on the votes that landed him at No. 11 overall on the top 100, and No. 2 among starting pitchers. And thats OK, too. We might not be able to justify it mathematically. But its a reflection of who we are, just as much as a reflection of the dominator he could be on any given trip to the mound.Then there is DiMaggio. When I was writing my book, I talked to people who were trying to convince me he was the most overrated center fielder who ever lived. You know what I told them? No, he wasnt. But Ive never stopped thinking about those debates. How could I?Joe DiMaggio played baseball at a time when very few people actually saw him play baseball. So there are really two versions of DiMaggios career. There is the actual version, where he shows up as the sixth-greatest center fielder of all time, according to both JAWS and WAR. Then there is the romanticized version, where it feels as if hes hitting in 56 straight every season, in between dates with Marilyn Monroe.Should we have ranked the actual DiMaggio at No. 15, ahead of Rogers Hornsby, ahead of Frank Robinson, ahead of Mike Schmidt and Jimmie Foxx? Of course not. The actual Joe D should have shown up at No. 68, according to wins above replacement. Apparently, were romantics here at #MLBRank headquarters. Who knew?Finally, theres Jackie. In one corner of my brain, I cheered when I saw Jackie Robinson at No. 30 on this list. Its a reflection not only of the player he was but also the man he was. And the history-altering figure he was. We should never forget he was all of that and more.In the other corner of my brain, where the baseball historian in me still needs to be heard, I had to admit I asked myself: Isnt No. 30 kind of high? Truthful answer: Yeah, it is.We were instructed as voters to factor in players Negro League accomplishments. But remember, Robinson played only one season in the Negro Leagues, followed by 10 seasons in the big leagues. He was an amazing player. Rookie of the Year. MVP. Two stolen-base titles -- including one in a season in which he also won a batting title and slugged .528. But he was not the 30th-best baseball player of all time.WAR ranks him as the 165th-best. As voters, we ignored that. We rewarded him for being one of the five most important baseball players of all time. No one told us we couldnt. Hey, its our list. So we get to place him anywhere we like.As with all rankings -- whether its the greatest baseball players of all time or the greatest ice-cream flavors of all time -- certain things dont always apply. Science. Math. Facts. Reason. Reality. All optional.Perception? Emotion? Pure, unabashed irrationality? They can be powerful forces when someone says: Start ranking! So feel free to disagree. Feel free to debate. But dont call us crazy. You know what we really are? Human. Thats all. ' ' '