We’re still here; we’ve just been busy.

Some of you may have noticed that updates have been fewer and further between the past month or so, and for that we do apologize for keeping you in the lurch. As much as we might like to be, we are not machines, not even cyborgs, so we’ve been taking somewhat of a deep breath to recharge, travel, and get some sun. Everybody needs a break now and again, but don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere and I’m sure we’ll be ramping back up again soon.

I was away for 5 weeks traveling abroad in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and South Africa, and since coming home about 2 weeks ago have been rather busy with some travel writing. If you’re interested, I have a few short blog posts up on Lonely Planet about my time in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Kruger National Park; another one to follow shortly on Cape Town. A few months ago I also joined up with the award-winning online travel magazine Perceptive Travel and am writing weekly columns for the blog; all of them can be found here.

While I was away, longtime ETB contributor Zachariah Blott branched out on his own and launched Hoops Karma, a move which we announced a few weeks ago. Zach is obviously focusing a lot of his time and attention on his site, but will still be dropping by periodically to say hello and shit on Kobe. Hey, it’s a dirty job but somebody has to do it, right?

As for Andrew Thell, my partner in crime here at ETB, he was last seen on a frisbee golf course in Florida, NY, marveling at my putting skills and asking for tips on how to improve his midrange game. He also mentioned something about a lightsaber and has developed a F’real addiction.

In summary: We are here. We are not going anywhere. We thank you for reading. Come back soon.

Toodles,

Brian Spencer
Editor & Co-Founder

By: Andrew Thell

Loyal Empty the Bench readers have grown accustomed to the work of regular NBA contributor Zach Blott over the last year. Zach signed on last season to cover the NBA with his unique perspective and has been delivering the goods on a consistent basis since. Readers have come to know Zach’s hallmarks: strong research, solid statistical analysis, a desire to look past the big name and easy storyline, an affinity for team play, rebounding and defense and … an undying distaste for Mr. Kobe Bean Bryant.

We’ve been proud to host Mr. Blott’s work over the last year as he’s tackled NBA-related issues from Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace’s insanity to the 2009 NBA Summer League to the very best and worst in NBA logos to the top NBA stories of the decade to the the NBA MVP race for perimeter players and post players to his controversial statistical analysis of LeBron James’ foul totals to his stellar Advanced Basketball Statistics 101.

We’ve grown quite fond of Zach’s strong contributions all over the site, as I’m sure all of you have, and so we are proud to announce that Mr. Blott has founded an NBA-specific website of his own. The new digs will be dedicated exclusively basketball news and the site goes by the name Hoops Karma. HK examines the why’s and how’s of the NBA and discusses observations of trends and happenings in-depth. Hoops Karma has already been mentioned on ESPN2′s SportsNation and given Mr. Blott’s skills and work ethic I have little doubt this is just the beginning for him. So bookmark Hoops Karma, add it to your RSS feed and follow HK on Twitter.

To get you started, some recent quality posts on Hoops Karma include:

- Lakers’ Fortunes Rest on Bynum’s Knee
- NJ’s Summer Decisions Will Make or Break the Next Five Years
- Don’t Forget About Shaq In This Free Agent Market
- Is Bad Luck a Thing of the Past In Washington?
- Hoops Summer Reading List

Check it out, you won’t regret it.

From both of us here at ETB, we wish you the best of luck Mr. Blott.

In the words of Greg Graffin, “come join us.”

Since we launched back in February of ’07 (has it really been over 2 years?), Empty the Bench’s award-winning* content has remained under the exclusive direction of myself and my esteemed colleague, Mr. Andrew “Buttercup” Thell. As I said in a recent interview over on Basketball.org, however, we’ve recently been entertaining the idea of bringing in some regular contributing writers to help us fill in the gaps and to help give you, dearest readers, more fantastic content about the NBA, NFL, and fantasy sports.

To all the writers out there in the audience, whether you consider yourself aspiring or established, that’s where you come in. We don’t care whether you’ve written 1 article or 100 articles: if you’re talented, reliable, insightful, and compassionate about your work, we’d love to hear from you. We’re specifically looking for contributors to provide content in the following areas:

- NBA & NFL Analysis with a Slant Towards Stats
- Weekly NBA & NFL Columns
- NBA & NFL Fantasy Sports Advice, Tips, and Rankings

Here’s How to Apply:

- Send an email to both brian@emptythebench.com and andrew@emptythebench.com (subject line: “Contributing Writer”), telling us a little bit about yourself, your writing background, and what you feel are your areas of expertise. Be sure to include a link or two to published content if you have it, or to paste a sample of your work directly into the email. ALL ATTACHMENTS WILL BE DELETED.

- If we’re interested, we’ll follow up as soon as possible and take it from there.

Please be familiar with our tone and style before contacting us, and if you have any specific ideas for columns and/or topics to cover, feel free to include that in your email as well. Unfortunately, we cannot offer payment to contributing writers at this time. ETB is regularly cited on some of the top sports blogs and websites around, so this is a great way to get exposure for your work and some published clips for your portfolio. All regular contributors will have a bio posted on the site.

We look forward to hearing from you.

* may not actually be true

Past athletes and celebs in attendance include Hall of Fame NBA coach Pat Riley, Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland, 19-time Emmy Award winner Bob Costas, Washington Wizards forward Caron Butler, supermodel Carol Alt, and PGA Tour golfer Paul Azinger amongst many others. Obviously, this promises to be a fun night for a great cause; here’s more info from the event’s organizers followed by a short video.

The Make-A-Wish Ultimate Sports Auction, held on Friday, March 27th at the Broward County Convention Center in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, is your opportunity to rub elbows with celebrities from the world of sports. This is the only South Florida charity event that features coaches and players from ALL South Florida teams and more! You CAN’T MISS the Silent Auction – with more than 125 items including special, one-of-a-kind packages, sports memorabilia and sports experiences. The Live Auction is always a hit as the players, coaches, and celebrities take turns “one-upping” each other – often with entertaining results! CBS Sports “NFL Today” host James “JB” Brown hosts. Tickets are very limited. Call 888-773-9474 or visit us on the web at www.ultimatesportsauction.net.

For more information, please visit the official Make-A-Wish Ultimate Sports Auction website at http://www.ultimatesportsauction.net.

Phew. It’s been a harried 36 hours here at Empty the Bench. The site went down unexpectedly on Monday afternoon and we’ve been doing our best to get it back up and running ever since, but it looks like we’re out of the woods for now.

ETB would like to sincerely apologize to all of our readers for the service interruption and thank you for bearing with us while we figured this out. Neither of us is the most tech savvy guy, so we were forced to consult outside help to get the matter resolved.

We’re back now though, and we’re ready to do what we do best: provide you with high-caliber insight and analysis on the National Basketball Association and National Footbal League with our usual fantasy rankings and articles mixed in for good measure. Just in time for the NBA season to kick off next Tuesday, too.

Enjoy, and hopefully it’ll be smooth sailing from here on out. Special thank you to Tyler of Meat Junkie and Whiskey & Aspirin fame for his help, consultation, and patience.

- Brian and Andrew

The NBA Finals are in the books, with Boston taking home the 2007-08 NBA Championship. The NBA Draft has come and gone, with Kevin McHale’s annual bonehead decision in the books. As primarily an NBA and NFL blog, that means ETB gets a brief respite before ramping up our NFL and fantasy football coverage. We’ll take this opportunity to hang up the ole’ Gone Fishin’ sign on our porch, and be doing just that (or as close as you can get in Brooklyn).

If there’s breaking news we may still be checking in to opine on it, but the regular content will be on hiatus. And besides:

NBA teams and players must wait for the salary cap to be set before trades and most free agent signings can commence. Teams may negotiate with free agents beginning July 1, but they have to wait until the moratorium ends before signing a contract. This season it ends on July 8th, so the signing and trading can begin at 12.01 am, July 9th.

We’ll be back sometime after then with all kinds of summer shite:

- Updates on NBA Free Agency Comings, Goings, and Trades
- NFL Gossip and Heresay
- Interviews with NBA and NFL Bloggers
- 2008 NFL Fantasy Football Guides and Rankings
- Our Fantasy Football Mock Draft and Sleepers
- A look at the NFL’s 2008 Offseason Police Blotter
- And of Course, Our Award-Winning* Weekly Fantasy Football Content

In the meantime, here’s a few things to help bide your time:

- Read our NBA free agency updates.

-Read ETB’s Greatest Hits of the 2007/08 NBA Season (not including playoffs)

- Learn how to make whole-wheat bread

- Relive all the titillating moments of ETB’s 2007 NFL football coverage.

- Think twice before making pot brownies

- Rock out

- And finally, enjoy the first episode of “Skunked with Brownie Troop 666,” the new fishing show hosted by Mr. Mickey Melchiondo (Ween, Moistboyz). More info, episodes, and Brownie Troop 666 merchandise can be found at the Official Brownie Troop Fishing Show website.

*May not actually be true

ETB is proud to be nominated for the Best Overall Columnist Blogger award:

You can vote for Empty the Bench here.

That’s category #11, and we also encourage you to write us in for category #15, the Rookie of the Year (this being our first full season covering the NBA). In fact, you should just write us in for the rest of the categories, too, but note that you’re not required to vote in every category—only the ones with an asterik.

Unfortunately, there will be no Swimsuit Competition in this season’s awards, despite multiple, strongly worded requests from ETB. Thanks for your support, and godspeed.

Founded in 2006 by Christopher J. Russo, formerly the Senior Vice President of New Media/Publishing for the NFL, FSV will work with Empty the Bench in the areas of commerce, marketing, and content distribution. Empty the Bench plans to syndicate its content for use on FSV’s portal site, FantasyPlayers.com.

As the latest sports blog to join forces with FSV, Empty the Bench is further establishing itself in the growing fantasy sports marketplace and serves as yet another example of the increasing influence sports blogs are having across the sports media landscape.

“Empty the Bench is a perfect addition to our complement of fantasy focused web sites and blogs,” said Andy Regal, Executive Vice President of Programming for Fantasy Sports Ventures. “We are eager to introduce this unique voice to the 5 million users who visit our network of sites each month,” Regal added.

About Empty the Bench, LLC:

Launched in February 2007, Empty the Bench, LLC is geared towards diehard and casual sports fans and currently offers insightful and thorough analysis of the NFL, the NBA, and MLB with a slant towards fantasy sports. The founders and principle writers are Brian Spencer and Andrew Thell, two avid and knowledgeable sports fans with over 20 years of combined experience participating in fantasy sports. Both have professional backgrounds in small, successful start-up companies.

# # #

For more info, or to schedule an interview with one or both of ETB’s co-founders, please email Brian Spencer at brian@emptythebench.com.

Fear not, loyal reader, for I shall return this coming week with all kinds analytic goodness. Expect to see ETB’s Fantasy MLB Mid-Season Player Rankings hit the site early in the week and updates on all the various professional athletes who will undoubtedly have been arrested in the meantime (for drugs, violence, gun possession or some combination thereof).

I’ve got tickets to see my beloved Twins while in the heartland, so if you’re watching the games keep an eye out for me just behind third base- even if you don’t know what I look like. It’ll be fun, like Where’s Waldo.

Here’s hoping it won’t be Nick Punto’s ugly mug standing in front of me all game.

Take ‘er easy for all us sinners,

Andrew “Boom Boom” Thell

Just wanted to drop a quick update to you, loyal reader, about one half of Empty the Bench’s whereabouts. I’m heading overseas tomorrow for about 5 weeks, and will not be posting any content while away. Never fear–ETB is *not* shutting down. Andrew will be assuming full-time duties and gracing you with all kinds of memorable content that won’t soon be forgotten.

I’ll be back August 7; until then, please direct any and all questions and concerns to Andrew at andrew@emptythebench.com. With playoff baseball and new NFL and NBA seasons in the offing, late-summer on into the fall is our favorite time of the year. Empty the Bench looks forward to getting back to full strength in plenty of time to have it all covered.

Until then, I bid you a great July. Enjoy basking in the comedic, analytical stylings of ETB’s other self-made man, Andrew Thell.

Cheers,

Brian
brian@emptythebench.com