Monday, April 25, 2011
Recapping the Week 4/18-4/24
Owners vs. Players- Unfortunately there was no Easter miracle to report this week in the NFL as the league is still in the midst of a lockout. Other than that there isn’t too much to say about the NFL right now. True story the ESPN.com NFL section has a headline story right now (Sunday afternoon) about how there is going to be professional women's bowling in Cowboys stadium, riveting stuff.
Moving on to commentary about America’s favorite tournament, the Madden cover tournament breakdown! After four long hard weeks of voting America has decided that it should be either Michael Vick or Peyton Hillis that graces the cover of Madden 2012. I’d really love to know what EA Sports is thinking right now because there either going to have one of the most hated players in the NFL or a white running back that nobody knows about who plays on an awful team on the cover of Madden. Yes I think this actually qualifies as an instance where someone (EA Sports) is caught between a rock and a hard place. I guess this answers the question of who would be the Cleveland athlete that would fill the departed LeBron James’ shoes, Peyton Hillis everybody. I think that the only plausible explanation for how Hillis made the title is that Cleveland fans after decades of suffering saw an opportunity for a Cleveland team/athlete to win something and voted like crazy for Hillis. Side note you know who looks really dumb throughout all of this is the Denver Broncos who traded Hillis away last offseason for a third string quarterback (Brady Quinn). There have been some strange cover athletes for video games but if Hillis actually wins the Madden cover he will go down as the strangest of all time. Hillis before last season was an unknown and even though he did breakout last season his stats weren’t even that remarkable. If you asked any NFL fan to name the top ten running backs in the league right now I have no doubt that the vast majority wouldn’t mention Hillis. The funny thing is that there really isn’t anybody else that would make sense as the Browns representative, they were that bad last year. For all NBA fans it would be like trying to pick a Cleveland Cavalier player to be on the Cover of NBA 2K11 there’s no good options. These past two sentences should make all sports fans feel sympathy for Cleveland fans, their teams are horrendous. You know its bad when you have a Seattle fan saying this to you but at least the Seattle teams have Ichiro, King Felix, and our self (the 12th man). Moving on I expect Vick to win but maybe PETA, who asked EA Sports to remove Vick from the tournament bracket, will spend all week protesting Vick by voting for Hillis, you just never know in April Madness. Side note how do they determine who will be on the cover of Madden 2013 if there’s not a season next year? I think the best way of determining the Madden 2013 cover athlete if there were a lockout next year would be letting the last NFL player to stay out of the news for negative reasons be on the cover. I mean at this point at least ten percent of the league, headlined by Brandon Marshall getting stabbed this past week, has already been disqualified using my guidelines. Your 2013 Madden cover athlete: whoever punts for the Baltimore Ravens! Doesn’t this just sound great?
NBA- I would like to start this off by saying that I am a fan of an NBA team that scored 11 points and 14 points in the first and third quarters of a playoff game and still won. I’m not making this up either, your Portland TrailBlazers everybody, the team that scores 49 points through three quarters and still manages to win. If any Portland fan tells you that they thought they were going to come back and win the game against the Mavericks on Saturday they are lying through their teeth, everybody in the state of Oregon and beyond had written the Blazers off. Only a couple weeks after anointing Rory McIlroy as my new standard for choking I have been forced to replace McIlroy with the Dallas Mavericks after their performance on Saturday afternoon. This wasn’t really too tough of a decision either, these next couple of sentences will prove this and why there should never be cross sports comparisons. McIlroy easily grabbed the choking standard from Jay Cutler (Knee-gate which may not have been fair but whatever I hate Cutler) after his performance at the Masters, mainly the part where he went something like plus two hundred (?) in a three hole span that saw him go from first to outside of the top ten. If you look at the Mavericks blowing their 23 point lead in 13 minutes in terms of McIlroy and golf it would be something like McIlroy entering Sunday at the Masters with an eight or nine stroke lead and then blowing it. There you go I successfully proved why cross sports comparisons shouldn’t exist and why the Mavericks choking effort on Saturday was truly legendary. The Blazers were atrocious in the first quarter and then rallied in the second quarter that led to the Mavericks holding a slim two point lead over the Blazers entering the half. Then the Blazers came out in the third quarter and missed their first fifteen shots which led to the Mavericks pushing their lead to twenty three points and all Blazer fans giving up on the season. True story there was actually a point in the third quarter that I hoped the Blazers wouldn’t make a field goal just so they could be the only team in NBA history to go a whole quarter without making a field goal. It was that bad, I was actually rooting against my team so they could hold one of the worst distinctions in NBA history. Then Brandon Roy aka the guy who has no meniscus in his knees subbed in, caught fire, led the Blazers back to victory, and cured cancer. Ok maybe I made the last one up but you get the point. Couple of notes from the game, first I’m actually kind of shocked that my friends and I kept watching the game because; A, the Blazers were down twenty three, and B, it was the first sunny day in Eugene in an estimated 497 days. Second what the hell did Nate McMillan say to the Blazers before the game and at halftime? Whatever it was I hope he never says it again because I don’t think I can handle watching two quarters that were as awful as the Blazers first and third quarters again. Lastly how many Maverick fans do you think stopped watching around the end of the third quarter and then came back and saw that they actually lost the game? There reactions upon learning that the Mavericks pulled a McIlroy times two would have been absolutely priceless.
Just because I started a new paragraph doesn’t mean I’m done talking about the Blazers, do you guys think there’s any truth to the rumor that Mark Cuban’s head exploded after game 4? Just kidding fortunately for you guys I have run out of awesome things to say about the Blazers and terrible things about the Mavericks so in this case a new paragraph does mean moving on. In other NBA news the Celtics swept the Knicks even though they probably should have lost games 1 and 2. Side note, how come no one ever mentions Ray Allen as an elite closer? The guy just doesn’t miss big shots in the postseason further evidenced by his late three that put the Celtics ahead in game one of the series. The Knicks put up a good fight but really didn’t have too much of a chance once Chauncey Billups got injured, it was already hard enough for the Knicks playing 3 vs. 5 against the Celtics so once Billups got injured they had no chance playing 2 vs. 5. Carmelo Anthony did have his “signature moment” in game 2 when he dropped 42 points playing by himself (Stoudemire left due to back spasms) but in the other three games was somewhere between average and below average. I wasn’t too big a fan of the Melo trade from the Knicks angle when it happened and this series showed exactly why; you can’t go very far in the playoffs when you have little or no depth. I fully expect Melo and Stoudemire to get better and make this team more competitive in the future but I just don’t know if they will ever be title contenders unless they are able to get a third star to play with them. The third star that the Knicks are hoping comes to Madison Square Garden is the Hornets Chris Paul who is singlehandedly making the Hornets vs. Lakers series competitive. The other thing that Chris Paul is really good at is making Blazer fans think of what could have been if the Blazers hadn’t selected Martell Webster instead of Paul. Moving on before I start crying, in last weeks post I wrote that I would be absolutely shocked if this series had any other result than a Hornets sweep as I predicted I am absolutely shocked that the Hornets are tied at two games apiece with the Lakers. Just take a look at who Chris Paul is playing with right now; Paul starts alongside Marco Belinelli, Trevor Ariza, Carl Landry, and Emeka Okafor. In addition to that phenomenal starting lineup Paul is aided by the fearsome bench crew of Willie Green, Jarret Jack, DJ Mbenga, Jason Smith, and Aaron Gray (my vote for worst player in the NBA). Explain to me how this roster is tied with the two time defending champion Lakers? Most of it, if not all of it, has to do with the fact that Paul is playing unreal basketball right now (27 points, 15 assists, and 13 rebounds on Sunday). Some of it also has to be because Steve Blake is currently wearing a headband. Some people are just not meant to wear headbands; Steve Blake is one of them. Still the Lakers will win this series, there’s simply no way that Hornets can advance past the Lakers even with Chris Paul going nuts. In a move that everyone predicted, including myself, the Hawks have put the Magic on the brink of elimination after Sundays game four victory. I’m not sure that anyone gave the Hawks much of a chance in this series but that’s why they play the games. Hawks center Jason Collins has received tons of credit for his defense on Dwight Howard but I think this has much more to do with the Magic not having anybody else shooting well besides Howard. The Magic live and die by their perimeter shooting which has led them to the three games to one deficit but I actually think there going to get hot and come back and win this series. You can mark that down as a prediction sure to go wrong.
The Heat and Bulls both find themselves up three games to one over the 76ers and Pacers respectively which doesn’t really mean anything besides the fact that both will be advancing to the next round. I’m still not sure why LeBron gets all of the late game isolation plays but he showed that he still isn’t very good at converting in the clutch in Sunday’s loss to the 76ers. LeBron showed all year that he wasn’t a great in the clutch situations so why don’t they change it up and give Dwayne Wade a couple looks? It’s not like Wade isn’t qualified to be taking these big shots and its supposedly still his team so why does James get all the late game looks? The only thing I have to say about the Pacers vs. Bulls series is how do the Pacers let their home court become flooded with Bulls fans? Watching parts of game three and four made it seem like there were at least as many Bulls fans in Indianapolis as there were Pacer fans. The Oklahoma City Thunder also can be booked for the next round of the playoffs as they hold a commanding three games to zero lead over the Denver Nuggets. With the Lakers struggles so far it doesn’t seem so far-fetched right now to say that the Thunder are the favorites in the West. Quick note on the Nuggets, this series proved why every NBA team for the most part needs a star to go far in the playoffs. The Detroit Pistons are the only exception to this rule but in the NBA today you need a star or stars to make it deep in the playoffs. What I mean by this is you need some “star player” that can get the ball late in the games drive down the lane yell very loudly and get a foul call. It sounds stupid but in the NBA today if you can act like you got fouled or at least yell like you just got your armed chopped off its classified as good offense. The funny thing is that people at the Rec center have caught on to this and actually do the same yelling routine when they take layups, its the stupidest thing ever there’s not even referees to call fouls. Further proving that it never pays to be a conformist is the fact that the Grizzlies hold a two games to one edge over the Spurs, which someone thought could be plausible but decided against it because no one else picked the Grizzlies to advance. This series isn’t close to being over but if the Spurs can’t grab Mondays game four it would seem very likely that the Grizzlies would become only the second eight seeded team to advance out of the first round since the first round format changed into best of seven series format. I’m not quite sure what to expect the rest of the way but whoever wins game four would be the one that I would predict to win the series.
MLB- Baseball is firmly on the backburner with the NBA playoffs in full swing but there still were a couple of things that I feel are worth mentioning. I’ve been proudly rocking my Pirates hat lately because this is the first time in at least ten years that the Pirates aren’t in last place in their division, unfortunately the Astros are only a game back of the Pirates so I might have to put the Pirates hat back in storage. Ok back to MLB news that people actually care about, the Red Sox after a horrendous start are making their way back to the AL East standings, which really shouldn’t surprise anyone. The one thing I will say about the Red Sox their best offseason addition so far this season has been a healthy Josh Beckett. Beckett in the past few weeks has looked like a completely different pitcher than last year, if Beckett can keep pitching like a top flight starter there’s no reason why they shouldn’t making a deep playoff run come October. The Tampa Bay Rays also got off to a tough start in early in the season but after Manny Ramirez’s abrupt retirement have pulled off 10 wins in 13 games. Does anything else scream bad teammate more than a team winning 10 games in 13 tries after you retire? This winning streak has been shocking for many reasons especially when you consider that the Rays as of right now are playing without their best player Evan Longoria who has been sidelined with a hip problem. I don’t really like the Rays chances to make the playoffs because they play in the AL East but they still are a dark horse team to watch if there offense can get it back together once Longoria returns. Another Florida team, the Marlins, have also caught my eye, in particular they’re starting pitching that was dominant this past week. Led by ace Josh Johnson the Marlins have been putting up some spectacular pitching performances including a handful of no-hit bids that have lasted into the late innings of games. Just this past weekend Josh Johnson took a no hit bid into the sixth inning and Annibal Sanchez took a no-hit bid into the ninth inning against the Colorado Rockies. This is impressive stuff considering the Rockies boast arguably the top offense in the National League. If the Marlins rotation can stay healthy you have to at least consider them as a potential National League Wild Card team. The sad thing is that I’m pretty sure our intramural basketball team the Wet Bandits drew more fans than the Marlins do at home games.
The Week Moving Forward
Owners vs. Players- I’m going to go way out on a limb and say that there won’t be an agreement between the owners and players but you never know. The big news of the upcoming week is that the NFL draft starts on Thursday and runs all the way through Saturday. I don’t know about you guys but I find it pretty hard to get excited about this draft when there’s no guarantee of football next season. Continuing with the age-old tradition of saving the best for last, a Madden cover winner will be announced at some point this week, try to hold in your excitement.
NBA- The first round of the playoffs continue throughout the week and the only two things that I hope happen are Dwight Howard shaving his facial hair and Steve Blake not ever wearing a headband again. Besides that I predict the Spurs, Lakers, Blazers, Thunder to advance in the Western Conference and the Bulls, Heat, Celtics, and Magic to advance out of the Eastern conference.
MLB- Would it really hurt to shorten the MLB season by ten or so games? If you shorten the season to 150 games would any problems be created? I don’t think so plus the upside is you take Mariners fans out of their misery a couple weeks earlier than the 162 game schedule.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Recapping the Week 4/11-4/17
Owners vs. Players- We’ve officially passed the one-month mark in the lockout with no real positive news and as of now I don’t think I’m going to get a chance to avenge this past years fantasy football failure. This past week was another uneventful week in negotiations, which took place in Minnesota. Big victory for the players here as they get to negotiate in Minnesota opposed to the owners choice of Washington D.C. Upon further review I’m not sure if Minnesota in the spring is much of win but that’s besides the point, both sides are scheduled to reconvene on Tuesday. Just to show how exciting the NFL is right now, I went to ESPN.com NFL section Saturday morning and all of the headline news at the time had something to due with current or former players getting into trouble.
Now to the part that you’ve all been waiting for, Madden Cover tournament breakdown! The white running back continued its shocking run to the final four with Peyton Hillis securing a match-up against Aaron Rodgers in one final four match-up with Michael Vick and Adrian Peterson being the match-up on the other side. I’m probably only the only person to notice this but can’t all of these players be compared to the NCAA final four this year? Mike Vick’s already been on the cover so he’s UCONN (previous national championships), Adrian Peterson as Kentucky because there both fan favorites and are really good. Aaron Rodgers as Butler because nobody really knew of them a year and a half ago and now everybody knows them because of their recent success and lastly Peyton Hillis as VCU because nobody knows anything about either of them. If there were odds for this, which strangely enough I’m sure there actually are, Michael Vick would be the overwhelming favorite with Aaron Rodgers and Adrian Peterson being underdogs and million of people asking “who the f*** is Hillis?” Bottom line look for Vick to roll all the way to the championship. I would try compare this to the brick throwing competition (NCAA championship) between Butler and UCONN but I’m not sure how to compare basketball and online voting for a video game. Your right it’s a once in a lifetime chance so here I go, the finals will end with Vick winning due to Rodgers ineptitude in submitting online ballots. For the Vick match-up team Rodgers was only 18 percent successful in correctly submitting their online ballots leading to an easy but unwatchable Vick victory.
NBA- The playoffs are upon us but the real news is that the Minnesota Timberwolves were able to complete the unthinkable; ending the season with a worse record than the Cleveland Cavaliers. The main key to their magical run to the cellar of the NBA standings was ending the season on a 15 game losing streak, good news for Cavaliers fans is that they can still take solace in possessing the longest losing streak of the season (24 games). Shocking news both of these teams failed to make the playoffs.
Unfortunately I was unable to catch most of the first batch of playoff games because my professors decided to assign three midterms on Monday or Tuesday morning this week so instead of watching the first games of the playoffs I was reviewing anti derivatives. Side note how can you call a test a midterm if were not even halfway done with the term? For instance I have “three midterms” this week but this is only week 3 out of 10, the math doesn’t make sense right? My choosing studying over NBA playoffs was about a bad a trade off as picking Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan but I will give my thoughts on what little basketball that I did see. Derrick Rose in game one against the Pacers made me look like an idiot for not picking him as MVP. The definition of an MVP performance was what Derrick Rose had during Saturdays game one as he kept the Bulls close all game and then exploded in the fourth to guide the Bulls to a game one victory. The Pacers looked pretty good but I give them a zero chance of winning the series because there’s simply no way there coming back from the heartbreak of losing game one even though they had a ten point lead with less than three minutes left.
As good as Derrick Rose was running the point for the Bulls in game one Chris Paul in Sundays Lakers versus Hornets game one was even better in guiding the Hornets to a shocking opening victory in Los Angeles. The Lakers lost because they looked like they would rather be doing a million different things than playing basketball but it was still impressive to see Chris Paul tally 33 points and 14 assists. The Hornets being upset about Aaron Gray’s ankle injury sums up their chances of winning the series, its not going to happen. Moving on the Blazers choked game one away to the Mavericks in no small part due to the Mavericks shooting 19 fourth quarter free throws compared to the Blazers 2 fourth quarter free throws. I’m not saying this as an excuse for the Blazers losing but there’s no way that the Mavericks should have shot 17 more fourth quarter free throws than Dallas. For the game the Blazers at least stat wise were the more aggressive team as evidenced by there 46 points in the paint compared to Dallas’s 18 points in the paint. Regardless of the free throw statistics the Blazers were up six at around the four minute mark in the game and pulled their patented were going to stop scoring and hope we can pull off the win. As always this move led to a loss which is something that the Blazers should have learned throughout the regular season when they pulled this move at least 10 times with little success. The Hawks pulled the upset in Orlando even though Dwight Howard put up a monster stat line of 43 points and 19 rebounds, I didn’t watch any of this game but what the hell were Howard’s teammates doing? I still think that Orlando will win this series but it’s usually not a good idea to lose game one by double digits in your home building. I wasn’t able to catch either of the Sunday late afternoon/night games so I don’t have any thoughts on the Knicks vs. Celtics or Thunder vs. Nuggets. Sorry about that I know you guys are devastated.
MLB- I’m already regretting picking the White Sox as the World Series champions because it has become painfully apparent that they don’t have a closer. Another team that’s looking like a poor fit for the playoffs would be the Boston Red Sox as they are struggling out of the gates to the tune of a 4-win and 10-loss record. Red Sox fans have already begun panicking which always brings up the question when is it appropriate to begin panicking? Shouldn’t people give the team like 40 games before they begin panicking? The Red Sox are less than fifteen games into the season, which is less than ten percent of the season. Do people realize that this is the equivalent of saying that a baseball game is over when a team scores three runs in the top of the first inning? It’s not a great sign for the Red Sox but I would still bet that they make the playoffs; they are way too talented to not right the ship. Just to clarify its reasonable for me to say that the Mariners are done because they have an offensive lineup that most college pitchers would love to face.
The Week Moving Forward
Owners vs. Players- I’m going to go out on a limb and say that we will still be in a lockout at this time next week. I know real shocking, in other news the final match-up for the Madden Cover will be announced.
NBA- The playoffs are obviously the big NBA news for the week so I humbly present you my playoff predictions. For the record I typed this part up before the playoffs started, you can tell this by me picking the Lakers to sweep among other things.
First Round Eastern Conference
Chicago Bulls over Indiana Pacers in 5 games
The Bulls should win this one fairly easily but I think that the Pacers will be able to snag a W at some point in the series. For the record I would pick against the Pacers no matter who they are playing due to the amount of white players on their roster. When Blazer legend Luke Babbit, legendary only for his paleness (politically correct way of saying whiteness), played against the Pacers it was the only time he actually looked like he belonged on the basketball court.
Miami Heat over Philadelphia 76ers in 4 games
The 76ers had a great season surpassing nearly everyone’s expectations but simply put there is no way that they are winning this series. Getting one victory would be an accomplishment by itself but I don’t think that Dwayne Wade and LeBron James are going to let this happen just so they don’t have to deal with the media after a loss. If Miami somehow lost game 1 Obama (for those that are counting that’s the second presidential mention) would probably be called into Miami to survey the damage and issue a state of emergency. A missing persons notice for Mike Miller would also be issued.
Boston Celtics over New York Knicks in 5 games
Easily the best Eastern first round series the Celtics vs. Knicks series features plenty of star power evidenced by a combined 7 Knicks and Celtics players grabbing top 15 spots in the most popular jersey sales of 2010/2011 season. The Celtics having five out of the top 15 most popular jerseys tells you all that you need to know, they have a team compared to the Knicks with Melo, Amare, Chauncey Billups, and twelve no names. I originally had the Knicks winning two games but I just don’t know how there going to be able to do it. Even with a late season swoon the Celtics will advance.
Orlando Magic over Atlanta Hawks in 5 games
The Hawks being eliminated by the Magic has basically become an annual postseason tradition and I don’t see this as year’s series ending any differently. For those that don’t remember, or choose not to, the Magic annihilated the Hawks in last years playoffs in a four game sweep where the average margin of victory was a touch over 25 points per game. Some have this series going six or seven games but I don’t really see it, Dwight Howard and the Magic will bully their way to the next round after five boring games.
First Round Western Conference
San Antonio Spurs over Memphis Grizzlies in 6 games
I was really feeling picking the Grizzlies to upset the Spurs but ultimately couldn’t pull the trigger because I didn’t want to be the one person in the world that picked against the Spurs. My thinking on a Grizzlies upset was two fold, Manu Ginobili getting injured and the Grizzlies believing that the Spurs are the best match up. The Ginobili injury was the main reason I thought about picking the Grizzlies because Ginobili is the most important player on the Spurs but all signs point to him being back later in the series. The other thing that got me thinking Grizzlies was the fact that the Grizzlies for some odd reason tanked their last two games (odd because they still had a chance to get as high as the sixth seed and a match-up against the Dallas Mavericks) to get this match-up which is either them being incredibly stupid or the fact that they believe this match-up gives them the best shot to advance. You have to think they lost intentionally to get the Spurs which has led me to the point where I think about deleting the above paragraph and picking the Grizzlies but sadly I don’t think I can do it (I guess you can call me a conformist).
Los Angeles Lakers over New Orleans Hornets in 4 games
Nothing to put here, if the Lakers don’t sweep I will be shocked. On second thought I will mention out of all the words Kobe could have said to the referee (for those living under a rock he made a derogatory homosexual comment) on last Tuesday night why did he say what he did? Off the top of my head I can only think of a couple of words, for obvious reasons I can’t say these, which would have been worse than what Kobe said. The other thing from this is how did Kobe not get ejected for what he said? Currently I have Kevin Garnett (cancer comments) as a slight leader in stupid trash talk over Kobe on the season, this isn’t final yet though lots of playoff time left.
Portland Trail Blazers over Dallas Mavericks in 6 games
This was basically a toss up for me, I only chose the Blazers because I didn’t want my friends telling me I’m not a Blazers fan because I picked against them. Off topic but still I will continue, you can still be fan of your team and pick against them. Nobody agrees with me but its called being realistic instead of a homer. I also picked the Blazers because along with all non-Dallas NBA fans I enjoy seeing Mark Cuban after Dallas loses, its almost always good TV. Ultimately I think that Dallas will lose one game on their home floor and the Blazers will protect the Rose Garden leading to a Blazer victory.
Oklahoma City Thunder over Denver Nuggets in 5
A very competitive series that will have at least one game where the final score is something like 125 to 119, in other words look for fireworks in this series. The Nuggets have been great since the Melo trade but I don’t think they have what it takes to get past Kevin Durant and the Thunder especially with point guard Ty Lawson not being one hundred percent. If Lawson was completely healthy I could see this series going to 7 but since Lawson is hobbled I have the Thunder advancing in 5.
Eastern Conference Semifinals
Magic over Bulls in 7 games
Not really sure why but I think the Magic have what it takes to beat the Bulls. There are many reasons why this is a stupid pick, the Magic not having anyone capable of guarding Derrick Rose as the primary one but I think that Dwight Howard will have a monster series and guide the Magic to the Eastern Conference Semifinals for the third straight year. The fact that this pick is completely reliant on Dwight Howard staying out of foul trouble doesn’t inspire confidence but I’m still going to stick with the Magic. Looking back upon editing I’m quite sure that I only made this pick to prove that I’m not a conformist.
Celtics over Heat in 6 games
This is hopefully where the Celtics turn the “switch” back on and look like they did for the first half of the season instead of how they’ve looked at the end of the season. The big key to this series will be if Rondo is offensively because he is the one Celtic that has a favorable match-up with the Heat. The other four positions are basically washes but the other reason that I like the Celtics is their bench advantage over the Heat. Once the Heat lose a new DEFCON rating, DEFCON HEAT, will be made.
Western Conference Semifinals
Thunder over Spurs in 6 games
Once again I continue with looking past the Spurs regular season dominance in picking the Thunder but I just can’t see the aging Spurs being able to keep up to the upstart Thunder. This series and presumably the next against the Lakers (more on that a paragraph down) will show how valuable the Kendrick Perkins pickup was in terms of the Thunder being able to control the paint as opposed to last years playoffs. It’s a little strange to pick against a one seed this early but I just can’t see the Spurs scoring enough points to hang with the Thunder.
Lakers over the Blazers in 5
The only way the Blazers can win this series is if; A, Ron Artest goes crazy and murders Kobe Bryant, or B, if Portland fans murder Kobe Bryant. These really are the only two ways that Portland will advance, seeing as these probably won’t happen (you can’t rule out Ron Artest though) the Lakers will easily roll to their third straight conference finals.
Conference Finals (This occurs something like four months from now but its never too early to make bad predictions is what I like to say)
Celtics over Magic in 7
I’m probably riding the Celtic bandwagon a year too late but screw it Jesus Shuttlesworth will lead the Celtics to the Finals. Off topic but when is He Got Game 2 coming out? No one on the Magic can guard Pierce, Garnett, Allen, or Rondo, which outweighs no one on the Celtics being able to guard Dwight Howard. Simple math really 4 > 1 (Upland Eagles in the House).
Lakers over Thunder in 7
I had the Thunder advancing but then I realized I had used all my crazy upset predictions on the Eastern Conference. Plus the Lakers still have Kobe Bryant so I don’t see them losing.
NBA Finals
Lakers over Celtics in 7
This really shows you how original I am in picking a finals rematch from last year but after looking flipping coins for every match-up this is how it ended up working out. Ok so maybe that’s not how I determined it so far but I’m 90% sure that the Lakers will be the Western conference representative and I’m not buying the Heat or Bulls stock so it was the Celtics coming out of the East. In other words I predict five months from now (?) the Lakers will get their third straight title.
MLB- This will be the week that the Mariners will be no hit. You are completely correct in your assessment that this really isn’t too daring of a prediction.
Now to the part that you’ve all been waiting for, Madden Cover tournament breakdown! The white running back continued its shocking run to the final four with Peyton Hillis securing a match-up against Aaron Rodgers in one final four match-up with Michael Vick and Adrian Peterson being the match-up on the other side. I’m probably only the only person to notice this but can’t all of these players be compared to the NCAA final four this year? Mike Vick’s already been on the cover so he’s UCONN (previous national championships), Adrian Peterson as Kentucky because there both fan favorites and are really good. Aaron Rodgers as Butler because nobody really knew of them a year and a half ago and now everybody knows them because of their recent success and lastly Peyton Hillis as VCU because nobody knows anything about either of them. If there were odds for this, which strangely enough I’m sure there actually are, Michael Vick would be the overwhelming favorite with Aaron Rodgers and Adrian Peterson being underdogs and million of people asking “who the f*** is Hillis?” Bottom line look for Vick to roll all the way to the championship. I would try compare this to the brick throwing competition (NCAA championship) between Butler and UCONN but I’m not sure how to compare basketball and online voting for a video game. Your right it’s a once in a lifetime chance so here I go, the finals will end with Vick winning due to Rodgers ineptitude in submitting online ballots. For the Vick match-up team Rodgers was only 18 percent successful in correctly submitting their online ballots leading to an easy but unwatchable Vick victory.
NBA- The playoffs are upon us but the real news is that the Minnesota Timberwolves were able to complete the unthinkable; ending the season with a worse record than the Cleveland Cavaliers. The main key to their magical run to the cellar of the NBA standings was ending the season on a 15 game losing streak, good news for Cavaliers fans is that they can still take solace in possessing the longest losing streak of the season (24 games). Shocking news both of these teams failed to make the playoffs.
Unfortunately I was unable to catch most of the first batch of playoff games because my professors decided to assign three midterms on Monday or Tuesday morning this week so instead of watching the first games of the playoffs I was reviewing anti derivatives. Side note how can you call a test a midterm if were not even halfway done with the term? For instance I have “three midterms” this week but this is only week 3 out of 10, the math doesn’t make sense right? My choosing studying over NBA playoffs was about a bad a trade off as picking Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan but I will give my thoughts on what little basketball that I did see. Derrick Rose in game one against the Pacers made me look like an idiot for not picking him as MVP. The definition of an MVP performance was what Derrick Rose had during Saturdays game one as he kept the Bulls close all game and then exploded in the fourth to guide the Bulls to a game one victory. The Pacers looked pretty good but I give them a zero chance of winning the series because there’s simply no way there coming back from the heartbreak of losing game one even though they had a ten point lead with less than three minutes left.
As good as Derrick Rose was running the point for the Bulls in game one Chris Paul in Sundays Lakers versus Hornets game one was even better in guiding the Hornets to a shocking opening victory in Los Angeles. The Lakers lost because they looked like they would rather be doing a million different things than playing basketball but it was still impressive to see Chris Paul tally 33 points and 14 assists. The Hornets being upset about Aaron Gray’s ankle injury sums up their chances of winning the series, its not going to happen. Moving on the Blazers choked game one away to the Mavericks in no small part due to the Mavericks shooting 19 fourth quarter free throws compared to the Blazers 2 fourth quarter free throws. I’m not saying this as an excuse for the Blazers losing but there’s no way that the Mavericks should have shot 17 more fourth quarter free throws than Dallas. For the game the Blazers at least stat wise were the more aggressive team as evidenced by there 46 points in the paint compared to Dallas’s 18 points in the paint. Regardless of the free throw statistics the Blazers were up six at around the four minute mark in the game and pulled their patented were going to stop scoring and hope we can pull off the win. As always this move led to a loss which is something that the Blazers should have learned throughout the regular season when they pulled this move at least 10 times with little success. The Hawks pulled the upset in Orlando even though Dwight Howard put up a monster stat line of 43 points and 19 rebounds, I didn’t watch any of this game but what the hell were Howard’s teammates doing? I still think that Orlando will win this series but it’s usually not a good idea to lose game one by double digits in your home building. I wasn’t able to catch either of the Sunday late afternoon/night games so I don’t have any thoughts on the Knicks vs. Celtics or Thunder vs. Nuggets. Sorry about that I know you guys are devastated.
MLB- I’m already regretting picking the White Sox as the World Series champions because it has become painfully apparent that they don’t have a closer. Another team that’s looking like a poor fit for the playoffs would be the Boston Red Sox as they are struggling out of the gates to the tune of a 4-win and 10-loss record. Red Sox fans have already begun panicking which always brings up the question when is it appropriate to begin panicking? Shouldn’t people give the team like 40 games before they begin panicking? The Red Sox are less than fifteen games into the season, which is less than ten percent of the season. Do people realize that this is the equivalent of saying that a baseball game is over when a team scores three runs in the top of the first inning? It’s not a great sign for the Red Sox but I would still bet that they make the playoffs; they are way too talented to not right the ship. Just to clarify its reasonable for me to say that the Mariners are done because they have an offensive lineup that most college pitchers would love to face.
The Week Moving Forward
Owners vs. Players- I’m going to go out on a limb and say that we will still be in a lockout at this time next week. I know real shocking, in other news the final match-up for the Madden Cover will be announced.
NBA- The playoffs are obviously the big NBA news for the week so I humbly present you my playoff predictions. For the record I typed this part up before the playoffs started, you can tell this by me picking the Lakers to sweep among other things.
First Round Eastern Conference
Chicago Bulls over Indiana Pacers in 5 games
The Bulls should win this one fairly easily but I think that the Pacers will be able to snag a W at some point in the series. For the record I would pick against the Pacers no matter who they are playing due to the amount of white players on their roster. When Blazer legend Luke Babbit, legendary only for his paleness (politically correct way of saying whiteness), played against the Pacers it was the only time he actually looked like he belonged on the basketball court.
Miami Heat over Philadelphia 76ers in 4 games
The 76ers had a great season surpassing nearly everyone’s expectations but simply put there is no way that they are winning this series. Getting one victory would be an accomplishment by itself but I don’t think that Dwayne Wade and LeBron James are going to let this happen just so they don’t have to deal with the media after a loss. If Miami somehow lost game 1 Obama (for those that are counting that’s the second presidential mention) would probably be called into Miami to survey the damage and issue a state of emergency. A missing persons notice for Mike Miller would also be issued.
Boston Celtics over New York Knicks in 5 games
Easily the best Eastern first round series the Celtics vs. Knicks series features plenty of star power evidenced by a combined 7 Knicks and Celtics players grabbing top 15 spots in the most popular jersey sales of 2010/2011 season. The Celtics having five out of the top 15 most popular jerseys tells you all that you need to know, they have a team compared to the Knicks with Melo, Amare, Chauncey Billups, and twelve no names. I originally had the Knicks winning two games but I just don’t know how there going to be able to do it. Even with a late season swoon the Celtics will advance.
Orlando Magic over Atlanta Hawks in 5 games
The Hawks being eliminated by the Magic has basically become an annual postseason tradition and I don’t see this as year’s series ending any differently. For those that don’t remember, or choose not to, the Magic annihilated the Hawks in last years playoffs in a four game sweep where the average margin of victory was a touch over 25 points per game. Some have this series going six or seven games but I don’t really see it, Dwight Howard and the Magic will bully their way to the next round after five boring games.
First Round Western Conference
San Antonio Spurs over Memphis Grizzlies in 6 games
I was really feeling picking the Grizzlies to upset the Spurs but ultimately couldn’t pull the trigger because I didn’t want to be the one person in the world that picked against the Spurs. My thinking on a Grizzlies upset was two fold, Manu Ginobili getting injured and the Grizzlies believing that the Spurs are the best match up. The Ginobili injury was the main reason I thought about picking the Grizzlies because Ginobili is the most important player on the Spurs but all signs point to him being back later in the series. The other thing that got me thinking Grizzlies was the fact that the Grizzlies for some odd reason tanked their last two games (odd because they still had a chance to get as high as the sixth seed and a match-up against the Dallas Mavericks) to get this match-up which is either them being incredibly stupid or the fact that they believe this match-up gives them the best shot to advance. You have to think they lost intentionally to get the Spurs which has led me to the point where I think about deleting the above paragraph and picking the Grizzlies but sadly I don’t think I can do it (I guess you can call me a conformist).
Los Angeles Lakers over New Orleans Hornets in 4 games
Nothing to put here, if the Lakers don’t sweep I will be shocked. On second thought I will mention out of all the words Kobe could have said to the referee (for those living under a rock he made a derogatory homosexual comment) on last Tuesday night why did he say what he did? Off the top of my head I can only think of a couple of words, for obvious reasons I can’t say these, which would have been worse than what Kobe said. The other thing from this is how did Kobe not get ejected for what he said? Currently I have Kevin Garnett (cancer comments) as a slight leader in stupid trash talk over Kobe on the season, this isn’t final yet though lots of playoff time left.
Portland Trail Blazers over Dallas Mavericks in 6 games
This was basically a toss up for me, I only chose the Blazers because I didn’t want my friends telling me I’m not a Blazers fan because I picked against them. Off topic but still I will continue, you can still be fan of your team and pick against them. Nobody agrees with me but its called being realistic instead of a homer. I also picked the Blazers because along with all non-Dallas NBA fans I enjoy seeing Mark Cuban after Dallas loses, its almost always good TV. Ultimately I think that Dallas will lose one game on their home floor and the Blazers will protect the Rose Garden leading to a Blazer victory.
Oklahoma City Thunder over Denver Nuggets in 5
A very competitive series that will have at least one game where the final score is something like 125 to 119, in other words look for fireworks in this series. The Nuggets have been great since the Melo trade but I don’t think they have what it takes to get past Kevin Durant and the Thunder especially with point guard Ty Lawson not being one hundred percent. If Lawson was completely healthy I could see this series going to 7 but since Lawson is hobbled I have the Thunder advancing in 5.
Eastern Conference Semifinals
Magic over Bulls in 7 games
Not really sure why but I think the Magic have what it takes to beat the Bulls. There are many reasons why this is a stupid pick, the Magic not having anyone capable of guarding Derrick Rose as the primary one but I think that Dwight Howard will have a monster series and guide the Magic to the Eastern Conference Semifinals for the third straight year. The fact that this pick is completely reliant on Dwight Howard staying out of foul trouble doesn’t inspire confidence but I’m still going to stick with the Magic. Looking back upon editing I’m quite sure that I only made this pick to prove that I’m not a conformist.
Celtics over Heat in 6 games
This is hopefully where the Celtics turn the “switch” back on and look like they did for the first half of the season instead of how they’ve looked at the end of the season. The big key to this series will be if Rondo is offensively because he is the one Celtic that has a favorable match-up with the Heat. The other four positions are basically washes but the other reason that I like the Celtics is their bench advantage over the Heat. Once the Heat lose a new DEFCON rating, DEFCON HEAT, will be made.
Western Conference Semifinals
Thunder over Spurs in 6 games
Once again I continue with looking past the Spurs regular season dominance in picking the Thunder but I just can’t see the aging Spurs being able to keep up to the upstart Thunder. This series and presumably the next against the Lakers (more on that a paragraph down) will show how valuable the Kendrick Perkins pickup was in terms of the Thunder being able to control the paint as opposed to last years playoffs. It’s a little strange to pick against a one seed this early but I just can’t see the Spurs scoring enough points to hang with the Thunder.
Lakers over the Blazers in 5
The only way the Blazers can win this series is if; A, Ron Artest goes crazy and murders Kobe Bryant, or B, if Portland fans murder Kobe Bryant. These really are the only two ways that Portland will advance, seeing as these probably won’t happen (you can’t rule out Ron Artest though) the Lakers will easily roll to their third straight conference finals.
Conference Finals (This occurs something like four months from now but its never too early to make bad predictions is what I like to say)
Celtics over Magic in 7
I’m probably riding the Celtic bandwagon a year too late but screw it Jesus Shuttlesworth will lead the Celtics to the Finals. Off topic but when is He Got Game 2 coming out? No one on the Magic can guard Pierce, Garnett, Allen, or Rondo, which outweighs no one on the Celtics being able to guard Dwight Howard. Simple math really 4 > 1 (Upland Eagles in the House).
Lakers over Thunder in 7
I had the Thunder advancing but then I realized I had used all my crazy upset predictions on the Eastern Conference. Plus the Lakers still have Kobe Bryant so I don’t see them losing.
NBA Finals
Lakers over Celtics in 7
This really shows you how original I am in picking a finals rematch from last year but after looking flipping coins for every match-up this is how it ended up working out. Ok so maybe that’s not how I determined it so far but I’m 90% sure that the Lakers will be the Western conference representative and I’m not buying the Heat or Bulls stock so it was the Celtics coming out of the East. In other words I predict five months from now (?) the Lakers will get their third straight title.
MLB- This will be the week that the Mariners will be no hit. You are completely correct in your assessment that this really isn’t too daring of a prediction.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Recapping the Week 4/4-4/10
Owners vs. Players- As we head toward the one month mark in the NFL lockout that can’t technically be called a lockout there was a slight bit of good news that came out on Sunday afternoon in that a judge will be ordering the NFL and its players to begin mediation at some point this week. I may have missed something but it seems that one of the issues preventing both sides from getting together to mediate was a disagreement on where to meet and discuss the future of the NFL. Obviously the location of where the players and the NFL meet is an incredibly stupid thing to argue about but its not like they really have any more serious priorities to resolve do they? For once I’m going to agree with the NFL and not the players in this one because the NFL wants to mediate in Washington D.C. while the players want to mediate in Minnesota. Why Minnesota of all places? The only explanation for the players choosing Minnesota for mediation is that Adrian Peterson was in charge of location selection but even this is a stretch, who likes anywhere in Minnesota over Los Angeles, Miami, Eugene (ok maybe this is a stretch), or a hundred other cities. I digress, this forced mediation is a step in the right direction but this doesn’t guarantee that an agreement will be reached anytime in the near future, translation don’t get your hopes up too much.
Now on to everyone’s favorite part, the Madden cover-voting breakdown. The white running back continued its shocking underdog story with both Peyton Hillis and Danny Woodhead advancing to the Elite Eight, unfortunately still no comment from the endangered species committee if the white running back will be taken off the endangered species list. Peyton Hillis (51% fan voting) advanced past Matt Ryan (49%) in a game for the ages that will live on for future generations through ESPN Classic replays. If you were wondering which matchup certainly won’t be on ESPN Classic it would be the week 1 matchup of Matt Ryan (89%) advancing past Jordan Gross (11%), further proving that there are no Carolina Panther fans. Quick side note I might be the only person on the whole West coast with any Panther apparel as I chose a half price Panther sweatshirt over a half price Cleveland Browns sweatshirt a couple years ago. If you were wondering yes, this is the moment that I regret the most in my life. Team Johnson who placed three Johnsons; Andre, Stevie, and Calvin, in the tournament has been eliminated, I still maintain that if you want your son to go the NFL just name him Johnson. Upon further review I think that naming your son Johnson also gives him the best chance to make it in the NBA so the bottom line is if you want to live off your kids later in life name them Johnson. Looking back on the bracket the one thing that I wish had changed was the Bears having Jay Cutler as their representative instead of their actual representative Julius Peppers. This would have been hilarious I’m quite sure that after what Cutler did during the playoffs, which may have been justified but no one cares, opposing fans would have voted Cutler to the Madden Cover just to spite Cutler and the Bears. Good news for Cutler is that Rory McIlroy after his Masters performance has passed him as the person I mention when I screw up in the clutch, which is never but if I were to hypothetically screw up I would now say “I pulled a McIlroy” instead of “I pulled a Cutler”, I’m sure Cutler is rejoicing.
Because I’ve already run out of NFL and Madden stuff to talk about I will include my thoughts on the Masters in the Owners vs. Players section, if including golf in the NFL section doesn’t spur the NFL to end the lockout before fans lose interest I don’t know what will. Sunday was the only time in my life that I actually thought I had to be watching golf or I would be missing something. Some of this had to do with Tiger being in the chase for a Major but even with Tiger falling out of it at the end the roommates and I stayed glued to the Masters as it came down to the final hole. Sorry I lied most of it had to do with the competition between myself and friends about whose three person squad could register the lowest combined score and take the forty buck prize. Unfortunately team Waterman ended away a far away second place, 14 strokes behind 1st place, but it wasn’t all bad as I was able to recoup half of my buy in due to my team registering the lowest combined round on Friday. As hinted at before Rory McIlroy, who entered Sunday with a four-stroke lead, enjoyed a truly legendary meltdown by shooting eight strokes over par on Sunday en route to finishing outside of the top 15. If you ever want to look up the definition of choking watch McIlroy’s three hole stretch in which he registered a combined plus eight strokes, the other definitions of choking are the 2001 Blazers blowing a fifteen point lead in the fourth quarter of game 7 and the 2004 Yankees losing four straight to the Red Sox in the ALCS. Not the best day for McIlroy, who is only 21 years old, but I think he gained infinitely more fans with the way he handled himself after he finished than he would have if he had won the tournament. Tiger Woods who is still golf’s main attraction, didn’t disappoint on Sunday as he used a hot start early to tie himself for the lead before fading to his eventual position of fourth, three strokes behind the leader. I’m convinced that the 99.98% of viewers thought that Tiger was going to win after he became a co-leader but it just wasn’t meant to be as Tiger missed too many short putts to keep up with those he was tied with. The .02% of viewers that thought Tiger wasn’t going to win was the families of the other golfers, seriously no one thought Tiger wasn’t going to win. Even though he didn’t win it was great to see him back on the prowl (cheesiness alert) and seeing Tiger walking down the fairway dressed in his Sunday red ranks up there as one of the cooler sites in sports.
NBA- Were still not quite to the playoffs but at least we now know who the sixteen teams will be. This week I’ll give out awards, some real and some fictional, and next week I will try and predict out the playoffs and the winner of the NBA finals (Blazers!!!).
MVP- LeBron James
Derrick Rose is probably going to win the MVP largely due to the media becoming infatuated with him at the midpoint in the season but I would still vote James as the MVP of the league. I think that basketball is the one major sport where statistics don’t give the whole picture, but James throwing up a line of 26 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists per game can only be described as remarkable. There isn’t a true definition for MVP but I think the best way to look at it is if you replaced James with any other elite player at his position how would the Heat fare? Kevin Durant is the best small forward besides James and while I think he would be successful on the Heat I don’t think he or anyone else brings anything close to what James brought to the Heat this year. James along with Wade had to do everything for the Heat this year as it was 2.5 guys for the Heat (Bosh only gets half points) against the opposing five every night. James had to be basically everything on every night; a playmaker, scorer, lockdown defender, and rebounder, or else the Heat weren’t winning. On the other hand if you replace Rose with Chris Paul, Deron Williams, or Russell Westbrook I’m not sure if the Bulls would be any different. Rose is a great scorer and does bring his A game in the clutch but I don’t think he’s even close to as valuable to the Bulls as LeBron is to the Heat.
Most Improved Player- LaMarcus Aldridge
Yes this is a biased pick but the difference between Aldridge this season and the past few seasons is stunning. With the announcement that Brandon Roy was going to be missing significant time due to his knees being incurably screwed up many including myself wrote the Blazers off as contenders. Instead Aldridge put the Blazers on his back highlighted by averaging 27 points and 9 rebounds during the month of February. Everyone knew that he was the Blazers only scoring option but that didn’t stop him and on a nightly basis he threw up 20 plus points against defenses geared to stop him. This ones easy in my book, no one improved more than he did, he went from a nice complimentary player to a bona fide number one option.
Most Disappointing Team- Milwaukee Bucks
They were viewed as a certain playoff team preseason after making the playoffs last season and adding Corey Maggette and Drew Gooden to their roster in the offseason, instead they will be watching the playoffs from home. Even though they endured a terrible streak of injuries there is no way that this team should be missing the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.
Team That Played on National Television the Least- Toronto Raptors
I’m not sure but by my unofficial calculations they were the only team that didn’t log a single national television appearance. Then again a roster headlined by Andrea Bargnani doesn’t exactly scream must watch TV so really we should be thanking television executives for not putting us through a Raptors game. For those that are wondering the winner of this award in the other two major sports leagues would be the Pittsburgh Pirates (never seen a Pirate game on TV) for the MLB and the Buffalo Bills of the NFL.
Rookie of the Year- Blake Griffin
No explanation needed here.
Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year- Tom Thibodeau and Gar Forman of the Bulls
This is a joint effort as Forman (general manager of the Bulls) and Thibodeau have both done a great job making the Bulls legitimate contenders for the championship. The Bulls brought in eight new rotation players in the offseason and Thibodeau was able to mold this new roster into a powerhouse defensive team that looks like it will claim the number one playoff seed in the East. Not bad for a team that was supposed to be a year away from truly contending.
Worst Player in the NBA- Sean Marks
Even though he is now unemployed Sean Marks time on the Blazers ensured that he would be the runaway winner of this award. He seems like a nice enough guy but there is no way that he should be playing in the NBA. I don’t think that he has one skill that could even be described as below average he is truly awful at everything. The best part of the Gerald Wallace trade from at least in my eyes was actually sending him to Charlotte.
Player That Ruined My Fantasy Basketball Team- Darren Collison
This was actually the award that was the hardest for me to determine but Collison came away with it in the end of Gerald Wallace. Wallace made the list because I had a friend draft my first round for me and instead of taking Amare Stoudamire sixth overall he drafted Wallace who might even be a stretch in the second round. As for Collison he came in with way too much hype and of course I fell for it and he proceeded to sleepwalk through the season. This award also doubles as my time to vent for my fantasy failures.
Strangest Moment of the Year- Drew Gooden registering a triple double
Of all the players to register a triple double I’m 100% sure that Gooden is the one name on the list that doesn’t belong, I’m pretty sure that the glamour of a triple/double has all but disappeared after Gooden got one this past week. Gooden has always been a good scorer and rebounder but his career average of 1.1 assist per game says it all. I’m interested in watching the tape of this game just to see what the hell the other defense was doing that night, seriously a Gooden triple/double makes zero sense. Upon further review the opposing team was the Cleveland Cavaliers; it all makes sense now.
MLB- Were only in week two of the regular season, unfortunately this means that Mariners have eliminated themselves from the playoffs. After winning their first two games the Mariners have lost their past seven including most recently getting swept in their first home series to the mighty Cleveland Indians. I actually had the Mariners lasting less than a week until they were eliminated from playoff contention so they surpassed my expectations. Bad news for the Mariners is that they might have some contention for worst team in the American League as the Tampa Bay Rays have opened up with a superior 1 win and 8 loss record, don’t worry I still give the Mariners the edge to be the worst team in the American League. My roommate summing up how bad the Mariners are, “It’s that bad that the Cy Young winner (King Felix) isn’t even guaranteed getting the Mariners a win.” Of course this isn’t any of his doing but just how truly awful the Mariner offense is. I’m not a huge Mariner fan by any measure but after watching him pitch I’m always left wondering what his stats would be if he pitched for a contender. He won the Cy Young last year with a record of 13 wins and 12 losses with an ERA of 2.27 and 232 strikeouts. The Mariners only getting him 13 wins last year was an utter embarrassment and just shows how futile their offense was. Of course over the off-season the Mariners decided to do nothing about their offense, makes sense right? Bold prediction the Mariners will get no-hit or perfect gamed this year, guarantee it. I understand the Mariners can’t trade him because they could never get full value for him and Felix and Ichiro are the only reason that people still go to Mariner games but I kind of wish that they would trade him so he gets the press and wins he deserves. Its kind of like Zach Grienke when he won the Cy Young on the Royals, what an accomplishment that nobody watched because the Royals were so awful and weren’t ever on TV. In related news the Texas Rangers will stroll to the AL West crown, they’re too good offensively to not win this division by 10+ games. Its only week 2 but its pretty funny to see the Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals as the leading teams in the AL Central, neither of these teams is very good but I think the Royals can at least contend for a .500 record this year. I might have just pulled something from writing too much this early in the MLB season, you have to remember it’s all about pacing.
Brick Throwing Competition- UCONN 53 Butler 41
First and foremost this was an ugly game, there is no debating this. Butler shot a tad over 18 percent, which is quite remarkable considering that they were shooting at 15 percent with three minutes left in the game, quite the improvement if you ask me. Then there’s the matter of Butler only scoring one basket in the paint, UCONN may be a good defensive team but there’s no way there this good. The worst statistic for Butler was the fact that they had 2 more field goals (12) than UCONN blocks (10), you can’t make these statistics up this shouldn’t happen. It’s not even like Kemba Walker beat them, Butler just couldn’t score to save their life. Not trying to brag but I’m pretty sure that the Wet Bandits could have surpassed 41 points (I’m dead serious) but we definitely would have given up more than 53. There’s really not much else to say here, not the best way to end an otherwise phenomenal NCAA tournament. Side note how many sports fans can relate to Butler fans? As an Oregon fan I can tell you that it sucked (duh) losing the national title game and I can’t imagine losing twice in a row. The only fans off the top of my head that can relate to this are fans of the Buffalo Bills in the early 90’s when they lost three straight title games.
The Week Moving Forward
Owners vs. Players- As I write this there is a little less than 18 days left until the NFL Draft, which is hard to get excited about considering there might not be a season next year. My only thoughts on this are that the Panthers should take a QB, either Cam Newton or Blaine Gabbert, with the first pick, Jimmy Clausen isn’t the answer at QB. Plus if they don’t take a QB I’m pretty sure star wide receiver Steve Smith might kill someone, this should be incentive enough. I think this should be pretty straightforward logic, if you are returning a QB from the worst team in the league you need to change something. The one exception to this rule is the Texans in 2006 but they don’t even really count because they traded for a QB, Matt Schuab, instead of drafting one. You could even argue that they should have taken a QB because they haven’t made the playoffs since they drafted defensive end Mario Williams with the first overall pick in 2006. As for the rest of the draft I really don’t care but it would be nice to see the Seahawks grab a QB with their first round pick.
NBA- The last week of the regular season carries some serious playoff seeding ramifications but the real spotlight will be on the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Minnesota Timberwolves as they duel it out for the worst team in the NBA. I have often referred to the Cavaliers as a D-League team, which now seems a little unfair since they are actually tied for the worst team in the league. I hope the Cavaliers end up with the number one pick because I don’t want the Timberwolves to take another PG in the first round. Side note I find it a little unreal that an NBA All-Star (Kevin Love) could play for the worst team in the NBA. Does an All-Star really lead his team to the worst record in the NBA? I’m thinking the answer should be no but in his defense Love’s supporting cast is pretty bad.
MLB- I think I threw my arm out writing too much in the MLB recap column so unfortunately I have nothing to provide here.
Now on to everyone’s favorite part, the Madden cover-voting breakdown. The white running back continued its shocking underdog story with both Peyton Hillis and Danny Woodhead advancing to the Elite Eight, unfortunately still no comment from the endangered species committee if the white running back will be taken off the endangered species list. Peyton Hillis (51% fan voting) advanced past Matt Ryan (49%) in a game for the ages that will live on for future generations through ESPN Classic replays. If you were wondering which matchup certainly won’t be on ESPN Classic it would be the week 1 matchup of Matt Ryan (89%) advancing past Jordan Gross (11%), further proving that there are no Carolina Panther fans. Quick side note I might be the only person on the whole West coast with any Panther apparel as I chose a half price Panther sweatshirt over a half price Cleveland Browns sweatshirt a couple years ago. If you were wondering yes, this is the moment that I regret the most in my life. Team Johnson who placed three Johnsons; Andre, Stevie, and Calvin, in the tournament has been eliminated, I still maintain that if you want your son to go the NFL just name him Johnson. Upon further review I think that naming your son Johnson also gives him the best chance to make it in the NBA so the bottom line is if you want to live off your kids later in life name them Johnson. Looking back on the bracket the one thing that I wish had changed was the Bears having Jay Cutler as their representative instead of their actual representative Julius Peppers. This would have been hilarious I’m quite sure that after what Cutler did during the playoffs, which may have been justified but no one cares, opposing fans would have voted Cutler to the Madden Cover just to spite Cutler and the Bears. Good news for Cutler is that Rory McIlroy after his Masters performance has passed him as the person I mention when I screw up in the clutch, which is never but if I were to hypothetically screw up I would now say “I pulled a McIlroy” instead of “I pulled a Cutler”, I’m sure Cutler is rejoicing.
Because I’ve already run out of NFL and Madden stuff to talk about I will include my thoughts on the Masters in the Owners vs. Players section, if including golf in the NFL section doesn’t spur the NFL to end the lockout before fans lose interest I don’t know what will. Sunday was the only time in my life that I actually thought I had to be watching golf or I would be missing something. Some of this had to do with Tiger being in the chase for a Major but even with Tiger falling out of it at the end the roommates and I stayed glued to the Masters as it came down to the final hole. Sorry I lied most of it had to do with the competition between myself and friends about whose three person squad could register the lowest combined score and take the forty buck prize. Unfortunately team Waterman ended away a far away second place, 14 strokes behind 1st place, but it wasn’t all bad as I was able to recoup half of my buy in due to my team registering the lowest combined round on Friday. As hinted at before Rory McIlroy, who entered Sunday with a four-stroke lead, enjoyed a truly legendary meltdown by shooting eight strokes over par on Sunday en route to finishing outside of the top 15. If you ever want to look up the definition of choking watch McIlroy’s three hole stretch in which he registered a combined plus eight strokes, the other definitions of choking are the 2001 Blazers blowing a fifteen point lead in the fourth quarter of game 7 and the 2004 Yankees losing four straight to the Red Sox in the ALCS. Not the best day for McIlroy, who is only 21 years old, but I think he gained infinitely more fans with the way he handled himself after he finished than he would have if he had won the tournament. Tiger Woods who is still golf’s main attraction, didn’t disappoint on Sunday as he used a hot start early to tie himself for the lead before fading to his eventual position of fourth, three strokes behind the leader. I’m convinced that the 99.98% of viewers thought that Tiger was going to win after he became a co-leader but it just wasn’t meant to be as Tiger missed too many short putts to keep up with those he was tied with. The .02% of viewers that thought Tiger wasn’t going to win was the families of the other golfers, seriously no one thought Tiger wasn’t going to win. Even though he didn’t win it was great to see him back on the prowl (cheesiness alert) and seeing Tiger walking down the fairway dressed in his Sunday red ranks up there as one of the cooler sites in sports.
NBA- Were still not quite to the playoffs but at least we now know who the sixteen teams will be. This week I’ll give out awards, some real and some fictional, and next week I will try and predict out the playoffs and the winner of the NBA finals (Blazers!!!).
MVP- LeBron James
Derrick Rose is probably going to win the MVP largely due to the media becoming infatuated with him at the midpoint in the season but I would still vote James as the MVP of the league. I think that basketball is the one major sport where statistics don’t give the whole picture, but James throwing up a line of 26 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists per game can only be described as remarkable. There isn’t a true definition for MVP but I think the best way to look at it is if you replaced James with any other elite player at his position how would the Heat fare? Kevin Durant is the best small forward besides James and while I think he would be successful on the Heat I don’t think he or anyone else brings anything close to what James brought to the Heat this year. James along with Wade had to do everything for the Heat this year as it was 2.5 guys for the Heat (Bosh only gets half points) against the opposing five every night. James had to be basically everything on every night; a playmaker, scorer, lockdown defender, and rebounder, or else the Heat weren’t winning. On the other hand if you replace Rose with Chris Paul, Deron Williams, or Russell Westbrook I’m not sure if the Bulls would be any different. Rose is a great scorer and does bring his A game in the clutch but I don’t think he’s even close to as valuable to the Bulls as LeBron is to the Heat.
Most Improved Player- LaMarcus Aldridge
Yes this is a biased pick but the difference between Aldridge this season and the past few seasons is stunning. With the announcement that Brandon Roy was going to be missing significant time due to his knees being incurably screwed up many including myself wrote the Blazers off as contenders. Instead Aldridge put the Blazers on his back highlighted by averaging 27 points and 9 rebounds during the month of February. Everyone knew that he was the Blazers only scoring option but that didn’t stop him and on a nightly basis he threw up 20 plus points against defenses geared to stop him. This ones easy in my book, no one improved more than he did, he went from a nice complimentary player to a bona fide number one option.
Most Disappointing Team- Milwaukee Bucks
They were viewed as a certain playoff team preseason after making the playoffs last season and adding Corey Maggette and Drew Gooden to their roster in the offseason, instead they will be watching the playoffs from home. Even though they endured a terrible streak of injuries there is no way that this team should be missing the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.
Team That Played on National Television the Least- Toronto Raptors
I’m not sure but by my unofficial calculations they were the only team that didn’t log a single national television appearance. Then again a roster headlined by Andrea Bargnani doesn’t exactly scream must watch TV so really we should be thanking television executives for not putting us through a Raptors game. For those that are wondering the winner of this award in the other two major sports leagues would be the Pittsburgh Pirates (never seen a Pirate game on TV) for the MLB and the Buffalo Bills of the NFL.
Rookie of the Year- Blake Griffin
No explanation needed here.
Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year- Tom Thibodeau and Gar Forman of the Bulls
This is a joint effort as Forman (general manager of the Bulls) and Thibodeau have both done a great job making the Bulls legitimate contenders for the championship. The Bulls brought in eight new rotation players in the offseason and Thibodeau was able to mold this new roster into a powerhouse defensive team that looks like it will claim the number one playoff seed in the East. Not bad for a team that was supposed to be a year away from truly contending.
Worst Player in the NBA- Sean Marks
Even though he is now unemployed Sean Marks time on the Blazers ensured that he would be the runaway winner of this award. He seems like a nice enough guy but there is no way that he should be playing in the NBA. I don’t think that he has one skill that could even be described as below average he is truly awful at everything. The best part of the Gerald Wallace trade from at least in my eyes was actually sending him to Charlotte.
Player That Ruined My Fantasy Basketball Team- Darren Collison
This was actually the award that was the hardest for me to determine but Collison came away with it in the end of Gerald Wallace. Wallace made the list because I had a friend draft my first round for me and instead of taking Amare Stoudamire sixth overall he drafted Wallace who might even be a stretch in the second round. As for Collison he came in with way too much hype and of course I fell for it and he proceeded to sleepwalk through the season. This award also doubles as my time to vent for my fantasy failures.
Strangest Moment of the Year- Drew Gooden registering a triple double
Of all the players to register a triple double I’m 100% sure that Gooden is the one name on the list that doesn’t belong, I’m pretty sure that the glamour of a triple/double has all but disappeared after Gooden got one this past week. Gooden has always been a good scorer and rebounder but his career average of 1.1 assist per game says it all. I’m interested in watching the tape of this game just to see what the hell the other defense was doing that night, seriously a Gooden triple/double makes zero sense. Upon further review the opposing team was the Cleveland Cavaliers; it all makes sense now.
MLB- Were only in week two of the regular season, unfortunately this means that Mariners have eliminated themselves from the playoffs. After winning their first two games the Mariners have lost their past seven including most recently getting swept in their first home series to the mighty Cleveland Indians. I actually had the Mariners lasting less than a week until they were eliminated from playoff contention so they surpassed my expectations. Bad news for the Mariners is that they might have some contention for worst team in the American League as the Tampa Bay Rays have opened up with a superior 1 win and 8 loss record, don’t worry I still give the Mariners the edge to be the worst team in the American League. My roommate summing up how bad the Mariners are, “It’s that bad that the Cy Young winner (King Felix) isn’t even guaranteed getting the Mariners a win.” Of course this isn’t any of his doing but just how truly awful the Mariner offense is. I’m not a huge Mariner fan by any measure but after watching him pitch I’m always left wondering what his stats would be if he pitched for a contender. He won the Cy Young last year with a record of 13 wins and 12 losses with an ERA of 2.27 and 232 strikeouts. The Mariners only getting him 13 wins last year was an utter embarrassment and just shows how futile their offense was. Of course over the off-season the Mariners decided to do nothing about their offense, makes sense right? Bold prediction the Mariners will get no-hit or perfect gamed this year, guarantee it. I understand the Mariners can’t trade him because they could never get full value for him and Felix and Ichiro are the only reason that people still go to Mariner games but I kind of wish that they would trade him so he gets the press and wins he deserves. Its kind of like Zach Grienke when he won the Cy Young on the Royals, what an accomplishment that nobody watched because the Royals were so awful and weren’t ever on TV. In related news the Texas Rangers will stroll to the AL West crown, they’re too good offensively to not win this division by 10+ games. Its only week 2 but its pretty funny to see the Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals as the leading teams in the AL Central, neither of these teams is very good but I think the Royals can at least contend for a .500 record this year. I might have just pulled something from writing too much this early in the MLB season, you have to remember it’s all about pacing.
Brick Throwing Competition- UCONN 53 Butler 41
First and foremost this was an ugly game, there is no debating this. Butler shot a tad over 18 percent, which is quite remarkable considering that they were shooting at 15 percent with three minutes left in the game, quite the improvement if you ask me. Then there’s the matter of Butler only scoring one basket in the paint, UCONN may be a good defensive team but there’s no way there this good. The worst statistic for Butler was the fact that they had 2 more field goals (12) than UCONN blocks (10), you can’t make these statistics up this shouldn’t happen. It’s not even like Kemba Walker beat them, Butler just couldn’t score to save their life. Not trying to brag but I’m pretty sure that the Wet Bandits could have surpassed 41 points (I’m dead serious) but we definitely would have given up more than 53. There’s really not much else to say here, not the best way to end an otherwise phenomenal NCAA tournament. Side note how many sports fans can relate to Butler fans? As an Oregon fan I can tell you that it sucked (duh) losing the national title game and I can’t imagine losing twice in a row. The only fans off the top of my head that can relate to this are fans of the Buffalo Bills in the early 90’s when they lost three straight title games.
The Week Moving Forward
Owners vs. Players- As I write this there is a little less than 18 days left until the NFL Draft, which is hard to get excited about considering there might not be a season next year. My only thoughts on this are that the Panthers should take a QB, either Cam Newton or Blaine Gabbert, with the first pick, Jimmy Clausen isn’t the answer at QB. Plus if they don’t take a QB I’m pretty sure star wide receiver Steve Smith might kill someone, this should be incentive enough. I think this should be pretty straightforward logic, if you are returning a QB from the worst team in the league you need to change something. The one exception to this rule is the Texans in 2006 but they don’t even really count because they traded for a QB, Matt Schuab, instead of drafting one. You could even argue that they should have taken a QB because they haven’t made the playoffs since they drafted defensive end Mario Williams with the first overall pick in 2006. As for the rest of the draft I really don’t care but it would be nice to see the Seahawks grab a QB with their first round pick.
NBA- The last week of the regular season carries some serious playoff seeding ramifications but the real spotlight will be on the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Minnesota Timberwolves as they duel it out for the worst team in the NBA. I have often referred to the Cavaliers as a D-League team, which now seems a little unfair since they are actually tied for the worst team in the league. I hope the Cavaliers end up with the number one pick because I don’t want the Timberwolves to take another PG in the first round. Side note I find it a little unreal that an NBA All-Star (Kevin Love) could play for the worst team in the NBA. Does an All-Star really lead his team to the worst record in the NBA? I’m thinking the answer should be no but in his defense Love’s supporting cast is pretty bad.
MLB- I think I threw my arm out writing too much in the MLB recap column so unfortunately I have nothing to provide here.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Recapping the Week 3/28-4/3
Owners vs. Players- I was a little disappointed this week that ESPN didn’t try some sort April Fools joke about the lockout but then again knowing the current situation I don’t think anyone would believe them. Side note, this was the weakest April Fools I’ve ever been around what happened to all the pranks people? This may sound hypocritical considering that I took part in zero pranks but my pranks always fail due to me giving it away by laughing. Side note off of a side note, way back in sixth grade there was a rumor among my fellow little league playing mates that the way to get the best pitcher in our league off of his game was to smile at him when you went up to the plate, no this wasn’t an April Fools day joke either we actually tried this. I realize this has nothing to with the NFL dealing with the very real possibility of not playing a season next year but I’d rather stick to awful sports stories of my youth over depressing news of NFL owner’s greed. Since there is still nothing going on in terms of negotiations I will continue my break down of Madden cover tournament because this at least gives me hope that we will have some sort of season next year.
As many predicted the city of Seattle has once again come away winless as the Seahawks representative the 12th man was eliminated by 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis. This basically was a bye for Willis as I’m not even sure that Seahawks fans could get excited about seeing themselves on the cover of a video game. Shocking everyone was the news that all defensive linemen and offensive linemen had been eliminated after round one of voting. Secretly I’m convinced that if an offensive lineman actually had a chance at winning EA Sports would sabotage the voting so that they didn’t have to deal with a fat white guy on the cover of one of their top selling video games. You can’t tell me that there wouldn’t be a drop in sales figures; I’m convinced if there was an offensive lineman on the cover of Madden sales would drop. I also can’t help but notice that all two white running backs in the NFL, I know I’m missing Toby Gerhart but he hasn’t existed since he annihilated the Ducks two years ago, have advanced to round two. This is an amazing development but there is still no word as to whether the white running back species will be taken off the endangered species list. This puts the endangered species committee in a tough spot because they are still reeling from Jason Seahorn’s retirement, which made the white cornerback officially extinct so who knows how they will respond in this situation. Moving on with the sweet sixteen breakdowns, Jesus, sorry Tim Tebow, fell to Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles in what has to go down as the biggest upset so far. Danny Woodhead, yes he actually was the Patriots representative, advanced to round two behind the votes of all under sized Americans. Continuing with cover controversy, PETA has already announced their displeasure with Mike Vick being the representative for the Eagles. I’m already having nightmares about walking into Best Buy to buy Madden next summer as a PETA led anti-Michael Vick protest goes on in the parking lot. This has already caused me to lose countles hours of sleep and will only get worse as Madden gets closer to coming out.
I’m not sure what took me so long to come up with this but if there isn’t an NFL season next year what needs to happen is each team has to name a Madden representative, no the Seahawks can’t name the 12th man, to play out their schedule against each other teams Madden representative for the Super Bowl. I mean this makes perfect sense right if we can’t have football with elite athletes the best we can do is have virtual football with elite athletes right? Every team and its chosen representative would play there given sixteen game schedules and as in the regular season the division winners and wild card winners would advance to the playoffs. Somewhere in Ohio all Cleveland Browns fans are jumping up and down because this would give the Browns there best chance at a Super Bowl. Making this even better is the fact that these matchups will be live televised and uncensored which means that you can listen to world class trash talking. If you haven’t sat courtside or close to courtside at an NBA game the best part is hearing the talking (trash talking) of the players. Yes, I can tell you that its true that Kevin Garnett does actually swear 1.8 billion times per game. Listening to him play against the Blazers when he was on the Timberwolves often left me wondering if he had a vocabulary outside of profanity. These games also left me wondering if one time Blazer great Travis Outlaw could actually form coherent sentences. Moving on the bottom line is that sitting courtside is a good way to stunt or ruin a young kids vocabulary. Each weekly matchup would be played at stadiums on the jumbotron, obviously Jerry Jones built his monster jumbotron with the knowledge that the Cowboys would have an enormous home field advantage in this video game season. The other upside of this idea is ESPN would finally stop airing Madden Bus, I’m actually a little shocked at how this was an actual idea. Does anyone actually want to watch TV about other playing video games? The NFL draft will obviously drastically change due to this video game season and in a surprising turn of events yours truly is now the top prospect due to my superior Madden playing abilities.
NBA- The Cleveland Cavaliers actually upset their fans by beating the Miami Heat which hurt their chances of snagging the number one pick in the upcoming draft. This isn’t true as I’m quite sure the general feeling in Cleveland is that beating LeBron is greater than actually winning a title. I’m really not sure how the Heat can justify this loss but at least they can say that the Lakers also lost to the Cavaliers as well. The funny part of this whole matchup was LeBron saying that he wanted his number retired in Cleveland; does this guy have no common sense or what? Did LeBron not see the hundreds of videos of fans burning jerseys with his name on it? I’m happy that LeBron lost but I’m also glad to say that he escaped Cleveland both times without anything happening to him. The first time he played there I legitimately thought that someone was going to either throw something at him or jump on the court and charge him. Unfortunately for betting people LeBron surviving Cleveland ruined prop bets of player most likely to be killed by opposing fans. LeBron was the overwhelming leader in this category and the only player that actually came close was Chris Bosh due to his defection from Toronto. Bosh would have actually challenged LeBron for the player most likely to be killed by opposing fans if not for the simple fact that no one cares about basketball in Toronto. Side note, tell me how this isn’t a fair trade for both sides Toronto ships the Raptors and Blue Jays, to Seattle and Portland respectively, while the US sends back ten NHL teams that draw no fans. Ok maybe ten NHL teams is a little extreme, but the NHL in the US isn’t really working out as evidenced by the fact that Major League Soccer just passed it as the fourth most viewed sport in the US. Anytime soccer in the US is beating you its time to wave the white flag. This is also where the NFL should take note that lockouts aren’t very good for keeping fans (yes this logic is as obvious is as simple as it seems). The unfortunate side effect of this trade is that the Seattle sports market place would actually pass Cleveland as the city with the worst professional sports teams. Briefly back to my hypothetical prop betting Carmelo Anthony in Denver had the highest odds of being killed by his own fans while playing.
We are still unfortunately a little over two weeks away from the playoffs in the NBA so that means that there is virtually no compelling basketball to be played in the future as teams start resting up for the playoffs. For instance earlier this week the Spurs sat Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, and Antonio McDyess against the Blazers to insure against future injuries. The sad thing is that the Spurs still almost won this game. All teams engage in this sort of practice down the final stretch except it seems that Blazer coach Nate McMillan never got the memo about this. Against the Mavericks on Sunday the Blazers were comfortably ahead with just over four minutes remaining when the Mavericks pulled all their starters metaphorically waving the white flag on the game. McMillan countered this by keeping his starters in until there was just under the one minute left in the game. I try not to rag on coaches but this was just stupid why risk injury when the other team has already given up on the game? Plus this is the Blazers were talking about here; funny things have been known to happen regarding injuries. I can already see what’s going to happen in one of the games at the end of the season (call me Nostradamus), the Blazers will be leading the Golden State Warriors by 25 with two minutes left in the fourth on Tuesday night when LaMarcus Aldridge tears his hamstring jogging up the court. Its basically going to be the Boobie Miles, best sports name of all time, situation in Friday Night Lights (movie version). Of course instead of being upset about how Aldridge got injured I’ll be excited about how smart I just made myself look to you guys in predicting this injury. Best stat line of the week goes to Jared Jeffries of the Knicks registering a plus 25 rating while the only stats he accumulated were two rebounds. Jeffries will be now affectionately called the player that makes everyone believe they could play in the NBA.
MLB- Baseball season has finally begun and the Mariners have already surpassed last seasons run total by registering 12 runs in their first three games. If you actually watched any of these games Seattle should have really only scored about six runs but the Athletics defense gift-wrapped the Mariners six more. Good news for the Mariners is that King Felix didn’t disappoint with a complete game victory in his first outing. The MLB season is less than a week under way but what is going on in Tampa Bay? Getting swept by the Orioles and only scoring three runs by doing so is awful and something that only the Mariners would seem capable of doing. Its extremely early but Tampa Bay doesn’t have much margin of error in the AL East and the news that star third baseman Evan Longoria is headed to the DL makes opening weekend a complete failure for the Rays. I would say more about the MLB but I’m going to pace myself on the MLB section considering that each team has at least 158 games left on their regular season schedule.
NCCA Basketball- Just as everyone predicted it’s the Butler Bulldogs versus the Connecticut Huskies for the NCAA championship on Monday night. I don’t have much to say about the semifinal games but the one thing that kind of bothers me is why does every team in this tournament feel like they have to take a three for their last shot when their only down two? I love this kind of aggressive thinking when I’m playing NBA 2K11 but the reality is that contested three pointers in real life don’t work nearly as well as contested three pointers in real life. Kentucky losing to Connecticut was the perfect example of this as Kentucky had the final possession of the game when they were down two and instead of making an aggressive move to the basket they settled for swinging the ball around the perimeter until finally they ended up throwing up a contested three pointer. Of course if this shot goes in John Calipari inevitably would be hailed as a legend for his ability to draw up such a phenomenal play. I’m convinced that Calipari has found the perfect way to survive as a coach, recruit one and done players every year. Obviously these one and done players have elite talent but if they struggle it’s their fault because their too immature/inexperienced but if they succeed Calipari gets all the credit for being an elite recruiter and player developer. If you think about it it’s perfect, he wins either way. Think about it the only time Calipari really failed was when he was the coach of the New Jersey Nets, the NBA is all about player development compared to college where its much more about recruiting athletes. I’m not trying to take away from Calipari, I think he's a pretty good coach, but I would have been intrigued to see how Calipari would be faring if he ended up with the Chicago Bulls job this past summer.
Back to the teams that are actually playing in this game, Butler actually might have been a villain for the first time in the past two years in dispatching of this years Cinderella, VCU. I’m not sure about everyone else but watching the VCU vs. Butler game I couldn’t figure out whom to root for at all, a rare but welcome problem for me. I think that the Butler vs. UCONN matchup will be a great game and in the end I think that the Huskies will be the one to take home the championship. Side note, how many people before the year thought that it would be the UCONN men’s team not the UCONN women’s team in the championship game? Both Butler and UCONN are led by their guards, Butler’s Shelvin Mack and UCONN’s Kemba Walker, but I think that the difference in this game will be the play of each teams supporting cast. For Butler this means that Matt Howard will have to have a great game and for UCONN freshman Jeremy Lamb and Shabazz Napier must continue their strong tournament run. Jeremy Lamb is a Tracy McGrady clone, I don’t think he's smiled all tournament and always has a far off look in his eyes but he can definitely ball. Really I think this game might be the ultimate test of the age-old experience (Butler last years runner up) vs. inexperience (UCONN no tournament last year) question. For the record I don’t really buy into this whole experience plays a role in everything but it is kind of hard to find a team in recent history that has won it all while being led by freshman/rookies. UCONN 66 Butler 61, for the record Butler will hit a half court shot as time expires to end the game (yes there is irony in that last sentence).
The Week Moving Forward-
Owners vs. Players- I will continue my pursuit of making a virtual Madden season happen, have to give Browns fans some hope, as the owners and players still remain way too far apart when it comes to compromising. After months of research I’ve finally come to the conclusion that the only winners of this whole lockout thing are drug dealers. Due to their being a lockout I don’t think there is drug testing anymore you can connect the dots from here. Hopefully there aren’t any more serious injuries to any players like Chad Pennington, who tore his ACL playing pickup basketball. I’m not sure if any other player had a rougher end to their career than Pennington who couldn’t catch a break when it came to injuries, put it this way Pennington deserves to be on the Blazers. The first thing that I thought of when I heard about Pennington was Aaron Boone tearing his ACL playing basketball during the offseason and promptly getting cut by the Yankees. For those that don’t remember Boone actually led the Yankees to the World Series that year by hitting a walk off home run in the AL Championship series and the Yankees responded by cutting him that offseason after Boone tore his ACL. The Yankees can’t really come out as bad guys in all of this because Boone actually had a clause that prevented him from playing pickup basketball in the offseason so the Yankees were able to void his contract with no cost. Of course the Yankees turned Boone’s ACL injury into Alex Rodriguez as their third baseman so it’s not like they missed Boone at all. Am I the only one that wished A-Rod went to the Red Sox that offseason instead of the Yankees? As you can see by the above paragraph there’s nothing to look forward to this week in the NFL.
NBA- This is the week that tanking will go into full effect as teams strive to lose their last five games so they can get better odds for the number one pick. The sad thing about this whole tanking phenomenon is that the NBA draft lottery almost never plays out to how it’s supposed to play out so the whole tanking thing is often for nothing. Don’t worry fans the bottom ten teams in the league will still engage in tanking so get ready to watch your favorite team throw out a starting lineup you’ve never heard of. This week and next is basically the equivalent of dead week in college, i.e. nothing to get excited about. Next week the playoff preview and season awards will be given out, I promise I won’t tank this.
MLB- Were less than a week into the season and I’m already ready for October. This past weekend/this coming week might be the best stretch of sports in the year but the fact is that after the NBA playoffs end (don’t worry it stretches on for like two months) sports sucks because all that’s left is the MLB. I’m too lazy to make a golf section of this but one of my roommates; two of our friends, and myself did our annual Masters draft. Basic format each of us pays 10$ to pick three golfers, snake drafting, and the lowest combined score of our team wins all the money. Last year was an unmitigated disaster for me as two of my golfers missed the cut causing me to lose by over thirty strokes but I got the first pick this year so maybe things will be different. I’m not sure why we do this because none of us care about golf but its always pretty funny because as a group we probably couldn’t name twelve golfers so we all end up with our computers in front of us looking at the world ranking. My squad is as follows, with my observations on them in parenthesis, Lee Westwood (#2 in the world), Dustin Johnson (choke artist), and unfortunately I can’t tell you my third member because I’ve already forgotten but bottom line is that I can sense (hope) that this will be my year. The best part of this whole deal is that my other two roommates decided to pick two of our squads each and the loser (who has the highest combined score) has to grow a mustache for a month. Basically this week is the only week that golf will matter the whole year.
NCAA Basketball- What happens in Connecticut once basketball season ends? Do they hibernate until next basketball season?
As many predicted the city of Seattle has once again come away winless as the Seahawks representative the 12th man was eliminated by 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis. This basically was a bye for Willis as I’m not even sure that Seahawks fans could get excited about seeing themselves on the cover of a video game. Shocking everyone was the news that all defensive linemen and offensive linemen had been eliminated after round one of voting. Secretly I’m convinced that if an offensive lineman actually had a chance at winning EA Sports would sabotage the voting so that they didn’t have to deal with a fat white guy on the cover of one of their top selling video games. You can’t tell me that there wouldn’t be a drop in sales figures; I’m convinced if there was an offensive lineman on the cover of Madden sales would drop. I also can’t help but notice that all two white running backs in the NFL, I know I’m missing Toby Gerhart but he hasn’t existed since he annihilated the Ducks two years ago, have advanced to round two. This is an amazing development but there is still no word as to whether the white running back species will be taken off the endangered species list. This puts the endangered species committee in a tough spot because they are still reeling from Jason Seahorn’s retirement, which made the white cornerback officially extinct so who knows how they will respond in this situation. Moving on with the sweet sixteen breakdowns, Jesus, sorry Tim Tebow, fell to Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles in what has to go down as the biggest upset so far. Danny Woodhead, yes he actually was the Patriots representative, advanced to round two behind the votes of all under sized Americans. Continuing with cover controversy, PETA has already announced their displeasure with Mike Vick being the representative for the Eagles. I’m already having nightmares about walking into Best Buy to buy Madden next summer as a PETA led anti-Michael Vick protest goes on in the parking lot. This has already caused me to lose countles hours of sleep and will only get worse as Madden gets closer to coming out.
I’m not sure what took me so long to come up with this but if there isn’t an NFL season next year what needs to happen is each team has to name a Madden representative, no the Seahawks can’t name the 12th man, to play out their schedule against each other teams Madden representative for the Super Bowl. I mean this makes perfect sense right if we can’t have football with elite athletes the best we can do is have virtual football with elite athletes right? Every team and its chosen representative would play there given sixteen game schedules and as in the regular season the division winners and wild card winners would advance to the playoffs. Somewhere in Ohio all Cleveland Browns fans are jumping up and down because this would give the Browns there best chance at a Super Bowl. Making this even better is the fact that these matchups will be live televised and uncensored which means that you can listen to world class trash talking. If you haven’t sat courtside or close to courtside at an NBA game the best part is hearing the talking (trash talking) of the players. Yes, I can tell you that its true that Kevin Garnett does actually swear 1.8 billion times per game. Listening to him play against the Blazers when he was on the Timberwolves often left me wondering if he had a vocabulary outside of profanity. These games also left me wondering if one time Blazer great Travis Outlaw could actually form coherent sentences. Moving on the bottom line is that sitting courtside is a good way to stunt or ruin a young kids vocabulary. Each weekly matchup would be played at stadiums on the jumbotron, obviously Jerry Jones built his monster jumbotron with the knowledge that the Cowboys would have an enormous home field advantage in this video game season. The other upside of this idea is ESPN would finally stop airing Madden Bus, I’m actually a little shocked at how this was an actual idea. Does anyone actually want to watch TV about other playing video games? The NFL draft will obviously drastically change due to this video game season and in a surprising turn of events yours truly is now the top prospect due to my superior Madden playing abilities.
NBA- The Cleveland Cavaliers actually upset their fans by beating the Miami Heat which hurt their chances of snagging the number one pick in the upcoming draft. This isn’t true as I’m quite sure the general feeling in Cleveland is that beating LeBron is greater than actually winning a title. I’m really not sure how the Heat can justify this loss but at least they can say that the Lakers also lost to the Cavaliers as well. The funny part of this whole matchup was LeBron saying that he wanted his number retired in Cleveland; does this guy have no common sense or what? Did LeBron not see the hundreds of videos of fans burning jerseys with his name on it? I’m happy that LeBron lost but I’m also glad to say that he escaped Cleveland both times without anything happening to him. The first time he played there I legitimately thought that someone was going to either throw something at him or jump on the court and charge him. Unfortunately for betting people LeBron surviving Cleveland ruined prop bets of player most likely to be killed by opposing fans. LeBron was the overwhelming leader in this category and the only player that actually came close was Chris Bosh due to his defection from Toronto. Bosh would have actually challenged LeBron for the player most likely to be killed by opposing fans if not for the simple fact that no one cares about basketball in Toronto. Side note, tell me how this isn’t a fair trade for both sides Toronto ships the Raptors and Blue Jays, to Seattle and Portland respectively, while the US sends back ten NHL teams that draw no fans. Ok maybe ten NHL teams is a little extreme, but the NHL in the US isn’t really working out as evidenced by the fact that Major League Soccer just passed it as the fourth most viewed sport in the US. Anytime soccer in the US is beating you its time to wave the white flag. This is also where the NFL should take note that lockouts aren’t very good for keeping fans (yes this logic is as obvious is as simple as it seems). The unfortunate side effect of this trade is that the Seattle sports market place would actually pass Cleveland as the city with the worst professional sports teams. Briefly back to my hypothetical prop betting Carmelo Anthony in Denver had the highest odds of being killed by his own fans while playing.
We are still unfortunately a little over two weeks away from the playoffs in the NBA so that means that there is virtually no compelling basketball to be played in the future as teams start resting up for the playoffs. For instance earlier this week the Spurs sat Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, and Antonio McDyess against the Blazers to insure against future injuries. The sad thing is that the Spurs still almost won this game. All teams engage in this sort of practice down the final stretch except it seems that Blazer coach Nate McMillan never got the memo about this. Against the Mavericks on Sunday the Blazers were comfortably ahead with just over four minutes remaining when the Mavericks pulled all their starters metaphorically waving the white flag on the game. McMillan countered this by keeping his starters in until there was just under the one minute left in the game. I try not to rag on coaches but this was just stupid why risk injury when the other team has already given up on the game? Plus this is the Blazers were talking about here; funny things have been known to happen regarding injuries. I can already see what’s going to happen in one of the games at the end of the season (call me Nostradamus), the Blazers will be leading the Golden State Warriors by 25 with two minutes left in the fourth on Tuesday night when LaMarcus Aldridge tears his hamstring jogging up the court. Its basically going to be the Boobie Miles, best sports name of all time, situation in Friday Night Lights (movie version). Of course instead of being upset about how Aldridge got injured I’ll be excited about how smart I just made myself look to you guys in predicting this injury. Best stat line of the week goes to Jared Jeffries of the Knicks registering a plus 25 rating while the only stats he accumulated were two rebounds. Jeffries will be now affectionately called the player that makes everyone believe they could play in the NBA.
MLB- Baseball season has finally begun and the Mariners have already surpassed last seasons run total by registering 12 runs in their first three games. If you actually watched any of these games Seattle should have really only scored about six runs but the Athletics defense gift-wrapped the Mariners six more. Good news for the Mariners is that King Felix didn’t disappoint with a complete game victory in his first outing. The MLB season is less than a week under way but what is going on in Tampa Bay? Getting swept by the Orioles and only scoring three runs by doing so is awful and something that only the Mariners would seem capable of doing. Its extremely early but Tampa Bay doesn’t have much margin of error in the AL East and the news that star third baseman Evan Longoria is headed to the DL makes opening weekend a complete failure for the Rays. I would say more about the MLB but I’m going to pace myself on the MLB section considering that each team has at least 158 games left on their regular season schedule.
NCCA Basketball- Just as everyone predicted it’s the Butler Bulldogs versus the Connecticut Huskies for the NCAA championship on Monday night. I don’t have much to say about the semifinal games but the one thing that kind of bothers me is why does every team in this tournament feel like they have to take a three for their last shot when their only down two? I love this kind of aggressive thinking when I’m playing NBA 2K11 but the reality is that contested three pointers in real life don’t work nearly as well as contested three pointers in real life. Kentucky losing to Connecticut was the perfect example of this as Kentucky had the final possession of the game when they were down two and instead of making an aggressive move to the basket they settled for swinging the ball around the perimeter until finally they ended up throwing up a contested three pointer. Of course if this shot goes in John Calipari inevitably would be hailed as a legend for his ability to draw up such a phenomenal play. I’m convinced that Calipari has found the perfect way to survive as a coach, recruit one and done players every year. Obviously these one and done players have elite talent but if they struggle it’s their fault because their too immature/inexperienced but if they succeed Calipari gets all the credit for being an elite recruiter and player developer. If you think about it it’s perfect, he wins either way. Think about it the only time Calipari really failed was when he was the coach of the New Jersey Nets, the NBA is all about player development compared to college where its much more about recruiting athletes. I’m not trying to take away from Calipari, I think he's a pretty good coach, but I would have been intrigued to see how Calipari would be faring if he ended up with the Chicago Bulls job this past summer.
Back to the teams that are actually playing in this game, Butler actually might have been a villain for the first time in the past two years in dispatching of this years Cinderella, VCU. I’m not sure about everyone else but watching the VCU vs. Butler game I couldn’t figure out whom to root for at all, a rare but welcome problem for me. I think that the Butler vs. UCONN matchup will be a great game and in the end I think that the Huskies will be the one to take home the championship. Side note, how many people before the year thought that it would be the UCONN men’s team not the UCONN women’s team in the championship game? Both Butler and UCONN are led by their guards, Butler’s Shelvin Mack and UCONN’s Kemba Walker, but I think that the difference in this game will be the play of each teams supporting cast. For Butler this means that Matt Howard will have to have a great game and for UCONN freshman Jeremy Lamb and Shabazz Napier must continue their strong tournament run. Jeremy Lamb is a Tracy McGrady clone, I don’t think he's smiled all tournament and always has a far off look in his eyes but he can definitely ball. Really I think this game might be the ultimate test of the age-old experience (Butler last years runner up) vs. inexperience (UCONN no tournament last year) question. For the record I don’t really buy into this whole experience plays a role in everything but it is kind of hard to find a team in recent history that has won it all while being led by freshman/rookies. UCONN 66 Butler 61, for the record Butler will hit a half court shot as time expires to end the game (yes there is irony in that last sentence).
The Week Moving Forward-
Owners vs. Players- I will continue my pursuit of making a virtual Madden season happen, have to give Browns fans some hope, as the owners and players still remain way too far apart when it comes to compromising. After months of research I’ve finally come to the conclusion that the only winners of this whole lockout thing are drug dealers. Due to their being a lockout I don’t think there is drug testing anymore you can connect the dots from here. Hopefully there aren’t any more serious injuries to any players like Chad Pennington, who tore his ACL playing pickup basketball. I’m not sure if any other player had a rougher end to their career than Pennington who couldn’t catch a break when it came to injuries, put it this way Pennington deserves to be on the Blazers. The first thing that I thought of when I heard about Pennington was Aaron Boone tearing his ACL playing basketball during the offseason and promptly getting cut by the Yankees. For those that don’t remember Boone actually led the Yankees to the World Series that year by hitting a walk off home run in the AL Championship series and the Yankees responded by cutting him that offseason after Boone tore his ACL. The Yankees can’t really come out as bad guys in all of this because Boone actually had a clause that prevented him from playing pickup basketball in the offseason so the Yankees were able to void his contract with no cost. Of course the Yankees turned Boone’s ACL injury into Alex Rodriguez as their third baseman so it’s not like they missed Boone at all. Am I the only one that wished A-Rod went to the Red Sox that offseason instead of the Yankees? As you can see by the above paragraph there’s nothing to look forward to this week in the NFL.
NBA- This is the week that tanking will go into full effect as teams strive to lose their last five games so they can get better odds for the number one pick. The sad thing about this whole tanking phenomenon is that the NBA draft lottery almost never plays out to how it’s supposed to play out so the whole tanking thing is often for nothing. Don’t worry fans the bottom ten teams in the league will still engage in tanking so get ready to watch your favorite team throw out a starting lineup you’ve never heard of. This week and next is basically the equivalent of dead week in college, i.e. nothing to get excited about. Next week the playoff preview and season awards will be given out, I promise I won’t tank this.
MLB- Were less than a week into the season and I’m already ready for October. This past weekend/this coming week might be the best stretch of sports in the year but the fact is that after the NBA playoffs end (don’t worry it stretches on for like two months) sports sucks because all that’s left is the MLB. I’m too lazy to make a golf section of this but one of my roommates; two of our friends, and myself did our annual Masters draft. Basic format each of us pays 10$ to pick three golfers, snake drafting, and the lowest combined score of our team wins all the money. Last year was an unmitigated disaster for me as two of my golfers missed the cut causing me to lose by over thirty strokes but I got the first pick this year so maybe things will be different. I’m not sure why we do this because none of us care about golf but its always pretty funny because as a group we probably couldn’t name twelve golfers so we all end up with our computers in front of us looking at the world ranking. My squad is as follows, with my observations on them in parenthesis, Lee Westwood (#2 in the world), Dustin Johnson (choke artist), and unfortunately I can’t tell you my third member because I’ve already forgotten but bottom line is that I can sense (hope) that this will be my year. The best part of this whole deal is that my other two roommates decided to pick two of our squads each and the loser (who has the highest combined score) has to grow a mustache for a month. Basically this week is the only week that golf will matter the whole year.
NCAA Basketball- What happens in Connecticut once basketball season ends? Do they hibernate until next basketball season?
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