Owners vs. Players- As week two of owners vs. players comes drags on I find myself wondering if I prefer this drama or Brett Favre retirement drama, I guess we all will find out in a couple weeks when Brett Favre gets that uncontrollable itch to play football. As of now I’d give a slight edge to watching Jersey Shore over watching both of these. On second thought after watching “The Situation” bomb out on roasting Donald Trump I’ll take the Brett Favre drama. Can’t wait to hear Mel Kiper Jr’s analysis of the above drafting that just took place. The only real news of the week was that the NFL players association has asked the top prospects to skip the draft due to the ongoing differences between the players and the owners. My thoughts on this go as follow; I don’t care, figure out your differences so I can play fantasy football next year. In a less selfish view, I understand why the players association has asked for the top prospects to skip on the draft but doesn’t it seem a little unfair that the top prospects are being asked to sacrifice for something that they had no part in? Seriously the players are getting asked to skip out on their moment in the sun so the owners and players can figure out a new salary structure that pays top picks less, makes perfect sense right?
NBA- In late January ESPN’s Henry Abbott wrote an article (seen here http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/24200/the-truth-about-kobe-bryant-in-crunch-time) stating that Kobe Bryant wasn’t as clutch as he is perceived. Abbott has the stats that show that Kobe is only a little above the league average when it comes to “clutch” shots but after watching Kobe murder the Blazers again down the stretch I have to ask, is there really anyone else that you want shooting the ball with the game on the line? Seriously the last shot that Kobe hit against the Blazers was unbelievable and also indefensible. The Lakers showed during this game that they are vulnerable (they were playing without Andrew Bynum) but I’m still liking them coming out of the West once the playoffs begin. As for the Blazers they have the talent to do some damage in the playoffs but they have a disturbing trend in that they can’t close out teams in the last couple minutes. As you can tell this will be a problem in the playoffs so as much as I hate to say it I’m once again expecting the Blazers to make a first round exit in the playoffs. Good news for the Blazers is that they registered two wins against the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Lakers one win against the Cavaliers. I know that must of hurt all those Laker fans out there but I have to take all the cheap shots I can get.
Also this week the Knicks continued their Jekyll and Hyde performance by losing to the Detroit Pistons, Milwaukee Bucks, and Indiana Pacers along with beating the Memphis Grizzlies. Brief side note the Grizzlies appear, I say appear because they never play on national TV, to be a very good team that is peaking at the right time without their best player, yes that is somehow possible. This much is obvious following the Melo trade; the Knicks are capable of beating and losing to every team in the NBA and D-League (Cavaliers). Then again the Knicks haven’t quite proven that they are capable of beating the Cavaliers so disregard that last statement. I’m still not quite sure how I feel about this trade because they obviously did it with an eye on the future but how exactly are they going to go out and acquire significant pieces for their future? They don’t have the draft picks and after giving Melo a max contract they don’t appear to have the cap room. Plus I’m not exactly sure how well Melo and Amare Stoudemire are going to hold up seeing as issues are already springing up regarding touches. Stoudemire thrives with point guard that run the pick and roll (Steve Nash and to some degree Raymond Felton this year) while Melo is much more of an isolation type player. As you can see not a perfect match but they have at least a year before they are expected to seriously contend so they have time to figure it out.
In news that I’m sure that none of you care about Tyler Hansbrough, yes Tyler Hansbrough, spearheaded my late season surge into the fantasy basketball playoffs. I’m not quite sure what has gotten into Hansbrough, maybe its just March Madness, but he's actually started to play like a lottery pick as of late. Don’t look now but the Pacers actually look they could return to basketball relevance next year as there young core continues to improve. No worries Eastern Conference I just jinxed them so look for them to struggle for the next couple of years. Crazy Kevin Love line of the week, yes technically this is cheating the weekly recap but I’m still going to include it, 6 points 12 rebounds and 5 assists against the Warriors last Sunday. This is meaningful for two reasons, first it snapped his double-double streak at fifty-three games and secondly he was two assists shy of knocking me out of the fantasy basketball playoffs so props to him for recognizing my situation and not throwing anymore dimes. In all serious a great streak for Love too bad the Timberwolves only managed thirteen wins throughout the streak. Unfortunately for the Timberwolves this means that fans now have no reason at all to appear at Timberwolves home games.
MLB- Yes I just went a whole NBA recap without mentioning the Heat, I can finally cross that one off the bucket list. As you can tell by the previous sentence that there is nothing newsworthy to report about in the MLB.
NCAA Basketball- The first three rounds of the NCAA tournament are in the books and the Ducks are still alive! By alive I mean the Ducks are still playing in the CBI tournament that no one cares about. Back to the action, as usual the Thursday to Sunday stretch of games was memorable featuring buzzer beaters and the Pittsburgh Panthers not making it out of the first weekend. Future tournament picking rule number one, Pittsburgh is not a contender no matter their seed. I will say this about the Pitt vs. Butler game, craziest ending possible ending and also the slowest ending possible. Also quite possibly two of the stupidest fouls possible considering the situation. Moving on, VCU once again is the mid-major making news in the tournament with their surprise entry into the sweet sixteen. Future tournament picking rule number two, don’t ever expect anything out of Georgetown in the NCAA tournament. All the other number one seeds in the tournament held serve and advanced and all of the number two seeds also advanced minus Notre Dame. The one thing that I was amazed at on Sunday was the awful time management displayed by Washington and Texas and ultimately it ended up costing them. In Washington’s case how do you throw up a half court three-point attempt with three seconds left? That just doesn’t happen its the equivalent of Leon Lett and recovering blocked kicks, it should never happen. Somehow Washington was granted another opportunity when UNC’s John Henson found it suitable to drop the half court heave out of bounds. Henson would have been the easy winner of least clutch play of the tournament if UNC had lost that game. Then on to Texas, failing to get the ball in on a five second count shows that you don’t deserve to advance. The teams that I like from this point to advance to the final four are Kansas and Ohio State (they both look elite) and Florida and Duke.
Also not quite tournament basketball but the timing of announcing that Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl might not return next season was atrocious, how can you announce something of that nature the day before your teams first game. Of course people had been speculating about the future of Pearl and Tennessee basketball since Pearl was suspended for major violations but there’s absolutely no need for the athletic director to come out and say such a thing the day before a critical game. The worst timing possible and an absolutely low-ball thing to do in my books, Lane Kiffin and now this, talk about program stability. It makes perfect sense to come out and say this after Tennessee was eliminated but before the first game, you have to be kidding me. I’m left wondering why I ever picked Tennessee in the first place, regardless after the weekend I still have the highest projected points out of my group so I’d have to consider it a success.
Instead of watching the Marquette vs. Syracuse game on Sunday, I mean this was their third meeting I believe, I instead watched ESPN “Fab Five” documentary and if you haven’t seen it yet make sure you do. First thing I’ve got to say is how did none of the players on that team ever win a championship of any kind? I find that truly remarkable considering they played in two national titles in college and three of the players on that Fab Five had successful NBA careers. Yes, I realize old-man Juwan Howard is still in the league but I don’t think that the Heat are going to win the title this year. I found it amazing that Michigan was able to bring in a recruiting class that consisted of four of the top twelve players in the country and five out of the top fifty high school prospects, unfortunately for Michigan they were unable to reel in fellow top fifty member Greg Ostertag. Never wanting their rivalry to end Jalen Rose and Grant Hill engaged in a new war of words about Duke and Coach K and on this one I’m siding with Rose. Most of what Rose said was inflammatory but his overall message was that Duke and Coach K only recruit certain types of players and they are almost always from upper class families and are clean cut players. I think that this is true that Duke recruits players that are more clean cut than most but I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, one of the things that I think this is linked to is that Duke likes having players that aren’t one and done and this is why they sometimes pass on highly rated players because they feel that these players are too focused on their future. Lastly did anyone else think of Tim Tebow when the Fab Five were talking about Christian Laettner? The Fab Five described Laettner as a “god” to all Duke fans and someone that was universally hated by all other schools. Tebow fits this description remarkably well and both had enormous success at the college level for their respective schools. I’m not quite sure if Tebow should take this comparison as an insult or an compliment. Unfortunately I haven’t gotten word about when ESPN’s doing a documentary on the Exquisite Eight of the Wet Bandits.
The Week Moving Forward-
Owners vs. Players- Nothing to look forward to here; I would put the odds of an agreement happening between slim to none. The major question is if there is a lockout will there be a Madden 2012? Not that I really play Madden but is it possible that EA Sports is the one that is the most pissed about this whole lockout thing?
NBA- The playoff grind continues and this is about the time in the season where I wish the playoffs had already started. I think the best way to combat this moving forward is to skip the stretch of the season where teams are playing between their fortieth and sixtieth games. I mean really this has to be the stretch where there is the most blowouts the players just become sick of playing and mail it in. This is also the stretch where it becomes painfully obvious that teams are tanking games in hopes of getting higher draft picks. So to all those fans out there enjoy those Cavaliers vs. Kings games while you can.
MLB- I somehow mistimed the number of weeks leading up to the season and the number of divisions, I was never was good at math, so unfortunately there is no season previews left. I mean I could delve further into the Mariners but I don’t want to make anyone suicidal.
NCAA Basketball- After having my bracket survive week number one of tournament madness I’m bracing for what is sure to be a brutal week number two. Game that I’m most looking forward to watching is BYU vs. Florida. First off its two teams whose best player is white, I mean really how often can you say that? On a serious note its time to see what Jimmer can do against a major conference team in Florida. Remember one of BYU’s losses was to UCLA who Florida just beat, I’d give Florida the edge but maybe they’ll get Jimmered. Sorry to cut it short but its just about time for me to get my Jimmer on at the gym, replays of this will be on ESPN Classic I’m sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment