The NBA is Coming to Town

It's that time again. The time where people care about the NBA for about a month, couldn't care it existed for 3 months, and then cared again for most of the playoffs.

It is a season that has already had it's share of collusion, free-agent acquisitions, the creation of "Lob City," a pissed off but incredibly entertaining Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard flip-flopping more than Mitt Romney about wanting to leave Orlando, people being amnestied because of their dumb contracts, people that should be amnestied because of their dumb contract aka Metta World "I'm Happy Jesus Gave Me the Ability to Have Teeth" Peace, and because of all of this mess the Miami Heat are now slightly flying under the radar if that was possible.

I'm tired of hearing talking heads debate about this season in the same fashion. I'm bored of it. It's all the same stuff being regurgitated in various forms.

So to counter this I think it's time for a quick and painless bullet-pointed preview intertwined with some non-NBA points to spice it up a little.

• The Timberwolves will be a scary team this year. Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, Wesley Johnson, Ricky Rubio, and Darko with Derrick Williams coming off the bench? Not such a bad starting lineup as you would first think especially with this gauntlet-like 66 game schedule. Definitely a team to watch out for.
• The same goes for the Washington Wizards. They now have the best uniforms in the league, a top 5 point guard in John Wall, Nick Young, JaVale McGee, Andray Blatche, Rashard Lewis (who I think could still produce well), and the future first white player to win a Slam Dunk contest since Brent Barry, Jan Vesely.
• In contrast, the Toronto Raptors should just be given the first pick in the draft now out of sheer pity
• If you haven't seen "Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows" yet I highly recommend it. Better than the first one and Guy Ritchie makes this movie a visual masterpiece.
• The Lakers bandwagon has contracted yellow fever or dysentery as if they were the wagon in The Oregon Trail
• The small forwards on the Lakers roster are Matt Barnes, Metta World Peace, Luke "I Get Paid $5.6 Million Dollars To Inbound the Ball" Walton, Jason Kapono, and Devin Ebanks. Their point guards are Derek Fisher, Steve Blake, and Darius Morris. I wish I was making this up.
• So I was watching "The Shining" the other night and one scene caught my full attention and I said to myself, "Holy shit that's David Stern talking!" Let me explain. Jack Torrance (Nicholson) is chasing his wife up the staircase when he says these lines, "Have you ever thought about my responsibilities? Have you ever thought for a single moment. . .about my responsibilities to my employers? Does it matter to you at all. . .that the owners have placed their complete confidence in me. . .and that I have signed a letter of agreement. . .in which I've accepted that responsibility? Do you have the slightest idea. . .what a moral and ethical principal is? Do you? Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future. . .if I fail to live up to my responsibilities?" Sends shivers down your spine doesn't it?
• The Thunder are +500 to win the championship
• The Clippers are +1500 to win the championship
• Those are two bets that I would take immediately.
• The NBA is a-changin'. The powerhouses of the last couple years (Lakers, Spurs, Celtics) are starting to be replaced by teams with much younger players and talent. It's not going to be a nice next 5 years for those 3 teams.
• At least one of those 3 teams will be in the lottery.
• If you are a germaphobe, do not see "Contagion."
• What is Fox trying to accomplish with making Napoleon Dynamite into a TV series? The movie came out in 2004. No good will come out of this endeavor.
• Somehow on one fantasy basketball team I ended up with 3 Wizards (Wall, Young, Blatche) and on another team I have 3 Warriors (Steph Curry, Dorell Wright, and David Lee).
• As you can tell I'm high on the Wizards
• Dwight Howard will end up a Laker at some point, but the Lakers will give away both Gasol and Bynum to do so, which will be the final nail in the coffin for the Lakers for a couple of years.
• I still feel bad for the Houston Rockets after Tradegate.
• Christmas Day Predictions: New York over Boston, Miami over Dallas, Chicago over LA Lakers, Oklahoma City over Orlando, LA Clippers over Golden State
• Western Conference Finals: Oklahoma City over Los Angeles...Clippers
• Eastern Conference Finals: Miami over Chicago
• NBA Champion: Miami over Oklahoma City in 6 games
• David Stern will retire at the end of this year or next
• I may be wrong but I feel like the trade debacles with Chris Paul have been forgotten way too easily
• Phil Jackson will be coaching the Knicks by next year

The transfer of power in basketball will happen this year whether you like it or not. The players that we have come to love over the past decade-plus will be retiring soon and these up and coming teams will swoop in and claim their spot on top of the throne. This change will be the main story this year in the always maddening, always unpredictable, but always a topic of vigorous discussion, the NBA.

Merry Christmas, happy sixth night of Hanukkah, happy Kwanzaa tomorrow, and happy belated best holiday ever invented, Festivus.

"CP3: WoW"

No, I am sorry to say this tweet from Chris Paul does not mean he is joining Chuck Norris and Mr. T to promote World of Warcraft. I am also sorry to say that this tweet just sent the NBA into a death spiral that I'm not sure they can fully recover from.

News broke on Twitter from Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski at around 7:00 PM EST on December 8 that Chris Paul was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol. ESPN's Marc Stein then reported that minutes later, Gasol would be traded to the Houston Rockets from the New Orleans Hornets in exchange for Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, Goran Dragic, and 2 draft picks.


Being from LA, my first reaction was, "Oh my God, we just got one of the best point guards of all-time!" and then "Oh crap, Derrick Caracter is now the starting power forward with a center who has knee problems and did this the last time we saw him, a shooting guard who went to Germany to get some semi-illegal blood transfusion to help his knees, and point guard who had knee surgery. And Luke Walton is still on the team. This is not what I thought would happen..."


If I were a New Orleans fan this is how I would have reacted: "We just gave up our only superstar we have ever had, our life as a franchise is over...wait who did we get from Houston?! A very good low post player to go with Okafor and now Odom! A shooting guard that averaged 23.5 points per game last year! Two draft picks! THIS GUY! Shhh....don't tell anyone but we secretly got the best deal."


And lastly if I were a Rockets fan, "We are so f!*#ed."


A Twitgasm occurred. Everyone and their mother starting talking about not if the Lakers would win the championship this year, but how many they would win (kind of hypocritical if you ask me because all Laker fans were hating on LeBron for his "Not three, not four, not five" speech). Then Dwight Howard's name got thrown into the mix and the train kept on rolling. "Howard for Bynum" was brought up too many times to count, which would be the single worst trade for the Magic, but everyone was blinded by the shock of acquiring Chris Paul to take a step back to realize this. 


Then....BAM!!!!


The equivalent of the apocalypse happened.


Reports started to leak out that the NBA and David Stern vetoed the trade. 


I could not find the words in the situation to even formulate a sentence to express what my feelings were. We just went from a blockbuster trade that we knew was going to happen except for the where part, to "I think I am witnessing the downfall of an entire sports organization." 


First of all, let's just start with the Hornets themselves. How is it in any way shape or form ethical for all NBA owners, who own and have interests in their own teams, own and have power for another team? There isn't really an analogy to describe this scenario because it just never happens! The NBA put in GM Dell Demps in New Orleans to do what a general manager is supposed to do; make the team better. Because that is the goal of any professional sports team right? Not in the case of the NBA apparently. The Hornets got the best deal that they could possibly get for a guy that was going to leave them anyways at the end of the year and get nothing in return.


The owners of small-market teams threw bitch fits to Stern complaining about losing another superstar to a big market, especially Dan Gilbert, who's email to Stern has now gone public. Hey Dan, you mad bro? Don't be so sour because you own an NBA team that resides in a city that no basketball player wants to play for and live in. Remember, you still own a frickin' NBA team! 


So Stern decided to side with these owners and veto the trade "for basketball reasons." You just had the best season in recent memory and this would have made this season that much better even after everyone already forgot about the lockout. But no. This is MUCH worse than the lockout in my opinion and I don't think it's close. The lockout was about a business and it's money, which even though seemed bad, is defensible. What this veto is though is an unethical act of corruption and collusion, factors that you can never defend to the public. You cannot save face after this unless the deal goes through to the Lakers. If it doesn't? Then Paul cannot be traded to another team or else the NBA just wants to implode on itself.


So yes Chris, "WoW" should be your response to your unfortunate situation. But not because you will not be joining Kobe in sunny California. It should be your response because the NBA will never be viewed as a legitimate organization again.

December 4, 2011: Just Another Day in Sports

Where do I even begin to write?

Do I start with the clusterf**k that is the BCS and Heisman Trophy race? What about Aaron Rodgers and my man-love for Tim Tebow? Or the fact that something interesting actually happened in the PGA and MLB? I think it would be a crime against humanity if I did not start with college football first, so here we go...

The BCS
Here we are again. It seems that almost every year since the BCS's inception we are at the point where we are at now. A deserving team doesn't get into the National Championship game, a team has no clue how it made it to a BCS game, a team has no clue how it didn't make it to a BCS game, coaches continue to accept "the system", etc. It's like an Adam Sandler movie. You know that it's going to happen once a year and you know that you're not going to enjoy it.

Beginning with the National Championship game, obviously LSU was in because of their SEC Championship victory over Georgia. But people were saying before the game that it was just a formality and an exhibition game and they were in no matter the result. So if that happened, it would have been LSU-Bama in the championship with no team winning their own conference? In what reasonable world does that make any sense. Speaking of not making sense in a reasonable world ESPN put up this nugget during their BCS Selection Show.

The ranked teams that Alabama beat were Penn State (22) who has shown its  shortcomings of late, a pretty good Arkansas team (6), and Auburn (25) who hasn't been relevant once this year. Oklahoma State beat Texas (24), Baylor (12) and possible Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III (we will visit this later), Kansas State (8), and ended the season with an absolute pillaging of Oklahoma (14) on national television. Oh and Oklahoma State also beat another 3 teams that were .500 or better to put the icing on the cake. But no that wasn't enough to put them ahead of Alabama. The current National Championship game is equivalent to a rerun of a recent Family Guy episode. We weren't happy with how it turned out the first time, why do I want to sit in pain and watch it again? (Sidenote: Step up your game McFarlane. South Park has officially made you obsolete.) Forget about Oklahoma State getting the shaft. What about Boise State? There is no chance that Virginia Tech who was physically assaulted by Clemson for the second time this year gets a BCS bid over the Smurf Turfers. Two fun facts of the day for you before my head explodes from this incompetence; former SEC Commissioner and Harris Poll voter put 5 SEC teams in his top 11 and 80 year old George Wine, another Harris Poll voter, ranked Oklahoma State 6th behind Houston at 5.

Heisman
So much for my head not exploding. I thought I was done yelling at my computer while in the library when ESPN put up their projected Heisman finalists based on their voters and "experts."

RG3 should win the Heisman and in reality it shouldn't be that close at all. No problem with that at all. But then I looked who was below RG3. Listen, I am all in the bandwagon that Andrew Luck will be a super-duper star in the NFL. But he really didn't show me a whole bunch this year that made me say, "Woah!" The same goes with Trent Richardson. He did very well against teams he was suppose to run over and only had 89 yards and no touchdowns against their best opponent: LSU. To win the Heisman he needed to rush for 100+ and 2 TDs. Didn't happen.

And that is why Montee Ball should finish second and Tyrann Mathieu should finish third. Ball led the NCAA in rushing with 1759 yards, had 6.4 yards per carry and scored 38 total touchdowns. Let me say that one more time so you know that is not a typo. Montee Ball scored 38 touchdowns this year. For Wisconsin. Who is a top 10 team. Who is playing in the Rose Bowl. I'll let you digest that for a second. (You ready now or is your head still spinning?) He did not score less than 2 touchdowns in any game this season. He is 2 touchdowns away from breaking Barry Sanders' all-time record for touchdowns in a season. (Raises hand) So how is he FIFTH, not even fourth or even third, but FIFTH in the Heisman race? Like a Tootsie Pop the world may never now...

The reason for Mathieu is simple; he's the best player on the best team. It started the first game of the year against then #3 Oregon in Jerry's World. He pulled off the defensive trifecta (forced fumble, fumble recovery, touchdown) en route to victory. Against #3 Arkansas, after LSU was down 14-0, Mathieu returned a 92 punt for a touchdown, forced 2 fumbles, and had 8 tackles. He also threw in a 62 punt return for a touchdown for good mesure in the SEC Championship after LSU finished the first quarter down 10-0 to Georgia. Yes he was suspended for one game. But that does not take away from the fact that he is the best defensive and special teams player in college football on the best defensive and special teams team in college football. One last reason: because Honey Badger said so!


NFL
On to another topic that makes people's head spin Exorcist-style: Tim Tebow. I feel like Skip Bayless and I are the only two people on Earth that like what is happening here. He is now 6-1 in actual NFL games that count this season and has thrown one interception this year. That now puts his interceptions  per pass attempt at 0.6% which is actually half of what Aaron Rodgers is currently at. I know what you are thinking right now. It's probably something like, "Who is this idiot who is trying his best to make Tebow look better than the quarterback who is having the greatest season ever?"I'm not so just stop the nonsense. Rodgers needs to replace Albert Pujols in that "This is SportsCenter" commerical. Tebow needs to replace "The Most Interesting Man in the World" guy. Not a day goes by where something is either written or said about him in some format. And you know what?

I love it.

Never has someone been as polarizing and confusing as he has been. I watched just about every game he started while at Florida. I saw how those guys always believed that when it mattered most, he was going to carry them to the Promise Land (religious pun intended). I don't care that he throws 12 times a game. I don't care that they run a "college" offense. Go look at some Cam Newton highlights and tell me you don't see speed options and read options. I dare you. I double dog dare you! People are mad and angry and puzzled because it is simply different. That's all. Who made the rule that you can't take what you have and make an offense that works for that player? That would just make too much sense.

I can see it now. Robert Griffin III gets drafted in the top 10 and the coach tries to put him under center and run a "pro" offense. He will be benched halfway through the year for not performing in the system. Question. You drafted him because he excelled in the "spread" offense correct? So you make him become a pro-style quarterback because....? This is how I view 90% of NFL coaches.

Tiger (because that's essentially what the PGA should be called)
Golf poked its head in the spotlight for all of 5 seconds on Sunday when Tiger Woods won his first tournament in 2 years. I only knew about this because it started trending on Twitter. And then it stopped trending and that was the end of it. Sorry but unless its a major event no one really cares. It was buried so deep in SportsCenter that night that I needed that Chilean mine contraption to get it out. Good for him for showing us that he still has a little left in the tank but how dare he impeded us from more of "The Blitz."

Mets
And last (again, and again, and again...) but not least is the first major move of the MLB off-season when Mets star shortstop José Reyes ditched the Mets for the Miami Marlins at a tune of six years and $106 million. Everyone is asking how this big move will shake up the baseball landscape. Pump the brakes (unlike Ndamukong Suh). Say "hi" to the Philadelphia Phillies. Sources say that the Phillies are still in the NL East. The Marlins are playing for second place. If they somehow land Pujols as well, then it will get a little interesting. But nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, they do will make up for this Fisher-Price toy of a homerun display. And as for Mets fans, well, you already know what's coming.