Sports Highlights, etc...
Wow, we've had an exciting day in the world o' sports... let's start with the NBA Finals!
Oh, look who was the NBA Finals MVP? Was that Tim Duncan who single-handedly rendered the Pistons' vaunted interior D useless? It just might have been. I have to say, I only made it to the second half of this one, but Duncan made his foul shots for the most part and did sort of what Shaq did to Ben Wallace at times in the Lakers' series... made him look small. And I'm starting to like Ben Wallace, I swear, but I still contend that he's too small for the Pistons' center position and would probably be better off at power forward. The problem, of course, is that Wallace is a huge offensive liability, which is of course why Darko needs to develop so Wallace can be free to grab twenty rebounds a night, and so 'Sheed Wallace and Prince can kill the small forwards they would get play against.
Duncan now has three NBA titles, so he's about halfway to Michael Jordan. It's entirely possible that he could get there, though of course the Spurs would need to hold that lineup together, and Tony Parker will probably have to get better too. Bill Walton can officially eat his words about Duncan after one of the more impressive second-half performances in the playoffs.
And yet, the Knicks and Suns managed to steal some of the Finals thunder with a proposed Q-Rich for Kurt Thomas deal. Many analysts feel that this trade should benefit both teams, but I'm not too sure about that. For one thing, the whole gimmick of the Phoenix Suns is their ability to get out and bomb a team into submission, but I'm not sure how well they'll be able to do that without Richardson. Q-Rich didn't show up in the playoffs, but in order to get that zesty home-court advantage, you have to win a bunch in the regular season, and I just get a feeling that the Suns will miss that offensive output. Plus, this trade is contingent on Phoenix re-signing Jimmy Jackson; if they don't do that, they'll be in trouble.
Likewise, New York is acquiring another shooting guard, leaving them with four shooting guards (Allan Houston, Jamal Crawford, Anfernee Hardaway, and Richardson). I don't know too much about the contract situations of these guys, but I think this is probably a bad thing. Of these guys, Richardson is probably the most consistent, so he should start, but I can already hear the whining. It might be interesting to see a Marbury-Crawford-Richardson backcourt, they could be really good... it would be really nice if the Knicks could figure out a way to fun and gun this backcourt.
Wimbledon is officially teetering on the brink of unwatchable. Nadal, Safin, and Henman, three of the six most compelling players in the draw are already gone. Lleyton Hewitt really needs to go far or this tournament is dead to me.
I might actually let one of my friends who knows something about tennis write a tennis article for me handicapping the rest of Wimbledon... until then, I'll give you Michael's Wimbledon odds:
MENS:
Federer: 3:2
Roddick: 5:1
Ancic: 10:1
Hewitt: 12:1
Nalbandian, Lopez 15:1
Taylor Dent 18:1
Coria 25:1
Ferrero, F. Gonzalez 40:1
Johannson, Grosjean 50:1
Anyone else: 100:1
WOMENS:
Sharapova 2:1
S. Williams 5:2
Davenport 4:1
Mauresmo 10:1
V. Williams 12:1
Clijsters 15:1
Dementieva, Kuznetsova 20:1
Petrova 30:1
Myskina 50:1
Anyone else: 75:1
I don't know how betting works, so I'm not sure if these numbers are supposed to add up to get something, but I don't really care because I've gotta go do something else.
Mike
Oh, look who was the NBA Finals MVP? Was that Tim Duncan who single-handedly rendered the Pistons' vaunted interior D useless? It just might have been. I have to say, I only made it to the second half of this one, but Duncan made his foul shots for the most part and did sort of what Shaq did to Ben Wallace at times in the Lakers' series... made him look small. And I'm starting to like Ben Wallace, I swear, but I still contend that he's too small for the Pistons' center position and would probably be better off at power forward. The problem, of course, is that Wallace is a huge offensive liability, which is of course why Darko needs to develop so Wallace can be free to grab twenty rebounds a night, and so 'Sheed Wallace and Prince can kill the small forwards they would get play against.
Duncan now has three NBA titles, so he's about halfway to Michael Jordan. It's entirely possible that he could get there, though of course the Spurs would need to hold that lineup together, and Tony Parker will probably have to get better too. Bill Walton can officially eat his words about Duncan after one of the more impressive second-half performances in the playoffs.
And yet, the Knicks and Suns managed to steal some of the Finals thunder with a proposed Q-Rich for Kurt Thomas deal. Many analysts feel that this trade should benefit both teams, but I'm not too sure about that. For one thing, the whole gimmick of the Phoenix Suns is their ability to get out and bomb a team into submission, but I'm not sure how well they'll be able to do that without Richardson. Q-Rich didn't show up in the playoffs, but in order to get that zesty home-court advantage, you have to win a bunch in the regular season, and I just get a feeling that the Suns will miss that offensive output. Plus, this trade is contingent on Phoenix re-signing Jimmy Jackson; if they don't do that, they'll be in trouble.
Likewise, New York is acquiring another shooting guard, leaving them with four shooting guards (Allan Houston, Jamal Crawford, Anfernee Hardaway, and Richardson). I don't know too much about the contract situations of these guys, but I think this is probably a bad thing. Of these guys, Richardson is probably the most consistent, so he should start, but I can already hear the whining. It might be interesting to see a Marbury-Crawford-Richardson backcourt, they could be really good... it would be really nice if the Knicks could figure out a way to fun and gun this backcourt.
Wimbledon is officially teetering on the brink of unwatchable. Nadal, Safin, and Henman, three of the six most compelling players in the draw are already gone. Lleyton Hewitt really needs to go far or this tournament is dead to me.
I might actually let one of my friends who knows something about tennis write a tennis article for me handicapping the rest of Wimbledon... until then, I'll give you Michael's Wimbledon odds:
MENS:
Federer: 3:2
Roddick: 5:1
Ancic: 10:1
Hewitt: 12:1
Nalbandian, Lopez 15:1
Taylor Dent 18:1
Coria 25:1
Ferrero, F. Gonzalez 40:1
Johannson, Grosjean 50:1
Anyone else: 100:1
WOMENS:
Sharapova 2:1
S. Williams 5:2
Davenport 4:1
Mauresmo 10:1
V. Williams 12:1
Clijsters 15:1
Dementieva, Kuznetsova 20:1
Petrova 30:1
Myskina 50:1
Anyone else: 75:1
I don't know how betting works, so I'm not sure if these numbers are supposed to add up to get something, but I don't really care because I've gotta go do something else.
Mike
posted by mike at 12:34 PM
3 Comments:
Put Griffey in the All-Star game, at least the fans might want to see him. Harang would have been a candidate until three starts ago, but his stats have taken a dive and he's returning to his barely adequate starter status.
And yes, the Reds are really that bad, just look at that staff. It's one of the worst in the last decade. Team ERA of 5.60!
Aurilia... cream or the clear?
Seriously, has anybody other than Brady Anderson come close to the statistical power surge aberration than Rich Aurilia?
We can't put Kent Mercker in the All-Star game simply for being competent.
Randa or Lopez are possible choices, Lopez is probably having the best season of any NL shortstop, and it's hard to justify Randa over say, David Wright, Aramis Ramirez, Morgan Ensberg, or Troy Glaus.
Ideally, we'd get to see Griffey on principle, and there would be a spot for Lopez on merit.
I agree that Joe Randa is having quite a comparable year to the others, but they're more prominent players and will probably get the attention.
I like your idea of the "all-competency All-Stars." How about this idea: only players from sub-.500 teams are invited. So we'd have, say, Carl Crawford, Joe Randa, Kent Mercker, Craig Biggio, Moises Alou, Milton Bradley, Derek Lowe, Mike Sweeney, Ichiro, and others.
By the way, I forgot about this, but has anybody noticed the absolute nosedive LA took once Milton Bradley got hurt? Geez! I can't feel too sorry for them though, they anchored their rotation on Lowe and Weaver.
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