Quick note on college basketball

The NCAA head honchos are thinking of of putting a new rule in place that would prevent coaches from hiring outsiders as assistants and camp counselors. This would hopefully end the “package deal” that we frequently see in college basketball. The deal where the college coach hires or pays an AAU coach or a “handler” so the kid will go to his school. Personally I hope this goes through that way it levels the playing field somewhat in the world of college basketball. Also it would show who the true recruiters are and kids choosing a school based on the program alone rather than going somewhere because someone was paid. 

Twitter makes trouble for athletes

Nothing against the Twitter craze going on right now, but i just don’t get it. To me it’s almost like what i’m doing now your giving details of your day. Over the summer i began to hear more about professional athletes “tweeting”. If i’m an athlete i want no part of this. You might as well invite the press over or get a reality show, which is another topic for another day. Now athletes are finding themselves getting in a bit of hot water over twitter. One is the case of Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. The thing about it is it wasn’t him “tweeting”, it was his brother Marcus lighting the flame. It was all about Larry’s role in the offense and apparent disenchantment with the coaching staff. Of course there was some damage control done, now all is well in Cardinal country.This past week it’s soon to be former Kansas City Chiefs star Larry Johnson. He goes on his twitter account and blasts his teammates, using gay slurs along the way, and flames his coach, Todd Haley. After the story comes out he tries to make the account private. Too late. He’s now suspended  and banned from all team activities. He’s apologized and has filed a grievance with the NFL. One local case involved Matthew Stafford of the Detroit Lions. He alledgedly was giving updates on whether or not he was going to play. I know Chad OchoCinco swears by it, but i just think it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Just line up the news trucks outside your home if you want to let everyone know what your doing.    

Los Angeles Clippers. Snakebit or just a bad organization?

Once again the Los Angeles Clippers have been snakebitten, spit in the face by the basketball gods. The top overall draft pick Blake Griffin, gone for about two months. Honestly i’m one of the few who for some odd reason has a fascination with the Clippers.I don’t knbow why i just have something for the downtrodden in sports. I know, they’ve botched nearly every personnel move in franchise history. With them it seems like a bad horror movie, when someone says “when you go there you become one of them”.It’s not that all the players happened to be bad players, its that they made bad deals or players got hurt. There was the Moses Malone deal back in 1976. The selling of Bob McAdoo, the trading of Marques Johnson, which came back to haunt them since they dealt for him after his best days in Milwaukee to Danny Manning blowing out his knee, Danny Ferry forcing his way out of town, Shaun Livingston mangling his leg, and now this. At least they parlayed Ferry into two number one picks and Ron Harper, but he had to go ahead and get hurt.Then Harper said playing for the Clippers was worse than being in prison. The Clips had a few playoff seasons during the 90’s and earlier this decade, but bad luck has once again reared its ugly head with the Blake Griffin injury and then i hear in the season opener last night that baron Davis is basically playing one one good leg. I thought this team had a chance to make some regular season noise in the Western Conference, but i don’t think they can withstand injuries of any sort. The season’s still young and maybe they can actually get it together. They do have Mike Dunleavy as coach so anything’s possible. If you want to know more about the Clippers franchise run of bad luck click on the Bill Simmons article he wrote about this back in July. It’s downright funny how he breaks all this down.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090624&sportCat=nba

Bernard King for the Hall of Fame

With age i realize i’m becoming a lot more old school. That’s why i believe Bernard King belongs in the Basketball Hall of Fame. I was too young to remember the Bernie and Ernie (Grunfeld) show while he was at the University of Tennessee. But i do remember a lot of his NBA exploits. This man was a scoring machine in every sense of the word. Damn near unstoppable. I believe that Michael Jordan never wins a scoring title if Bernard never gets hurt. The moment i remember in particular is when he torched the Detroit Pistons, in a five game playoff series to the tune of 44 points a game. Correct me if i’m wrong. It made head coach Hubie Brown look like a genius at times. A one man wrecking crew, I always joked that it was Hubie’s easiest coaching job. Imagine the sideline huddle where Hubie says, “just give it to Bernard”. I know that series alone probably ran Kelly Tripucka out of Detroit. He just couldn’t handle him on the defensive end. Bernard wasn’t the greatest defender either, but coach Brown had a way of hiding that. I really hate the fact a lot of people overlooked how good of a player he was, as he was overshadowed by the Larry Bird’s, Julius Erving’s, and Magic Johnson’s of the world. Call it bad timing. Another bad break, almost in a literal sense was the knee injury he suffered in 1985 i believe. I would’ve loved to see what damage a healthy King and Patrick Ewing could’ve done together. It’s time to give the man his due and finally elect him into the Hall of Fame, he deserves it. Sometimes i wonder if i’m the only one that carries the torch for his election. I know i’d like to see him in.

Jake Delhomme=Steve Blass?

In a previous posting I mentioned that Jake Delhomme was still shell shocked by the performance in last season’s playoff loss to Arizona, in which he threw six interceptions. Correct me if i’m wrong.This is a quick fall from grace for someone that was considered to be near the top of the second tier quarterbacks.The last time i’ve seen something like this was how quickly Jim Everett fell off. In my opinion, this seems to be the equal of the “Steve Blass syndrome”. To anyone not familiar with Steve Blass, he was a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates during the 60’s and 70’s, who had a stellar start to his career and had a sudden loss of control which pretty much ended his career. If you don’t know him, look up the names Mackey Sasser, Steve Sax, Chuck Knoblauch, and most recently Rick Ankiel. The reason I say this is because of the high  amount of interceptions Delhomme has thrown. Since the Arizona debacle he has yet to have an interception free game. In a way I almost feel sorry for the guy. I don’t know him personally, but he seems to be like a genuinely good guy with a downhome southern personality. He has to take a lot of flak from the fans and his teammates, especially the tempermental Steve Smith. As a fan I hope he gets it together and soon (not for fantasy purposes either). First he must get over the interceptions which i don’t think he can, therefore sinking the Panthers’ season and you know who’s gonna take the blame for that. Pick up your game Jake and get back on track. If you don’t your career is most likely over on a sour note no less.

WTF? Things that aren’t funny but are

Maybe I just have a sick sense of humor, or just someone that sees the lighter side of life.This news story is about a former paramedic who faked a 911 call to try to sneak back in to her place of employment to obtain drugs for the pain she had from an apparent leg injury.She wound up being crushed by the garage door when she tried to get back in. It’s not a good thing, but i can’t make this stuff up.

http://www.2news.tv/news/64810022.html   

Trying to climb back up the ladder

Isaiah “J.R.” Rider. Once a man with a promising NBA future is now struggling to catch on anywhere for one last shot at glory. Drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the fifth overall pick in the 1993 NBA Draft, his career started with so much promise. Capturing the slam dunk title at All Star weekend as a rookie seemed like a prelude to bigger things.The problem was he couldn’t stay out of his own way. Frequent tardiness, run ins with coaches, and various legal problems derailed his career.I remember when he played with the Lakers, where he did win a championsip ring, but left off the playoff roster, he was suspended for a home game against the Indiana Pacers for what else, being late. Craig Sager interviewed him after the game and asked him “with his family and friends watching wasn’t he embarrassed by not playing that night.His reply to Sager was “aren’t you embarrassed by your clothes”. To me, that moment and the east bay funk dunk that won the slam dunk championship were my favorite memories of him. Now he’s trying to catch on overseas or anywhere right now.He’s playing for the North Texas Fresh of the American Basketball Association.For more on his trials and tribulations you can follow this link.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=mc-rider102309&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

ringside thoughts

Last week i took in a couple of good boxing matches from the super six tournament for supremacy of the super middleweight division. To those who aren’t familiar, i’ll tell you the names of the contestants.Some you might recognize, some you won’t.The tournament consists of the top six fighters in the super middleweight division.Mikkel Kessler(Denmark), “King” Arthur Abraham (Germany), Carl Froch (England), Jermain Taylor (USA), Andre Direll (USA), Andre Ward (USA).From the looks of it, it almost looks like a US vs. Europe format, but its far from it.
  The first fight was “King” Arthur Abraham vs. Jermain Taylor. I’m not a boxing expert, just one that recognizes a good fight when they see one.This was a good fight, although i’m sure Abraham had the fight won on points even if it was a close decision since the fight was in Germany.Abraham put together a fine performance and he would’ve won on points against the outmatched Taylor.The fight went to the 12th round when Abraham came up with a dazzling knockout of a tired Taylor.More thoughts on Taylor later.If i were a betting man, i’d put it on Abraham to win the tournament.The second fight was more entertaining as it pitted Carl Froch vs. Andre Direll. Direll was clearly the more skilled of the two, but it was Froch and the “will not skill” that won out in a slightly controversial 12 round split decision. I thought Direll put together a fine performance as did Froch, but i think the home “ring” advantage helped Froch in the end. Froch was outskilled as I stated earlier, but as the fight went on I could see Direll was frustrated by Froch trying to turn the fight into a brawl. There was a point in the fifth round i believe where Froch had a point taken for hip tossing Direll to the canvas. Direll also had a point taken for what reason i don’t know and neither did the commentators. Personally i thought Direll should have kept fighting his fight and stopped waiting for the referee to either disqualify Froch or take points from him.It happened after every clinch where Direll would look at the ref. He should’ve kept fighting and he would have pulled out the win. I thought he did enough to win, but when fighting the champ, on his home turf no less, you have to be thoroughly dominant to take a decision, or win by knockout.
  As for Jermain Taylor,i really don’t know waht’s become of him.It wasn’t that long ago he came away with two decisions over the legendary Bernard Hopkins. I do think other fighters found a chink in his armor during the two Hopkins fights. He got tired in the later rounds.When he went against Kelly Pavlik he punched himself out early and it cost him.He always seems to get tired in the later rounds.Check out the fight against Carl Froch and you’ll know what i’m talking about.He’s still young and talented, but he’s had too many big fight losses recently.I hate to say this, but i think he’ll become the “name” opponent for young up and comers to get a big win against.Like a steppingstone of sorts.I hope he can get it together and string together some impressive wins.  

how the mighty have fallen

I’m sure some of you may be familiar with former University of Michigan hoops hero and NBA player Rumeal Robinson.Twenty years ago he was the toast of the college basketball world and a first round draft pick.Fast foreward to today and he is claiming to be broke and penniless.From what i hear he also said he had a 15 year addiction to strip clubs.Also i hear that he scammed his adoptive mother and lost her house.  I don’t claim to know what went on in this case and won’t try to act like i do.Living here in the Detroit area, i’m familiar with his basketball career and some of the tough times he had to go through, as he was one of the first Prop 48 cases in college sports.Its sad to see him go out like this, but perhaps another cautionary tale to other professional athletes on how to not blow through every nickel and dime and make wiser investments. For more on this story click this link to get the lowdown on how he has fallen so far.

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2009/10/how_hoops_hero_rumeal_robinson.php  

Sabathia is paying off big time

CC Sabathia is finally putting together some big time performances in the postseason.After past failures in the playoffs with the Indians and Brewers, he has shown why the Yankees paid him big money in the offseason.After mowing down the Angels for eight innings in the ALCS in a 10-1 over the Angels, the Yankees are one win away from their first World Series appearance since 2003.Buoyed by an offense that battered starter Scott Kazmir and the other pitchers the Angels put out there in game 4, the Yankees seized the momentum that seemed to swing the Angels’ way after a thrilling 5-4 win in game 3.This was Sabathia’s second win in the ALCS, which was a big money performance and is showing why there was a lot of fuss why the Yankees paid him handsomely in the free agent period.Clearly the best move the Yankees made in the offseason.