Donovan McNabb Isn’t Too Fond Of Twitter

I thought I was the only one that is anti-Twitter. I actually don’t mind it, it’s just that I really don’t care to hear about every detail of someone else’s life. I also feel that it gets athletes and entertainers in trouble. When they say something that’s on their mind they often speak before they speak.

Apparently current (at the moment) Washington Redskins quarterback Donovan McNabb thinks along the same lines as myself. I’m not trying to give myself or McNabb any credit, but I just find it strange that we have the same feelings about Twitter.

McNabb feels that athletes shouldn’t use it. In an interview on ESPN 1000’s Waddle & Silvy, McNabb let his feelings be known about athletes and Twitter.

“First of all I’m not a fan of Twitter,” McNabb said, via a transcript provided to PFT by ESPN 1000. “Nothing against their program or what they have, but as an athlete I think you need to get off of Twitter. All these social networks of you tweeting about you watching a game when you wanna be playing in it but you’re mad you’re not playing in it, so you’re gonna criticize someone that’s playing in it. I don’t believe that that’s the right deal. That’s not professional by any means and, you know, we’re all in a fraternity, so if you see a guy who’s struggling, this isn’t the time to jump on him or kick him while he’s down, you know, because that same guy will come against you and kinda blast your team out the water. So I think for an athlete to be Twittering is the wrong move, it’s one that [athletes should] leave to the fans and let them comment on certain things, but athletes need to get off Twitter.”

I agree with McNabb to a certain extent. Some of the Twittering actually is entertaining, like the tweets done by the Cincinnati Reds’ Brandon Phillips, Shaq, or Chad Ochocinco. But a lot of it is unnecessary, excessive, and makes them backtrack on a lot of things they said.    

    

Louisville CB Ashley Suspended Indefinitely

Louisville junior cornerback Darius Ashley recently received his second DUI in six months  and usually that spells doom for a student-athlete. You know how it goes, player committs crime or in this case gets a second DUI and gets kicked off the team and is left trying to find a school and convincing the adminstrationn that he’s worth the risk.

Louisville coach Charlie Strong is taking a different stance with Ashley. Instead of giving Ashley the boot, he’s suspending him indefinitely. This doen’t mean that Strong will let him back on the football field. Instead Strong sees this is a bigger issue. The issue of fighting alcohiolism and trying to get Ashley’s life back in order.

“He may not ever run down that field and make another tackle; he may not make another interception on this football field,” Strong said at a Friday news conference. “But our major concern right now is to help him tackle what he is fighting right now, and that’s the issue of alcoholism.”

“Any time you talk about do you dismiss a young man,” Strong said, “when you see what has happened, two within seven months, you dismiss him from the team — What does he become? Just another statistic in society? So what did we accomplish and how did we help him? You have to help people. Here’s a young man who has never been an issue on our team until those two issues that he had, which are two serious issues, but he’s a young man, he went to class, never had a class issue with him, did all the right things. … We have to help young people.”

I won’t agree or disagree with what Strong is doing here. I do think what he’s doing is pretty noble. He doesn’t want to leave the young man on an island and take away his support system which is the sport of football and the football team. On the other side is that Ashley did this to himself. He knew what he was doing when he went and got loaded and decided he was going to drive home or wherever he was going.

All in all let’s hope Strong can turn this negative into a positive and Ashely can beat his alcoholioc demons.

Romar Unlikely To Leave Washington

When the Minnesota Timberwolves fired Kurt Rambis one of the names floated out there to be the new coach was the University of Washington’s Lorenzo Romar.

However Romar has no plans on leaving Seattle anytime soon and it sounds like he has no desire to coach in the NBA in the foreseeable future. In an interview in the Seattle Times, Romar sounds comfortable in his current position and knows he has it good where he’s at.

“No. 1 I went to school and played here. I’ve been pulling for this university and the athletics here and the basketball program for over 30 years. I’m invested in this program. I’ve always been a fan of the Pac-8, the Pac-10 and now what will be the Pac-12. I love Seattle. My wife loves Seattle and it’s a place that when we first got here even though some were very skeptical, I thought it was a place where we could be successful. To take a place where you attended, played and went to school and to take that program potentially to great heights is a great, great fun challenge.”



“I did play in the NBA so that mystique of what it would be like up there doesn’t exist. I know things have changed. It was a long time ago that I played. … Even though it was eons ago, I still played and saw a little bit of what it was like up there. I’m still fairly close to it because you have your own players on NBA teams. There’s guys that I played with that are coaching or in management so I still have an idea of what’s going on. So I don’t have that itch to go do that.”

Sounds like someone that has a lot of pride in their alma mater and loves the area. He knows the grass isn’t greener on the other side, especially in this case. Only a fool would take the timberwolves job and that fool will be named in the next few months. As long as David Kahn is running things up there in Minnesota things aren’t going to get a whole lot better and they’ll be going through a a bushel of coaches if the win-loss record doesn’t improve.  

The Army Needs New Trophies

When I saw the picture of this trophy, my inner juvenile humor kicked in.

It’s the third place trophy for the 2010 Army National Guard Combatives Championships. This is just wrong from all angles. It’s funny and highly suggestive at the same time. Only if you have the humor of an 8th grader.

Timberwolves Fire Kurt Rambis

In what was a no-brainer to most, the Minnesota Timberwolves fired Kurt Rambis according to a report by Yahoo! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski.  

Timberwolves general manager David Kahn won’t announce the decision until after the draft. Kahn had been uncommitted to Rambis after the season leading to speculation whether he was going to come back. Rambis was 32-132 in his two years as head coach. He left Rambis twisting in the wind, holding draft workouts and probably knew he was going to 86 him anyway.

Minnesota Timberwolves general manager David Kahn has decided to fire coach Kurt Rambis, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.



Kahn isn’t expected to announce the decision until after Thursday’s NBA draft, but he’s already begun collecting information on prospective replacements for Rambis, sources said…


Rambis has two years left on his original four-year contract. With the Timberwolves in the midst of a major rebuilding project, he went 32-132 as their coach, including a league-worst 17-65 this season.


Kahn told reporters he’d made the unusual request of asking Rambis to file a written report to him on changes Rambis would make if he returned as coach. He also said Rambis won’t attend the Timberwolves’ draft on Thursday night.


Kahn had wanted Rambis to become a better communicator with players. He also wanted him to design an offense away from the triangle and toward the open-court talents of rookie point guard Ricky Rubio. Rambis’ relationship with key young players, especially Kevin Love, had been frayed, at best.

I know anyone who has ever coached has wanted to be at the helm of their own operation, but Rambis had to know what he was getting into when he signed up for this. I’m not saying this is all his fault because Kahn has proven to be inept as a general manager. Rambis should’ve bolted out the door when he drafted the “point guards of the future” in one draft. The triangle wasn’t going to work in Minnesota. You have to have special and disciplined players for that offense. It’s not for everyone. Rambis didn’t get a fair shake, but this marriage was doomed to fail.
 
      

Steelers Lobbying For Burress

A long shot for Plaxico Burress’ services might be the Pittsburgh Steelers. It might be highly unlikely but it seems that there have been some unnamed coaches lobbying for Burress’ return to the Steel City. Of course they don’t have final say on personnel nor do they cut the checks around there so wo knows if the Steelers front office will take a chance on Plax after the lockout.

In addition to the unnamed coaches that would like to have Plax back, Hines Ward would like him back as well and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger stopped short of saying he wants Plax at his youth football camp. 

“I’ve talked to Plax a number of times in the last couple of weeks,” Roethlisberger said. “I told him, ‘Hey, if you came back here that would be awesome, but I’m just happy to see you playing again’ because he’s a good guy.”

Keep in mind that Big Ben and Plax were neighbors when they were teammates.

If the Steelers do happen to add Burresss that would likely mean the end of Antwan Randle-El. It would also cut down the playing time for promising youngsters Antonio Brown and Emmanuel Sanders.

Vince Carter To Get Bought Out In Phoenix?

A blurb by the Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro says that the Phoenix Suns are expected to buy out Vince Carter’s contract  instead of trying to seek a trade for the veteran swingman. The buyout is would be around $4 million.

That would be a smart move by the Suns as Carter isn’t even a shell of the high-flying showman he once was. To me he hasn’t been the same since almost leading the Toronto Raptors to the Eastren Conference finlas. It would be hard for Phoenix to find a trade partner for Carter since his value has went down the toilet and couldn’t be a consistent producer for the run and gun Suns and couldn’t run the pick and roll in Orlando with Dwight Howard.

I do believe there will be suitors for Carter if he is bought out. Maybe a contender that could use some scoring off the bench (hello Chicago) would be a good fit for him as long as he doesn’t still fashion himself as a starter. The last contending team he played for (Orlando) he disappeared in the playoffs.

I look for him to stay in the league on reputation alone and some team will hope that they can catch lightning in a bottle.     

Report Says Warriors Offered Monta Ellis For Dwight Howard

According to a report/tweet from Jonathan Givony from DraftExpress the Golden State Warriors mad a play for the Orlando Magic’s Dwight Howard, offereing up Monta Ellis, Ekpe Udoh, and Andris Biendris. A pretty good package but not one that’s going to land Howard.

If this is indeed true, teams thinking about lining up to trade for the big man will have to give up plenty in order to land him. So Laker fans don’t get too enthusiastic about the big guy coming to Los Angeles.

Also, if the Warriors weren’t going to trade Ellis, why were they alledgedly offering him in a package. it looks like Golden State is still intent on unloading Ellis no matter what their front office is saying.   

It’s Time For Full Blown Rebuilding In Pistonland

Now thats it’s been a few weeks since “Beverly Hills Billy”, Tom Gores has taken over control of the Detroit Pistons , it’s time for Joe Dumars and company to get down to business in rebuilding this team. Gores taking over was step one in trying to get the Pistons back to the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference. The second step was firing coach John Kuester.

Kuester wasn’t a bad guy or a bad coach, he just wasn’t a good fit with this edition of Pistons. He inherited a losing situation and the veterans on the team (namely 2004 holdovers) weren’t showing Kuester any respect.

Now they have to make a good hire at the coaching position. At this point they have listed Lawrence Frank, Kelvin Sampson, Mike Woodson, and Dwane Casey as favorites, even though Casey might be scratched off the list. Personally, I would like to see Woodson or Frank get the job, but that’s not my decision to make. I say that because those are the only proven commodities I really know. If they hire an unproven coach they’ll have to unload some veterans that aren’t cut out for rebuilding. Dumars has shown impatience with coaches so he must be dead on with this hire. Which leads to this.

Get rid of the 2004 holdovers. It’s over, gone and done with. It’s time to get rid of Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince and the only reason I would let Ben Wallace come back is to be a mentor to the younger players. Prince is a free agent so I would let him walk. Unless I knew I could get something for him then I would do a sign and trade and Dumars is so loyal to Prince that he wants him back. I dont know what you can get for Hamilton at this point. He has a bad contract and is on the wrong side of 30 so you won’t get much for him. Maybe Dumars can get the handgun and panty hose and pull off another robbery in trade. Probably won’t happen, so Piston fans don’t start those dream trade scenarios. It’s not gonna happen.  

Draft a point guard. If the Pistons could be lucky enough to have Kemba Walker fall into their laps, take him. I don’t think that’ll happen, but they do need a floor general. The Pistons don’t have a point guard and I’m tired of seeing Rodney Stuckey masquerade as one and Will Bynum come off the bench as a welfare version of Jason Terry. They likely won’t find one in this draft since Kyrie Irving, Brandon Knight, and Walker will be off the board when it’s their turn at pick number eight. If that is indeed the case go big. There’s been talk of one of the Eurobigs ( Jan Vesely, Bismack Biyombo, or Jonas Valanciunas). All are boom or bust picks but you never know. Biyombo would give you defense and rebounding, something non existent with the current roster. Vesely looks to be the most proven and Valanciunas may have the most upside. If they go there I would also take Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson in the second round if he’s still on the board. Johnson does need to bulk up, but he played in the rugged Big Ten which scores points with me. Oakland’s Keith Benson, Georgia’s Trey Thompkins, and Jeremy Tyler could all be possibilities since the Pistons have two picks in the second round.

No more forays into free agency. The last free agent signings produced Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon. I still like the Gordon signing as I think he wasn’t used properly and had a few injury problems. Villanueva on the other hand, I still don’t like it. He’s allergic to defense and rebounding. And that’s why I named all the possibilties in the second round of next week’s draft. If Charlie V. continues on like this, he’ll find himself chained to the bench. The best hope for him is that he shows enough to be traded. This is far fetched but I’d call Golden State to see if they would take him for Andris Biendris. Won’t happen, but one can dream can’t they.                

Gores has said that Dumars has three years to right the ship, so this year’s draft and coaching choice will be critical in seeing that the ball gets rolling in a positive direction.

Pennington To Recharge Himself

After his latest injury, a self inflicted injury playing pickup basketball, NFL quarterback Chad Pennington will be taking time off to work for Fox Sports.  Pennington will work with Fox’s Sam Rosen as an NFL analyst, provided the the players and owners can come to an agreement to save the season.

Pennington last played for the Miami Dolphins and was rehabbing a shoulder injury that cost him last season. While he should’ve been taking time off and dedicating it to rehab, Pennington tore his ACL playing pickup basketball. I’m not calling the guy brittle but he’s only played two full season’s since coming into the league, 2006 and 2008. So this is a good decision to take the time off and re-evaluate himself.

“I’m actually going to take this year off, get healthy and do some work for Fox Sports,” said Pennington, the NFL’s only two-time Comeback Player of the Year.

“I’m going to evaluate things and see where I am physically.”

No one knows if Pennington will attempt a comeback, but if he does I think he’ll make a good mentor to a young quarterback.