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Just thinking about a few things that I thought I would toss out there with a nod to the excellent Peter King who writes a must-read article called Monday Morning Quarterback for CNN/SI that no football fan should miss during the season. He always includes 10 things he thinks he thinks about football, so here are 10 things I think I think about sports. Also, check my other blogs later for 10 things I think I think about in general and about entertainment.

1. I think Brandon Roy has me really excited. Putting up big numbers in summer league is meaningless, but the scouting reports are not. Word is that Roy is nearly unstoppable going to the rim, is a good enough passer and leader to play point and has been shooting a gaudy 66%. I doubt he’ll get the minutes to get rookie of the year, but I’m still betting he turns out to be the best player of this year’s draft crop.

2. I think I couldn’t have been prouder of my 5 year old son Gibson when he asked me why people liked Allen Iverson and I told him because he is a really good scorer and he said, unprompted mind you, “but Dad, there’s a lot more to basketball than scoring you know.” To which I said, “that’s true, like what?” And he said, “defense, passing and being a good teammate.” Keeping in mind that I don’t do any of those things, I was thrilled to see Gibson overcoming his genetic shortcomings on his journey toward playing the game as it should be played.

3. I think baseball is losing its star power. I was looking at the rosters for the HR derby and the all star game going, “who?” Baseball’s biggest challenge in the post roids era might be finding legit stars who now face the difficult prospect of living up to numbers produce by people getting a bit extra from their “vitamins.” Albert Pujols might not only be the man with the funniest last name in the game, he may also be the most important man for the future of baseball. Baseball needs to do everything they can to make him a household name right now.

4. I think, my friend Alan Beard alerted me to the most significant development in the world of fantasy sports since the internet. Check out this link. I think it speaks for itself and I couldn’t be more pleased that my Football league just voted to make this the official championship trophy.

http://shop.jostens.com/catalog.asp?CID=266662&pfid=2004091310213606328

5. I think the boxing “reality” show The Contender, which is about to start its second season on ESPN, is the one exception to my otherwise rigid no reality tv rule. If you missed it last year, you missed classic moments of Sly Stallone and Sugar Ray being awkward on camera and some pretty fun to watch boxing in a sport that refuses to make the changes it needs to to save itself. I recommend you check it out. As a side note, I was always a Hagler guys, so I don’t mind asking, on a scale of 1 to gay with gay being the most gay, how gay is Sugar Ray? He was a championship boxer? Really?

6. I think I almost always disagree with Colin Cowherd on matters related to life and sports. He is mildly amusing at times and does know a ton about football, especially college football, but he just gets most things wrong. Yesterday, he was going on with great delight about how if he were a pitcher, he would go head-hunting after some 83 year old guy that was being allowed to hit in a minor league game as a promotion. Then he spent a half hour cracking jokes about how lame old people are. Nice. Great choice of targets. By all means, lets lay off the Jose Guillens and Jose Cansecos and Ricky Williams of the world and attack an old guy with enough juice left to take bp every year with his local team. Cowherd is on his way to becoming the Howard Stern of sports radio, and I do not mean that as a compliment.

7. I think I can’t understand why all of the fantasy football mock drafts I’ve seen have Ladanian Tomlinson going 3rd. Second maybe if you like Alexander, but third? Larry Johnson, was a stud, but come on. Priest Holmes isn’t dead and Tomlinson does everything.

8. I think I would not be surprised to see Miami in the Superbowl this year.

9. I think I miss being able to get excited about the Tour de Lance, but without the Lance, I just can’t get into it, which is too bad because it has been a fun summer diversion the past couple years.

10. I think I’m thrilled LeBron appears to be staying in Cleveland. It is the right thing to do and makes it far less likely I will at some point have to hate him for going to the NY Knicks or the LA Fakers.

Comments

Josh Stump said…
Clint as always, your comments are appreciated, especially since we do seem to agree so often.

A few follow ups:

1. I do think Cowherd says things just to get a reaction. This drives me crazy in all media. If you have some contraversial idea and you throw it out there because you truly think the idea important fine, but if you are just making up stuff you know will get people riled up, please just go away. This is why I suggested the Herd is becoming like Stern who does nothing but try to get a reaction out of people.

Also, I agree with your point about Herd beating a topic into the ground, but he is still lightyears behind Jim Rome in this category. Rome is the all time worst.

I just heard American Landis took the yellow jersey in the Tour. I may have to start checking in again. It gives me great pleasure to think of the anguish of all of the French and German cycling snobs that look down their noses at American cycling, having to crown another American Tour Champ, even without Lance in the race. That's enough to make me want to watch right there.
Mike Lewis said…
2 words: Big Papi

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