A few comments on the sporting world. I wish I had time to say more, but have to send this out there:
1. I hate that the Blazers weren’t rewarded for their work and good play against the Wolves with a win, but I love the effort. The playoffs are out of reach, but the Blazers are playing like no one told them. At this point, if Roy isn’t unanimous ROY, it will be injustice. If you gave up on the Blazers, it’s past time to come back. They have the 2 best players from last year’s draft, a great coach, play hard and are actually fun to watch.
2. Staying on the Blazers for a moment, what is the hold up with Pritchard being the GM? It is starting to really anger me. They guy that got us Roy and Aldridge and was the lone voice trying to get us Paul (don’t get me started on what a Paul/Roy back court would look like), should have been made Mayor of Portland, much less the GM of the Blazers. Come on!
3. One of the biggest sports announcements of the year was made today and I bet you might have missed it. It is huge. It affects every week of the football season, which for us fans, means more than a third of the year. Jaws is replacing Theisman on Monday night football. It is the best thing to happen to sports broadcasting since….well it is better than anything I can think of. Theisman was and is unbearable. His football analysis consisted of stating the obvious and repeating himself. That could have been excused however, if he had anything resembling a sense of humor or even the sense that there were other people in the booth with him. I’m not a huge Kornheiser fan, though I think he’s fine in moderate doses but I thought he did a good job last season. The only thing dragging him down was Theisman’s consistent inability to play along or even get jokes and the horrible chemistry that ensued. Now he’s gone. Oh, happy day. And he’s replaced by Ron Jawarski who is one of the most insightful NFL analysts in the business. Seriously, that guy is a great teacher. I learn stuff every time he opens his mouth on TV. I couldn’t be happier. Now if we could just somehow take the NFL away from CBS forever, we would really be getting somewhere.
4. I know this is something like basketball blasphemy in the current environment, but I haven’t been that impressed with Oden. I do think the OSU coaching staff and guards should be ashamed of themselves for how poorly they use him on offense. THROW HIM THE ____ BALL!!!! ALREADY, but he also seems to lack interest at times. He doesn’t play with a bounce or an energy to him that you see in guys like Amare and Howard. Not saying he won’t be a very good NBA player, but I am leaning more and more toward the Durant over Oden camp even though I have been reluctant.
5. I’d be willing to bet that the win against Oregon cemented Noah as the number 3 pick in this year’s draft.
6. All Portland fans seem very done with Zach Randolph and I finally reached a point early in the season where I could have lived with trading him. Now, I’m back to defending him. He has done everything they asked this year. He is the go to guy. He brings his game every night, he passes out of the double team, he has welcomed in the new guys and even defers to Roy at the end of games as he should. He still can’t play D and he makes way too much money and he doesn’t seem to be a very good person away from the court, but there is no way the blazers could replace what he gives them by trading him. And the notion that they are better without him is just silly.
7. I think David Carr is the best available FA QB the league has seen in a long long time. Some team may be able to go from out to in the playoffs with a single signing. He is one of the most acruate passers in the league and has simply suffered from having weak skill people around him and an offensive line made out of soggy cocktail napkins.
Finally, a long overdue response to my good friend Curt who responded on an old post. Here’s what Curt said and my response:
1. Nash is awesome, and I think he's definitely the best player in the game today, BUT let's not put him in the same category as MJ, Magic, or The Legend yet. Until he wins some championships, he's not there. And don't tell me he doesn't have the talent to win around him (especially this year). He's got to take the team to the next level consistently.
Response: Completely agree. I wouldn’t put him with that trinity yet and I don’t think I ever said otherwise. My comparison to Jordan was just that Jordan was, for a while, so much better than everyone else that people had to maufacture strange arguments and stretch the truth just to find someone else to give it to, so we didn’t have 5 or 6 consecutive years with Jordan winning the award. Nash is no Jordan, but he has reached that Jordan-like level of being a better fit for the MVP award than anyone else over a long stretch. You have to win rings to be up there with guys like Jordan and Legend and the fact that Nash has not yet is not a big knock on him, but does keep him out of that conversation. While we’re here, it kills me that people are now claiming Kobe should be the MVP because of his scoring run. I will admit that I am the biggest Kobe hater I know. Even still, I have to say I am impressed, make that astounded at the way he has been able to score at will and lift his team from the dumps back to winning again. A truly amazing run. That said, he also let his team suffer a 7 game losing streak down the playoff stretch. And now, if I were a Laker fan, I would be very concerned that the offense has become dependent on Kobe going for 40-60 a night. Well, let me tell you, they need Odom and Walton at least to be on their game to win a single game in the playoffs, and I’m not sure those guys are as involved as they should be. Their numbers have been good during the stretch and the offense has been putting up the points, but they have been barely winning with one guy scoring any time he wants. Not a good sign. Kobe is an amazing scorer and I believe has the skills to be as good as anyone who has ever played, but he’s not the MVP. I would still vote for Nash, though could easily be talked into Dirk.
2. Shaq should not be in the conversation at all. I don't like the theory that just because you're freakishly big, you are a great basketball player. All you are is a freak. And you can't include someone in a great "basketball player" discussion that has to be taken out of games in crunch time because he can't shoot free throws. How is that considered great basketball? He was great at taking up a ton of space, which by default made others better by giving them open looks, but let's not attribute that to skill. This goes for Chamberlain too. If you want to have a great big man discussion, my votes go to Kareem and Russell, with Duncan and Hakeem not to far behind.
Response: I like Shaq. Is he as skilled as Duncan or Ha? Not even close? What about Kareem or Russell or even the Admiral? No way. Shaq’s skills are pedestrian at best. His FTs are an embarrassment and I would not put him in the same category as a Kareem or Hakeem. However, he is, or at least was, a great basketball player. When analyzing a player, I prefer to look at results. If the shot is ugly, but he consistently shoots a high percentage, let’s focus on the end not the means. Size is not a skill in the same way that dribbling or shooting is, but it is an important part of the game. I firmly believe that I have some better basketball skills than Shaq and I’m not a very good player. I’m a better shooter and a much better ball handler, but no one is going to put me in the same conversation as Shaq….obviously. Why? For lots of reasons, not the least of which size matters.
Look at the results. Shaq’s size and strength and athletic ability allowed him to overcome some weakness in skill and allowed him to score at a high level, rebound at a high level, defend at a high level (once upon a time) and make his teammates better not just by taking up space (Stanley Roberts did that), but by drawing attention because whether it was size or skill one and sometimes 2 or 3 people could not guard him. Who cares why they couldn’t? They couldn’t and that’s what matters. If he can score 30 easy, high percentage buckets by being big and Iverson has to take 50% more shots and work the whole shot clock to do it just to score the same amount, who would you want on your team? You take the big guy and that makes him better. He can’t dribble like AI or shoot like AI but if the end result is that he scores the same amount and his team wins (unlike AI), then who is the better player? I’ll go with Shaq.
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