StumpTownSports

I love sports and I’m not generally a cranky guy, but getting a fresh dose of my least favorite sports talk guy on this morning’s commute must have put me over the edge because I find myself itching to complain about a few things I hate in the world of sports at the moment. Not a complete list. Not in ranked order. Just a few things off the top of my head. The Herd - The afore mentioned disfavored sports talk guy is none other than Portland’s own Colin Cowherd. Actually I don’t think he’s from Portland, just made an idiot of himself here for a while before ESPN inexplicably picked him up. My dislike for him started when he began referring to himself as a local media icon. I think that’s kind of like being a genius in that if you have to tell people, chances are real good that you are not. The Herd does know football, I will give him that. He seems to have a very keen eye for who is legit on the gridiron and cuts through a lot of the nonsense that floats around from pundit to pu...

I love to make sports predictions and mouth off about what I think is going to happen for a player or team or anything else in the world of sports. I find that being right in that situation allows you lots of bragging rights and no one really holds you to it when you’re wrong. So far my favorite “got it right” was when I called a local sports talk station before the NBA draft last year in response to a local beat writer who said the Blazers should offer every player on their roster to get the first pick so they could take Adam Morrison. I called in and said Morrison had a ceiling of Mike Miller and probably wasn’t that good and that the best player in the draft was Brandon Roy and that if the Blazers moved up they should take Aldridge. They ripped me for that on the air, but I’ve been bragging about that ever since. But for every time like that when I called it right, there are 50 times when I was wrong. Truthfully, I follow sports fairly religiously now and that has greatly boost...

FINALLY!!!! Coach Nolan can finally wear his suit . Great decision by the NFL even if it did take too long to make. Heaven forbid someone show a little class and respect. Apparently the NFL would prefer that everyone dress in that awful cut up sweatshirt that the Pats' coach embarrasses himself in every week. I really couldn't like Nolan any more at this point.

Just some things in the sports world to get off my chest: This is a brutal time of year unless your baseball team is in first place. Mine (the Giants) are far from it. That means, since the NBA finals are all but over, I have to wait until August before there is something interesting going on in sports. Fortunately, this promises to be one of the most interesting and entertaining NBA offseasons in recent memory. Of course, that may only be for me and other Blazer fans, but still…. I love that everyone is talking about the Blazers these days. I couldn’t help thinking as I saw Oden at last night’s game, that Portland may be on its way to where Cleveland is now. Cleveland merchandise is in the top 10 for the NBA even though they are a relatively small market that the rest of the country usually doesn’t care too much about. I don’t expect Oden to have that kind of marketing power (though Durant would), but Portland is relevant again in hoops even before they draft and that’s a good time. S...

Given the significance of this moment, I am way behind getting something posted. But I’m a family first kind of guy and as giddy as I am about the Blazers, that news paled in comparison to the news I got about my Dad yesterday. For those who don’t know, my Dad is fighting the return of a particularly nasty cancer. There is one treatment. It is a drug that either slows or stops the growth or is ineffective. We found out yesterday that preliminary results show that the drug is working. So, rather than watch the biggest draft of the last 20 years I spent the evening coaching my son’s T-Ball team and having dinner with my parents and siblings. It was hard to ignore the roughly 40 emails I got from friends about the draft, but in that context basketball is pretty meaningless. So, please excuse my tardiness in posting about yesterday’s lottery. But this is a sports blog, so let’s move on to my comments about yesterday’s improbable events. First, let me speak for reasonable, articulate Blazer...

HUGE day in the NBA today. If you are lucky, every 3 or 4 years the top pick in the draft is a player who can single handedly remake his team’s fortunes and change the landscape of the NBA. That’s if you are lucky. This year, we have the momentous blessing of 2 such players. Greg Oden and Kevin Durant will go 1 and 2 (probably in that order) in this year’s NBA draft and the lottery which will determine which lucky franchise gets one of those guys takes place tonight. Hopefully I will scrape up the time to do a recap and some analysis of who should go where later this week, but for now, here is how I would order the teams if I were in charge. Or maybe this is how I would rank the lottery teams from teams I would most like to have the top pick down to the least. 1. Portland….of course. With the top pick, they have to grab Oden. Both Oden and Durant fit a need and Durant may be the better player, but you don’t get size, strength, skill and ability in the combination you find ...

Now that the Lakers have been ousted and that ousting has been inevitable for several days now, you have already been seeing a lot written about what they should do now. Suddenly lots of people who were saying the Lakers would be crazy to trade away a great prospect center like Bynum for a veteran near the end of their career like Kidd are now changing their tune. When Bynum was one of the early surprises of the season and putting up good numbers everyone (the Lakers included apparently) thought he was the one guy they had to hold onto. Now everyone is killing the Lakers for not giving Kobe help. The real problem? Before you can really help someone, they have to (a) realize they need it and (b) actually want it. Kobe does niether. As a result, I believe Kobe’s Lakers are about to look very much like Iverson’s Sixers. Chad Ford on ESPN.com said that the Lakers could end up looking like the T Wolves, but I think the Sixers are a much better comparison. Two things conspired against...

Thought I would take a minute and pass on some stream of consciousness thoughts about the first weekend of the NBA playoffs. It was a great hoops weekend for me in that I actually got to watch quite a bit of hoops. Thanks to my lovely wife for putting up with that. If you haven't done so already, scroll down and check out my playoff predictions. I'm already looking pretty dumb. Good times. Detroit v. Orlando – Orlando’s just not ready. Detroit should absolutely sweep. No news there, but it was even more obvious than I expected. Detroit showed little to know weaknesses, though I still think they will against better teams, and Orlando just doesn’t have a legit number 1 or number 2 option on offense. Howard is a beast, but he is not a go to scorer. Great rebounder, decent defender and very limited offensively. And he’s a disaster when Detroit slows the game down. Bigger mystery though is what happened to Jameer Nelson this year? This was to be his year. He came on st...

Just so I can say I knew it all along, here are my predictions for the NBA playoffs: WEST Round 1 Dallas v. GS – Dallas in 5. GS will get hot and beat them in one game, but their D is so bad, that will be all. Phoenix v. LA – Phoenix in 6. LA is a mess since they went back to relying on Kobe to score all the teams’ points and the rest of the team are just the only ones in the arena with a better view than Jack. Still Phoenix plays such bad D and plays at such a consistent fast pace that the Lakers will be able to hang around a few games and even take a couple. By the way, anyone arguing Kobe is the MVP is right out of their mind. The league MVP doesn’t allow his team to back into the playoffs with a sub-.500 record after the all-star break and with the team playing its worst when he plays his best. Enough already. SA v. Denver – Spurs in 5 – Karl, AI and Melo against Pop, Parker, Manu and TD? Not even close. I don’t care how “hot” or “dangerous” the Nugs are. The only parts of...

This is the continuation of an email discussion on the NBA draft. Scroll down to the beginning post entitled "No Noah" and read that first. Here is my reply to Adam's response: KP - I'm completely convinced Pritchard was the brains behind last year's brilliant draft, so I think the Blazers are in good hands. I also completely agree about Roy and Brewer, so I'll comment on one other thing from your first response. If the Blazers keep Randolph, and barring injury, they will make the playoffs next year regardless of who they draft. Now if they get it right and get a decent 3 in the draft that helps, but if they resign Udoka (really much more valuable than people who don't watch this team play could know), and just trot out the same team as this year without the injuries, this team should beat out the Warriors and Clipps and Wolves for the 8th spot. I'm not saying that because I love Zach and I think Aldridge will be better, but Zach is a freaky score...

After my marathon response to Adam, he saw me and raised me as follows: Epic work right there. It is too much to handle to write one coherent response, so I am going to enter responses under each topic in your email below ... On Apr 12, 2007, at 6:48 PM, Stump, Joshua wrote: Yikes. I just have to trust Pritchard and I think I have reason to in this case. I think Portland will be looking for someone who can score because whether or not they want to keep Zach right now, they have to know that it could blow up at any moment. If they move Zach, they are going to need another proven scorer and no one thinks Noah is that guy. Pritchard went away from the flashy big name last year, so I'm just going to trust him to do it again this year. If KP was the architect of last year's draft as I have heard, then I think the Blazers are in good hands. I still think Brewer is the perfect piece, because as long as Aldridge kicks this Wolf-Pakistan-Whatever disease, he can do what Randolph does an...

From time to time (and by "time to time" I mean daily) I have some email conversation about sports with one or more of my buddies who love sports as much as I do more or less. Most of my friends manage to come up with much better insight and observation about it than I do, so when appropriate I will try to share that here. Below and in the next couple posts on this site is an email conversation with my buddy Adam who is a law student, professional sports blogger, fellow fantasy league owner and all around good guy and sports nut. Enjoy and feel free to join in the conversation by leaving your comments: Under the email heading "worst nightmare" Adam sent me the following: Draft Express is currently projecting your worst nightmare, Jo Noah to the Blazers at #6 ... http://www.draftexpress.com/mymock.php?page=official Not being able to resist commenting, I checked out the mock NBA draft on that site and then responded as follows: Yikes. I just have to trust Pritchard ...

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 ...