StumpTownSports

Draft Update I'm at the airport headed to LA to hang with my buddy Jeff for a couple days, but as you should expect, I made sure to take off from work early so I could plant myself in front of a TV and watch the Draft. So many rumours and so much speculation this year, plus Portland has a high pick which means the odds of something spectacular happening go way up. I thought the draft started at 4. It is now 4:25 and no pick yet. Please tell me every team doesn't get half an hour to make a pick. Yikes. Turns out Portland traded Ratlif and Telfair for Dickau and LaFrentz and the 7th pick. That's not quite as good as I thought. I still like the trade, though I don't relish telling my oldest son that the Blazers just traded away his favorite player. Pro sports is tough on a little guy. Here's the thing. Ratliff was over the hill, but Raef has never even been on the hill. Still, I think there are fewer years on his contract (it may even be expiring, I hope, I hope), so I...

Trade Alert. As you may have heard, it appears Portland has traded Telfair for the 7th pick and a player or two. I imagine one of them is the speedy hobbit known as Dan Dickau and I imagine the other player is even less significant. I will have more to say if this becomes final, but here are my thoughts for the moment: 1. Great trade for Portland. Portland invested so much in Telfair, his presence was going to hurt Jack. Jack had the makings to be a good starting PG in this league and Telfair doesn't and I don't want to see anything hurt Jack's progress. Telfair is a fine player for what he is, but he is Damon Stoudamire without a jumper and that just isn't going to win any championships. 2. I would love to see Portland pass on Ammo (if he's even still around to pick) and take Aldridge and this additional pick has a chance to be either Roy or Gay, both of whom I would take over Morrison. If Portland were to get Aldridge or Thomas AND Gay or Roy, I will not s...

Bye Bye Bassy? There is a rumour going around that the Blazers may ship Telfair to Boston for Dickau and the number 7 pick. Since there is some chance either Roy or Gay could be there at 7, let's just say I could not be more giddy about this idea. Blazers: Please, please, please pull the trigger on this one. This may also be a sign that I was right when I predicted Jack would be the PG of the future the moment he was drafted, only a year after they completely botched their pick and took Telfair about 13 picks early. More on the draft tomorrow.

Go Beavers! I'm really more of a Duck myself, but it is good to get some sports love for the Pacific Northwest. The fact that so many of those guys were local guys makes it even more fun. I will try to do a full draft breakdown tomorrow after the draft. No word yet on a Blazer trade for the top pick. I just hope they either don't trade or trade D Miles which is sort of like getting paid to get the first pick.

Uh oh. It is starting to sink in that there is nothing going on in the sports world that I even remotely care about except for Baseball. It is still a long way until football and the drama of the NBA draft and a .500 Giants squad just can not satisfy my sports cravings. This is trouble. I may have to resort to actually (gasp) playing a sport for the next several weeks. I'm beginning to sweat and get back spasms just thinking about how I'm going to endure this dry spell. Someone in the NBA better make a big trade soon or I'm going to go nuts.

Here are my sports thoughts for today. 1. The scene here in Portland related to the NBA draft is driving me crazy. Even if you don’t live in Portland, you may have heard about the “draft the stache” campaign aimed at convincing the Blazers that not a single person will attend their games or buy their merchandise unless they wager the entire future of the franchise on Adam Morrison. If the Blazers trade a valuable asset to trade up and get Morrison with the first pick, I’m going to launch an immediate investigation to determine whether Isaiah Thomas has secretly taken over the Blazers. The Blazers have, for a while now, been about the worst run franchise in sports with the exception of the Knicks and maybe the Hawks, but that would be a new low. If you’ve read this blog before you know I don’t hate Adam Morrison. In fact, he was by far my favorite player and I would not shut up about him at the beginning of the season to anyone who would listen. He was a sensationa...

Dwayne Wade is the man. He is skyrocketing up the rankings for guys you would give in answer to the question: If you were starting a franchise right now, who would be your first pick? I keep hearing that Dallas has accused Wade of faking his recent knee injury. What? Why would he do that exactly? Did he supposedly think Dallas might decide to change thier whole gameplan on the speculation that he might not play even though he said the entire time that he was going to play? Dallas is losing it in more ways than one. What did that exercise bike ever do to Dirk? While Mickleson was bouncing balls of the hospitality tent at the Open yesterday, why was everyone harping so much on his shot selection and not as much on the fact that he was just generally sucking? I love Johnny Miller and all, but I've never heard a commentator work his own records and stats into a discussion more than he does. Not cool. The Giants are looking good. They're hitting, they're pitching, they're ge...

Here are my 10 sports questions for the day and I’ve decided to throw in the answers for free. 1. Where’s Dirk? Seriously, where did he go? I commented after the last game that his performance in this series is making people look bad that jumped so quickly on his bandwagon and started making ridiculous comparisons to Larry Bird and such, but last night was shocking. I thought he’d bounce back or at least try to take the ball to the basket. Still, I’m guessing Dirk has a huge game Sunday night. If he doesn’t he’s going to have to give back his uberstar status that so many handed him before the series started and we’re going to have to start talking about him as a choke artist, which I just hope doesn’t happen. I’ve enjoyed watching the big German become great this year and I don’t to see it tainted. Come man, start taking it back inside. 2. Tiger back too soon? Looks like. I don’t blame the guy for coming back for a major or for being so bad, but it makes me sad. I i...

So, here’s my take on last night’s game 3 of the NBA Finals with 10 things it left me thinking 1. I miss Marv Albert and Steve Kerr 2. It might be too soon to move Dirk into the elite class of all time NBA stars like Magic, Bird, Jordan, etc. that 50 points he hung on Phoenix to save Dallas’ season was one of the all time great playoff performances to be sure, but he has basically no-showed in the Finals. They haven’t really needed him to carry them, but Dallas could be up 3-0 if Dirk had even tried to take over last night’s game. He had decent numbers I think, but they were very quiet and didn’t really have a huge impact. Where was he when Wade was going nuts and Miami made that run? Why wasn’t he demanding the ball on every possession like Wade was? They can’t cover him, right? I mean who gets Dirk? So why not give him the ball at the elbow on every fourth quarter possession? Dirk has gone next level this playoffs, but I’m not ready to put him in the highest level. Right now, he’s st...

Greetings faithful reader, I apologize for the long expanse of time between blog posts to this site, but I took vacation last week, was pretty much dead to the world of sports and am just now getting back into things. Sadly, I missed the first two games the NBA Finals, but after reading about them it doesn’t sound like I really missed that much. Tonight, though, I will get to watch probably the most important game of the series, at least for Miami, and get to see if Avery Johnson and his staff continues to completely out coach his opponent. Then, after the game either tonight or tomorrow, I will post my thoughts about that game and whatever else might happen tonight. Until then, here is what’s rattling around my brain at the moment related to sports. Your thoughts and comments in response are always welcome so long as they agree with mine and take some amount of time telling me how brilliant I am. I'm sure you understand. 1. Big Ben – First, if you listen to sports radio or have ot...

So, I just read Adam Hoff's very interesting article on what he calls the "Iverson Factor" on WIS (link to your right) and felt the need to comment so I'll do it here for lack of a better space. I just want to make a few brief points in response: 1. Iverson is overrated. I just had to get that off my chest to start with and will be happy to eplain exactly why some other time. 2. I agree that things like the good miss off penetration, the pass to the passer, the timeliness of a shot, are all things that can not be quantified, but matter as much as any stat. My hope is that people finally realize this and stop throwing around numbers in sports arguments as if they prove every point. Stats lie in every aspect of life and there is nowhere that they are less valuable than sports. John Hollinger's PER is a bad thing ver everyone. And this is coming from a stats nut who can't get enough of fantasy sports, but I've been watching the games enough to know, that wh...

Why was Charles Barkley dressed like Tony Soprano tonight? What was with the gold medalion and the open collar? Do they not have wardrobe people at TNT? And seriously, what happened to Magic? I've put on a few extra pounds as I've aged, but he's put on a few extra people. To think that he was once an elite athelete running a fast paced team is astonishing. That he is a spokesperson for 24 hour fitness is hilarious. I know it is looking like Dallas is going to beat Phoenix, but what happens if Phoenix plays Miami? Will Shaq score 60 points or not be allowed off the bench because his man will be open for 3 all night? That is the goofiest matchup I can imagine, and I'm not even sure I want to watch it play out. It's just wrong somehow. Dallas/Miami though would be epic. Man, I hope Miami beats Detroit. 715 was hit today. I honestly believe that all Bonds ever wanted out of baseball was to be considered in the conversation for who was the best ever. The guy who acts lik...

SOME PLAYOFF OBSERVATIONS I just took a welcomed brake from preparing for trial to watch the Miami v. Detroit game 3. Obviously this was a huge game for Miami and the next one is just as big, but I’m not chiming in to break down the game, but rather to offer a few observations about both the series going on right now. 1. Why do Antoine Walker’s coaches allow him to shoot so many 3s? If I were coaching him, I would tell him that if he ever shot a 3 that wasn’t wide, wide open or if his 3 to drive ratio fell below 5-1, he would sit the bench. Walker is an incredibly talented player and when he attacks the rim both he and the Heat are a much, much, much better team. When you play defense like a matador, you better do more than just miss a bunch of 3s on the other end. He was great tonight just because he took the ball in. It’s not complicated, so why is it so inconsistent? 2. What happened to Gary Payton? He was one of my favorite players for years and years after leaving OSU and playing ...

The Blazers should have gotten the number one pick. They did their best to lose every single game down the stretch and had more ping-pong balls than anyone. Thankfully, they were robbed. Giving the number one pick to the Blazers would be like putting a super-juiced up driver in the hands of a bad golfer. A longer driver in the hands of a bad golfer just means he hits the shot even further out of bounds. The Blazers are so inept when it comes to the draft, giving them the first pick would just be setting them up for another catastrophic failure. Without question they would have taken Center Patrick O’Bryant from Bradley. O’Bryant is a completely unproven bigman with plenty of “upside.” You know, like Olowakandi was when the Clippers made him the number one pick a few years back. Speaking of the Clippers, are the Blazers the new Clippers? Now that the Clips have advanced in the playoffs and the Hawks’ questionable spending on Joe Johnson now looks like a good move, haven’t the Blazers of...

The Draft The NBA Draft lottery is tomorrow and I have to say the whole thing has me down a bit. It reminds me how hopelessly bad the Blazers are and will be for a good while and it also reminds me that the Blazers could be in the same situation the Niners were in before last season. Obviously, not all number 1 overall picks are created equal. The year Lebron James or Tim Duncan or Reggie Bush or Mike Vick come out are a little bigger deal than the years of Alex Smith (not that I've given up on him already, but so far he's not lightening in a bottle) or Tyrus Thomas. As you can probably tell, I don't like this draft much. There are some nice players, but no franchise types. I see the best players down the line being Foye, Roy and Aldridge in that order, but only two of those guys work for Portland and both could end up being adequate backups. Not really a ton to get excited about here. Of course, that's assuming that the Blazers even get the first pick. If they do, my h...

Everyone talks about how important defense is in the playoffs, but I don't think people really understand what they are talking about. I think people tend to think about whether certain players can guard other players. A little deeper look reveals that, especially with the new zones, "team defense" is actually more important than individual matchups. You really only get an isolated one on one matchup a few times a game, so examining whether Rasheed or Ben Wallace can guard Z misses the point that there will be double teams, and switches and guys coming off the bench and on top of all that, only a few plays called for Z in the course of the game. Even the concept of team defense though, needs to be examined a bit closer. I think you really need 4 things to play D the way you need to in the playoffs. Here they are in order of importance free of charge: 1. Motivation 2. Rebounding 3. The Flinch 4. The ability to create turnovers. Now, here's what I mean in reverse order:...

Who's down with CP3? Yeah, you know me. I love Chris Paul. He is the most exciting player not named James or Wade to come along in years. He is Jason Kidd with a jump shot. Barring injury he will go down as no worse than a top 10 point guard of all time. You can make an argument (and someone did on ESPN.com) that he had the greatest rookie regular season by a PG of all time. Even better than Magic. He is quick, fast, unselfish, smart and plays with heart. He can hit from medium range, 3-point range, or take the ball to the basket and he makes his free-throws. I could go on and on and may devote many posts to him in the future, but for now I just want to say that the guy who voted for Deron Williams for rookie of the year, leaving Paul one vote short of a unanimous pick, should not only have his voting privileges removed, he should be banned from ever discussing sports publicly again. While we're here, I should note that the Chuckster made the same argument about the guys who le...

One of the things I like about sports is the way you can delude yourself into believing that somehow your life is connected to what is going on in a game. There's direct ways like fantasy sports and gambling and more subtle ways like refering to your team as "we", but there is also the glory of the sports opinion. Everyone has an opinion about sports and why not, it is just a bunch of games played by grown men. It's not life and death (unless you're talking about the crazy fans of World Cup soccer) and there are rarely important moral principles involved, so why not spout off about it.Even better, by making bold and brash predictions you can actually begin to believe the lie that the outcome of a game or success of a player is somehow connected to you. If you said this team will win and they do, you get to strut around as if their victory was somehow influenced by your prediction. And no matter how much you know deep down that this is all silliness, there's no...