Carmelo (or the media) made it known that he will not be keeping his talents in Denver past this season. He was offered the max three year extension adding about $65M onto his contract to stay with the Nuggets, but all the reports I can find seem to think that since he hasn’t signed it, he isn’t going to. Could be true, could be rumors, but either way it doesn’t sound like Melo is all that into repping the mile high city anymore. Since he has until July of 2011 to sign the extension, I’m not sure why everyone is so sure he will pass up the money. I mean, what if they happen to catch lightning in a bottle and come to terms on a CBA way ahead of schedule? What if Melo finds out he would only be able to make around $10M per year unless he signs his extension before the old CBA expires? Would that make Melo sign his extension and stay since he knows he’d never get the same type of guaranteed money again? I have no idea, nor should I speculate since I’m not an agent or a player that gets to make that kind of decision. All I know is the landscape for the NBA has forever changed in the wake of Lebron’s ill advised decision. The league is already top heavy. Just looking back at the last few decades, the league was either ruled by the Celtics, Lakers, Bulls or Spurs (it feels weird putting the Spurs in there with the other three, but no denying what they did in the Duncan era). The NBA tries hard to preach that there is parody, and I felt that we were getting some parody after the Shaq/Kobe three-peat with new teams winning each year eliminating repeats for a little bit there, but now the landscape feels a lot more clear on who the favorites are again after the Lakers just went back to back. Now, once again isn’t much parody, and it will continue to go that way if superstars keep leaving their teams to join multiple superstars in another uniform. The hostage style takeovers of these teams during contract extensions and free agency is getting a little ridiculous. I feel like the players have all of the power, and while it’s hard to argue that they shouldn’t have the power since they are drawing the crowds, but I think we’ve fallen too far that way. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but give franchises that have the top flight players more power to be able to keep them there or at least make it much tougher for them to decide to leave. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: August 2010
Tyreke Doin Golf
I’m always a little shocked when a professional athlete looks this bad at a sport no matter what the sport happens to be. It’s not that I expect all pros to be good at every sport, but I do expect them to be able to mimick the basics of it, like hitting a golf ball past the womens tees. At least Barkley could make contact, not that it made it look any prettier than Reke, but at least the ball went somewhere. One thing we found through this charity event is that Tyreke won’t be leaving Sac anytime soon to join the PGA, because we all know he’s much more suited for weaving his way through NASCAR traffic!
Al Green at Outside Lands, San Francisco
I spent Sunday afternoon in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco taking in a wide variety of music performances, mostly unfamiliar stuff. The lineup wasn’t exactly my tastes, but once I saw Al Green on the roster I was sold. After I had decided late in the game to skip out on Lionel Richie back in July, I decided I couldn’t miss this opportunity. Others performances I saw were Nas & Damian Marley, Kings of Leon, a surprisinly awesome Phoenix, Slightly Stoopid was mostly a bathroom/beer break for me, but I managed to make it back in time for a guest appearance by Bay Area native Del the Funky Homosapien. Oh, and some band called Temper Trap. Anyway, back the Reverand. I was a little worried he was gonna be old and washed up, but the man’s still got it. There were a few parts where he got a little winded, including about halfway into the song below, but he also brought his A-game, so he deserved to get tired. He ran through his entire roster of hits, laid down a nice cover of Pretty Woman, and did a tribute to legends gone like the Four Tops, Temptations, and Sam Cooke. Right about then I turned to my friend and said 20 bucks say he does Dock of the Bay next. Sure enough, he jumps into Otis Redding’s legendary song about SF. Not only that, but then he follows it up with another Redding CLASSIC, I’ve Been Loving You Too Long. Here’s a clip of Ol’ Al gettin after it with Here I Am…………..
Matthew McConaughey Loves Beef
I’m not sure why I didn’t see this clip until today, but it was worthy of putting up in case some of you haven’t seen it either. There’s something creepy/funny about Matthew gushing about beef, so enjoy!
Kaymer Wins the PGA Championship, But Dustin Johnson’s Mishap Gained the Intrigue
I’ve been a Dustin Johnson fan for about two years now, and today when he sunk his birdie on the 17th/71st hole at Whistling Straights, I thought for sure he’d be the winner of his first major at the PGA Championship. I was really excited for the guy that I’d been pulling for to break through over the last couple seasons. I met him when he was first coming onto the scene, and he was a very likable guy. Really easy going, and someone you truly want to see succeed. He had more Phil than Tiger in him. I thought his coming out party was going to happen when he was leading in the US Open at Pebble Beach heading into the final round, but he choked hard on the 2nd and 3rd holes, and was never able to recover. Even MCeezy, who never watches golf was pulling for him in the US Open. He was right there at the Brittish Open, but Louie had an insurmountable lead after getting favorable playing conditions for each of his rounds, so DJ was an after thought on the leader board as was everyone else on that Sunday. I thought today was DJ’s day since he was one shot up with only one hole to go, but it wasn’t to be as he was once again a victim of himself.
Is it a bunker? I wouldn't call it one, unless the green fees were only $1 for that course....
His tee shot was bad, but the disaster wasn’t even him hitting his second shot from the middle of a hoard of onlookers. You’ve probably heard about it by now. His ball was sitting in what looked like a cart path like area that was trampled from numerous spectators walking on it all weekend. I’m not saying that it didn’t look like a bunker, but it was one f***ed up bunker that looked worse than any municipal course bunker I’ve seen. In the heat of the moment, it was tough to really confirm that he was in a bunker. When he addressed the ball in the f***ed up bunker, he ended up touching his club to the ground, and that cost him any chance at the major. There were boos raining down from the crowd as the ruling was made shortly after he putted out and was on his way to what seemed to be a three way playoff. The ruling honestly killed my enthusiasm for the playoff and the rest of the tourney. I can’t say I don’t agree with the ruling, since a rule is a rule, and they did post it in the locker rooms. The only winner in this situation was CBS, because all the drama at the end had to add to their ratings.
All in all, it was Johnson’s fault for not taking the time to check it out with a rules official or anyone just to make sure that it wasn’t a hazard. Actually if I was DJ, I’d probably have some choice words for Bobby Brown (his caddy) for not noticing that it was a hazard. Every players caddy should be reminding their player of rules on any particular course. The caddies sure make enough to be held accountable for that (10% of the winnings usually). DJ handled it classy though. He didn’t scream injustice or cry about it. He solemnly faced the reporters the same way he did after his implosion at Pebble, and gave them the disappointed answers they were looking for. As an avid golf fan, I’m happy that we will have a better storyline for the major news networks to talk about than how Phil and Tiger did. Hopefully this will be a tipping point to where we can start talking about all the great up and coming golfers in the mainstream media like McIllroy, Johnson, Watson, Ishikawa, Kaymer, and Day.
Lebron’s List Isn’t Shrinking
A couple days before Lebron had to add the 1992 Dream team to his list of people calling him out, Lebron took his talents to the amazing Cedar Point Amusement Park in Ohio last week. Not sure why he’s in a three point contest against some kids, and even more surprised that a scrawny white kid beat him, but fortunately for us Nike and Maverick Carter couldn’t hide camera phone footage of it like they did when he got dunked on. If Santa Claus, I mean, Lebron, is keeping up with his list he better throw on the names of the guys heckling him as well as the guy who shot this footage! Next week, hopefully he’ll be taking his talents to join the Jersey Shore crew.
RFP GM of the Day
Some of the NBA’s greats have taken a stab at putting together a basketball team. The logic has been that great players should be great talent evaluators. While Larry Bird had some relative success – I think – we all know how Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas fared. Meanwhile, less decorated ex-players like Otis Smith, Rod Higgins, Geoff Petrie, and Danny Ainge have had some solid runs at the helm of a franchise. Under this logic, it’s only inevitable that teams will look for the worst players to run the show. New Orleans took a step in that direction when they hired Dell Demps this offseason. The Phoenix Suns, however, saw their lousy ex-player and raised them quite possibly the worst player in NBA history.
Enter Lance Blanks.
Alright, so he may not be the worst player in NBA history, but if you hung around my friend Aaron and I in the early 90s he was. We were pretty big into collecting basketball cards. We spent a lot of time swapping cards, usually the obligatory guy he likes for a guy I like. I believe over time, I traded him all my Shaquille O’Neal rookie cards for all of his Kenny Anderson rookie cards. Pretty sound investment, huh? Anyway, for the guys we didn’t have an opinion on, their value pretty much hinged on scoring average. For example, Kelly Tripucka was pretty much nobody to us, but with a 20+ ppg average, we knew he was legit. Based on this scale, we were able to determine who the most worthless player in the NBA was: LANCE BLANKS. There must’ve been a hundred proposed card trades that ended in the line, “Dude, I’ll give you a Lance Blanks for him!” See, Blanks averaged an impressive 1.7 ppg in his rookie season, and only experienced a minor sophomore slump when he put up 1.5 ppg the following season. In 1992, he was the main piece in a blockbuster deal that sent him and Brad Sellers to Minnesota, in exchange for Gerald Glass and Mark Randall. They were arguably four of the worst players in the league at that time. Clearly Minnesota saw something in Blanks, and were able to harness that talent, and watched him blossom to career highs across the board. Blanks put up an astonishing 2.6 ppg, nearly a full point more than his previous career high. He averaged double digit minutes (10.5) and even earned a spot in the starting lineup twice!
Overall, I’m excited to see what Lance Blanks can do as the Suns GM. First order of business should be trading Steve Nash for the next Lance Blanks. He ought to look at Atlanta guard Mario West. In 39 games played last year, West dropped 30 points on the season, for a 0.77 ppg that Blanks could only have dreamed to achieve.
Doin Work Fail of the Day
We’re not trying to bite anyone’s material, so let’s make it clear this came from failblog.org. But here’s today’s Fannie Mae “Fail of the Day.” Personally, I think it’s a WIN for all of society….
Wednesday Clip Mania
Couldn’t get fired up enough about anything today to really write a post, and I was really trying to! Dyslecix and I went back and forth for a little bit on the usual e-mail chains, and found some clips to share with everybody. We’ve came up with a kid breaking his arm channelling his inner Kendry Morales, freestyle ladder climbers that are straight up insane, and a 77 year old making a loong putt for $10K. Aparantly Norma has numerous hole in one shots… Enjoy!
The Cardinal List
In the wake of Anthony Tolliver and “The Decision: Part Deux,” Chappy, By, and I got to thinking about former Warriors who put up meaningless numbers on terrible teams, but somehow fooled other teams into offering them ridiculous contracts. Tolliver is the perfect example. A D-League call-up who received significant minutes because no one else wanted to play. I know, I know, they were injured, but after the recent interview with Andris Biedrins, I’m starting to question the entire team’s dedication. But back to the subject, here’s a list of players who’ve benefited from a little time spent in the East Bay. I call it the “Cardinal List,” named after former Warrior Brian Cardinal, who had a stellar season in Oakland, and then signed a fairly large contract with the Memphis Grizzlies, which might even still be going. I’ll check it out when I get to him, but I’m willing to bet he produced more in his one season in Golden State than he did during his entire contract in Memphis.
Gilbert Arenas – Washington: Okay, this one’s a little different because Arenas turned into a legitimate star. But, he played two seasons in Oakland for a TOTAL of $844,ooo, and then proceeded to make about $82 million over 6 years in DC. He’s a little different since he’s a bonafide star, but a prime example of a player getting some shine on the Orena floor en route to a substantial payday. While the Wizards would probably argue that contract was a decent investment, the one they gave him after that may be one they regret.
Earl Boykins – Denver: Boykins didn’t exactly get his start in Oakland, but he certainly made his name there. While his numbers weren’t overwhelming – he did have 7 games of 20+ points though – he proved he belonged in the league. He went from making $528,000 with the Warriors to $2.5 million in Denver the next year.
Brian Cardinal – Memphis: Ah, the man the list was named after. Cardinal spent his first three seasons in Detroit and Washington, where he totaled 52 points. The Warriors, however, let him into 76 games, only to watch him average 9.6 ppg. He quickly became a fan favorite, but even the fans knew he wasn’t worth 4 yrs, $20+ million. Fortunately, Warriors management knew this too, and they let Cardinal go to Memphis. I was really hoping to see that he’d scored less in his 4 seasons in Memphis than that one in Golden State, but after tallying the numbers, he managed to rack up 897 points in Memphis vs. 733 in one season with the W’s. Pretty close.
Anthony Morrow – New Jersey: Where were you when undrafted rookie Anthony Morrow scored 37 points against the Clippers? Chappy and I were courtside at Staples Center, with zero idea that was going to happen. We were busy wondering if these free tickets were even going to be at will call, let alone be on the floor five rows in front of Mitch Richmond. But 37 points and 11 rebounds later, we were obviously on the Morrow bandwagon. I’m still a big fan, but Morrow is still just an average player. The Nets didn’t think so though, as they offered him four times his current salary, going from $736,000 to $4,000,000 this season.
CJ Watson – Chicago: I guess when you have Derrick Rose, you don’t really need the world’s greatest backup point guard. But, to pay CJ Watson well over three times what he was making last year, it seems like you could find a better value. After all, the Warriors found Watson, like many other players, in the D-League, so surely the Bulls could’ve found a similar player for a fraction of the price.
Anthony Tolliver – Minnesota: The guy who inspired this list. Yes, he did have a 34 point game last season, not coincidentally in Minnesota. But for a D-league call up who basically got minutes by default, I have no problem watching him walk up to the Twin Cities to the tune of $2.4 million per. The Warriors will probably find four guys next year for that price. And you know what? Those four guys will probably go on to sign inflated contracts elsewhere when their time is up.
Brandon Phillips is a Badass
About five or ten minutes ago, Brandon Phillips made his way to the plate for his first at-bat against the Cardinals since making the comment stating how he hated the Cardinals, and called them little bitches. It wasn’t what I expected, but at the same time, I’m not surprised with the outcome. Yadier Molina had some words for him. Shortly the benches emptied right after both took off their helmets. Phillips isn’t a shy guy, and had plenty to say right back to Molina. I like seeing this kind of hatred for an opponent, it’s been awhile since we’ve seen guys getting THIS heated! I love the retaliation factor in baseball, but Jaime Garcia didn’t even have a chance to bean Phillips. I’m sure Phillips shouldn’t have said those things yesterday, but it’s rare we have an athlete truly speak their mind. Well played Brandon, well played sir.
After things seemed to be calming down, Scott Rolen decided to pick it up again. Not sure what was said to him, but someone set him off! The Reds are tired of being the Cards doormat, and are ready to make this race a fight, literally. Just one more reason the Reds are a team I didn’t expect to care about. If you haven’t seen it, you have to check out the clip here.
Optimistic For Oakland Part I: Athletics
When MCeezy and I were in China, we were disappointed to see Stomper on a Chinese billboard, because the A's were struggling at the time, but maybe the trip overseas showed him what he was missing!
I’m very excited for all three of the Oakland franchises’ futures, more so than I have been for long while. I feel weird, because I’m not expecting/demanding playoff runs from any of them, but instead am just happy that all three franchises will be worth watching for the next couple of years, which is more than I can say for the last two years. It has been a downtime for all the Oakland sports area the last few years in terms of success, so naturally, there’s really only one way to go, up. So this three part series will be about why the fans of Oakland’s franchises can finally be optimistic about the future! Let’s start with the Oakland A’s, since their season is still going on, and everyone overlooks them outside of the Bay Area, and even in their area they are under covered because of the recent Giants success.
Today it was reported that our highly touted prospect, Chris Carter, is going to be called up to join the Athletics roster in Seattle tonight. I couldn’t be more pumped. Even if they weren’t planning on it, the injuries to Barton and everyone in the outfield made it a necessary move. I thought this would happen sooner in the season, but now is as good of a time as any with the DL getting even more crowded adding Matt Watson yesterday. Although I don’t see this move getting us to the playoffs this year, it will give us a better idea of what we have waiting in the wings for next year, and this is a move that has rejuvenated my enthusiasm that much more for the A’s. If you didn’t know, Chris Carter is the best power hitting prospect we have in our farm system, and we got him as part of the Dan Haren trade to Arizona that keeps on giving (we got Brett Anderson, Carlos Gonzalez, Chris Carter, Gregg Smith, as the major pieces that have made an impact so far). I hope Carter hits a few bombs, and supplants Cust as the DH/Platoon LF for the rest of the year.
Oakland currently sits in 2nd place, 7 ½ games back of Texas in the AL West. They still play seven more games against Texas this season, and have a mild shot at weaseling out an AL West title or maybe a Wild Card spot if Tampa Bay falls apart. Not that I see that happening, but I can always hope that the standings tighten up a little as we get closer to the end of the season. Seriously though, with close to 50 games left, a there is room for movement! Texas is heading to NY, BOS, TB, BAL, and MIN. The A’s meanwhile head to SEA, MIN, TOR, TB, and CLE. I view the Rangers schedule as harder (feel free to disagree I’d like to hear that argument), so we could conceivable be 3-6 games out going into our next series against Texas. If Texas starts faltering, the A’s could sneak up on everyone! Also, this season has made me like our manager, Bob Geren a little bit more. I’ve never been a fan, but seeing how he’s kept this youthful team together through tons of injuries over the last couple years, you have to give him some of the credit no matter how many of his late inning moves I don’t agree with. Continue reading
Let the Chris Carter Era Begin!
I still haven’t given up on the A’s making a run at the AL West, especially when they’re opening up a three game series against a last place team who just fired their manager, and the team they’re chasing is about to run a gauntlet of the top teams in the AL East. But regardless of how that ends up panning out, tonight is an exciting occasion because it will be the major league debut of Chris Carter. You may remember Carter as the player the White Sox traded for Carlos Quentin. Or better yet, you may remember him as one of the 14 players the A’s acquired for Dan Haren. Now that Carlos Gonzalez is lighting up the NL, Carter remains as the most highly touted prospect in that deal. Brett Anderson has already established himself as a legitimate big league starter, but Carter is the one who has the most upside.
It was 339 days ago today that Chris Carter made his AAA debut. Why do I know that? Because I posted about it when it happened, so there’s proof that I was on the bandwagon a long time ago. There’s a good chance that he’ll go 0-4 with 3 Ks tonight – he’s not exactly a “for average” hitter, but the power is there. Picture a right handed Jack Cust. NO, don’t do that! Let’s let Carter create his own description, because barring any disaster, he’ll be far better than Cust ever was.
Baseball Needs Some Juice
It seems as though everyone thinks baseball is on the decline, and that’s pretty tough to the latter with very few intriguing story lines for the casual fan this season. A couple weeks ago we saw the TV ratings come out that were very low, but the A’s were surprisingly up +48% as MCeezy quickly pointed out to me. We’ve seen attendance head south with half the teams drawing under 30,000 per game. The proclaimed best player in baseball just hit his 600th homer, but being a cheater and liar, so nobody seemed to care. The umpires are blowing calls left and right, and replay is still out of the question for some inconceivable reason. The worst part is even the umpires have said they wouldn’t mind it. In the YouTwitFace Era, we need instant gratification. We want everything now, and sitting through long baseball games everyday isn’t always that appealing. There are so many other options out there, it’s hard to keep anyone’s attention for very long anymore. How does baseball win back its viewers? Speed up games, and move into the YouTwitFace Era. Maybe even think about realignment to get people fired up about beating teams within their state/region. Maybe throwing out the whole AL and NL thing wouldn’t even be a terrible idea. I’d love to see a division filled with the California teams (A’s, Angels, Dodgers, Giants, Padres), I can already hear the smack talk between me and my friends. There’s no question that the DH causes games to be longer adding another hitter to the lineup. The AL games take close to a fifteen minutes longer to complete than NL games, so axe the DH. Maybe limiting the time a batter can step out of the box or putting a pitching clock up when runners aren’t on base (they already do that in college). There are tons of solutions, but baseball is so old school that they just don’t conform to the times. I will always love the game regardless of whether it conforms to the times or not, but if they don’t do something, they are going to be battling the NHL for the third most popular sport. One thing I’ve always liked about the NBA and NFL is that they do make an effort to make the game better for us, the fans. Hell, the NFL is looking into putting a mirco chip into the football to see if the ball crosses the goal line or first down marker, and why not use technology to their advantage! Have you ever heard someone regret starting to use the latest technology? Yeah, that’s what I thought… Continue reading
That’s The Bizness
Time for a little Saturday night tune. Not sure what happened to Big Rich, but he was my favorite rapper for a month or two back in 2007. Not only was he my neighbor, but he’s also half-Asian. I used to see him cruisin through the hood in his custom-wrapped van all the time – now THAT’s the bizness haha!
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