Danny Ainge, what the hell are you thinking?
Ubuntu does not mean trade Kendrick Perkins and Nate Robinson for Jeff Green, dangle Ray Allen repeatedly as trade bait, rile up Rajon Rondo for no good reason, and send Big Baby to a conference competitor. Ubuntu has to do with team chemistry, not sending the binding agents across the league to better teams.
KG was right to yell at Stern about the shortened season, but his talk of chemistry should register with you, too, Danny Ainge.
Because this Celtics team is going where exactly? I like Brandon Bass slightly more than Glen Davis, but the Rickety Three are a year older and will be playing more games in more nights than at any time in their careers. They have a combined 41 years of NBA experience. Are these Celtics deep? Nope. Can Doc Rivers manage to make specialized role players work in case one of the Big Three or Rondo goes down? Maybe. But then where are we?
Danny, are you going to blow this team up? Because you sure aren’t giving them the tools for one last rally for a ring, let alone beat the Heat or Bulls.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Portland's Upcoming Season of Anxiety and Woe
Portland Portland Portland.
I’m shaking my head just thinking about you. Bill Walton. Sam Bowie. Brandon Roy. Greg Oden.
Your roster looks scrappy and beset by chips on shoulders. Gerald Wallace on the tail end of his prime. Marcus Camby reuniting with Kurt Thomas again in a lockout-shortened season. Wes Mathews. Nic Batum. Raymond Felton, now a journeyman. LaMarcus Aldridge as star and untapped potential. Greg Oden (or some sort of heart condition) as the dark cloud blocking sight of Aldridge.
Maybe the Blazers get Jamal Crawford.
So this becomes a 39 or 40 win season at best? For what? Another early exit? Another busted knee? With a healthy Oden and a reliable outside threat, the Blazers are a ferocious underdog, but sadly nothing more. These gritty Trail Blazers would have been more at home in another era.
I’m shaking my head just thinking about you. Bill Walton. Sam Bowie. Brandon Roy. Greg Oden.
Your roster looks scrappy and beset by chips on shoulders. Gerald Wallace on the tail end of his prime. Marcus Camby reuniting with Kurt Thomas again in a lockout-shortened season. Wes Mathews. Nic Batum. Raymond Felton, now a journeyman. LaMarcus Aldridge as star and untapped potential. Greg Oden (or some sort of heart condition) as the dark cloud blocking sight of Aldridge.
Maybe the Blazers get Jamal Crawford.
So this becomes a 39 or 40 win season at best? For what? Another early exit? Another busted knee? With a healthy Oden and a reliable outside threat, the Blazers are a ferocious underdog, but sadly nothing more. These gritty Trail Blazers would have been more at home in another era.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Winners, Losers, Whatever
The lockout is over. The schedule is out. And the Nuggets will have to reinvent themselves for the second time this year. And we're almost exactly where we started, minus 149 days of ridiculousness where the average NBA fan* became at least slightly versed in endearingly cute terms like BRI.
In case you're someone who frequently attributes false equivalency for fear of appearing biased, the lockout was caused by general managers radically overpaying players. Sure, NBA players are the highest paid professional athletes, on average. But maybe that is in part because the game itself requires fewer players on the playing field than any other team sport. Given that only 5 men may be on the court for a team at any given time, this allows for the individual contributions of any given player to matter substantially more than in baseball, football, hockey (with its interminable line changes), and soccer. Furthermore, for those of you who feel that the lockout was the players' fault, let it be noted that the last CBA was widely viewed to drastically favor players.
Here's a quick wrap of what the new CBA means for fans, players, teams, and a variety of owners: nothing has changed until 2013. Other than that, here goes:
Fans
For fans who attend games, there will be no positive financial effect and a negative effect on seeing those out-of-town teams some of your neighbors like (those teams with guys like Kobe, Melo, and LeBron). And, given the recent news regarding Chris Paul, the new CBA will not prevent great players in small markets from leaving for Los Angeles or New York. As fans, at least this year, we'll have a better attempt by the league at basketball burnout. Something like seven teams will play five games in six days** - which could mean a team plays at 8 pm on Saturday in Philly and at 1:30 pm on Sunday in DC. I'm sure that will lead to some awesome, fatigue-free ball. The timing for some teams may have a large and strange effect on the season. The Wizards, for example, have a particularly brutal April featuring games on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. Those back-to-back-to-back games could increase the likelihood of injury, lack of focus, and missed shots. Unfortunately for the Wizards***, if they build playoff momentum and are a bubble team, that April schedule will sink them.
We're fans. We're taken for granted. It's a given. Even when teams "really give back to the fans."**** What the NBA almost did was screw over the casual observer who can talk at length about how Kobe is or isn't the best player in the league yet pays no attention to facts.
Players
Superstars face about a 20% decrease in maximum salary compared to what they would have due to the new rules if they choose to leave their current team. The old rules allowed them to get their max contract and engage in the olde-fashioned sign-and-trade. Now, not so much. Regardless of this financial argument against mobile free agency, general managers retain the right to completely screw themselves over for players thanks to concessions made in the new CBA - for instance, teams have to use up 85% of the salary cap in payroll. Think about the effect on a team like Sacramento: out of the running for a pretty good free agent center (Tyson Chandler or Nene Hilario), but with the ability to overpay Sam Dalembert, oh, Kings fans, I am sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up. You guys will overpay for someone who will take you out of the lottery but not into the playoffs. In other words, the new minimum expenditures rule will force you into overpaying for someone like James Posey for no apparent reason other than to place you firmly in draft hell.
Teams
I've already mentioned that the Kings are going to do something stupid in the short run (and I don't mean moving to that bastion of culture that is Anaheim). They're bound to do so. The Heat, however, will rock this new CBA for as many Eastern Conference Finals as possible, which could mean 4 rings before the new tax provisions finally kick in. Dallas also wins in the short run as do the Lakers and Knicks. Basically, any team that was spending a lot will keep doing so. Had last year's OKC and Memphis teams been dealing with the new CBA, Dirk wouldn't have a ring.
That being said, formalize in your brain, if only for a second, a picture of Tom Thibodeau.
That will do. Now think about how the Bulls lost last year. LeBron covered Rose, right? Now think about Thibodeau's defensive schemes that made Paul Pierce and Carlos Boozer look worthwhile. What do you think Tom Thibodeau woke up thinking about every day for the past 149 days + the days since the end of the Eastern Conference Finals? Look at Tom Thibodeau again. Look. Pretend, for a second, that he has developed a new defensive scheme for the Miami Heat as currently and forever comprised. Pretend, for a second, that Tom Thibodeau hasn't calmly said goodnight to his family and then gone to his garage, donned a mask, grabbed a power tool, and spent the next 17 hours in solace etching his artistic interpretations of this season upon wood, stone, and a few unexpecting pieces of siding. If you're Tom Thibodeau, you have a defense that stops the Heat that you try on the Heat. But you also have an offense that you don't unveil against the Heat until they don't have any ability to adapt. The lockout: where players kinda stayed in shape and Tom Thibodeau made sure his dungeon was ready. Totally creepy.
What Western Conference team is currently built to win it all this year? Not the Mavs given their free agent problems. Definitely not the Lakers. The Thunder? The Grizzlies? If the Grizz re-sign Battier, maaaaybe, but Rudy Gay isn't filling any defensive void. The Thunder? Yes.
Owners
Now: Arison, Buss, Cuban, Reinsdorf, Bennett. Those guys won. Why? Because the new CBA doesn't have any effects on their abilities to win rings. Now ask yourself, which teams were likely to win rings in the next few years anyway? Whoever owns the Heat, Lakers, Mavericks, Bulls, or Thunder. Nothing changed and there is only one small market team there: the Thunder.
Sorry, Spurs fans.
* - I wrote NBA fan, not basketball fan nor basketball viewer.
** - The Wizards are the only team that plays 2 sets of 5 in 6. Brutal, no?
*** - I understand the Wizards would have to make several big moves to be a playoff team this year and that being a playoff (or even borderline playoff) team this year is not necessarily a good thing for the health of the team in the long run.
**** - The Green Bay Packers may be the exception. Amazing lawyer and slightly depressed Sooners fan Jimmy pointed out that after the highly successful Green Bay fan acquisition, the NFL essentially forbid mass fan ownership. If only cities had some fucking balls, right? If we had city-owned teams and a salary cap system, we'd have far more fan support and far more responsible financing of stadiums. Also, I'd be willing to bet that every single league with a cap would have parity.
In case you're someone who frequently attributes false equivalency for fear of appearing biased, the lockout was caused by general managers radically overpaying players. Sure, NBA players are the highest paid professional athletes, on average. But maybe that is in part because the game itself requires fewer players on the playing field than any other team sport. Given that only 5 men may be on the court for a team at any given time, this allows for the individual contributions of any given player to matter substantially more than in baseball, football, hockey (with its interminable line changes), and soccer. Furthermore, for those of you who feel that the lockout was the players' fault, let it be noted that the last CBA was widely viewed to drastically favor players.
Here's a quick wrap of what the new CBA means for fans, players, teams, and a variety of owners: nothing has changed until 2013. Other than that, here goes:
Fans
For fans who attend games, there will be no positive financial effect and a negative effect on seeing those out-of-town teams some of your neighbors like (those teams with guys like Kobe, Melo, and LeBron). And, given the recent news regarding Chris Paul, the new CBA will not prevent great players in small markets from leaving for Los Angeles or New York. As fans, at least this year, we'll have a better attempt by the league at basketball burnout. Something like seven teams will play five games in six days** - which could mean a team plays at 8 pm on Saturday in Philly and at 1:30 pm on Sunday in DC. I'm sure that will lead to some awesome, fatigue-free ball. The timing for some teams may have a large and strange effect on the season. The Wizards, for example, have a particularly brutal April featuring games on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. Those back-to-back-to-back games could increase the likelihood of injury, lack of focus, and missed shots. Unfortunately for the Wizards***, if they build playoff momentum and are a bubble team, that April schedule will sink them.
We're fans. We're taken for granted. It's a given. Even when teams "really give back to the fans."**** What the NBA almost did was screw over the casual observer who can talk at length about how Kobe is or isn't the best player in the league yet pays no attention to facts.
Players
Superstars face about a 20% decrease in maximum salary compared to what they would have due to the new rules if they choose to leave their current team. The old rules allowed them to get their max contract and engage in the olde-fashioned sign-and-trade. Now, not so much. Regardless of this financial argument against mobile free agency, general managers retain the right to completely screw themselves over for players thanks to concessions made in the new CBA - for instance, teams have to use up 85% of the salary cap in payroll. Think about the effect on a team like Sacramento: out of the running for a pretty good free agent center (Tyson Chandler or Nene Hilario), but with the ability to overpay Sam Dalembert, oh, Kings fans, I am sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up. You guys will overpay for someone who will take you out of the lottery but not into the playoffs. In other words, the new minimum expenditures rule will force you into overpaying for someone like James Posey for no apparent reason other than to place you firmly in draft hell.
Teams
I've already mentioned that the Kings are going to do something stupid in the short run (and I don't mean moving to that bastion of culture that is Anaheim). They're bound to do so. The Heat, however, will rock this new CBA for as many Eastern Conference Finals as possible, which could mean 4 rings before the new tax provisions finally kick in. Dallas also wins in the short run as do the Lakers and Knicks. Basically, any team that was spending a lot will keep doing so. Had last year's OKC and Memphis teams been dealing with the new CBA, Dirk wouldn't have a ring.
That being said, formalize in your brain, if only for a second, a picture of Tom Thibodeau.
What Western Conference team is currently built to win it all this year? Not the Mavs given their free agent problems. Definitely not the Lakers. The Thunder? The Grizzlies? If the Grizz re-sign Battier, maaaaybe, but Rudy Gay isn't filling any defensive void. The Thunder? Yes.
Owners
Now: Arison, Buss, Cuban, Reinsdorf, Bennett. Those guys won. Why? Because the new CBA doesn't have any effects on their abilities to win rings. Now ask yourself, which teams were likely to win rings in the next few years anyway? Whoever owns the Heat, Lakers, Mavericks, Bulls, or Thunder. Nothing changed and there is only one small market team there: the Thunder.
Sorry, Spurs fans.
* - I wrote NBA fan, not basketball fan nor basketball viewer.
** - The Wizards are the only team that plays 2 sets of 5 in 6. Brutal, no?
*** - I understand the Wizards would have to make several big moves to be a playoff team this year and that being a playoff (or even borderline playoff) team this year is not necessarily a good thing for the health of the team in the long run.
**** - The Green Bay Packers may be the exception. Amazing lawyer and slightly depressed Sooners fan Jimmy pointed out that after the highly successful Green Bay fan acquisition, the NFL essentially forbid mass fan ownership. If only cities had some fucking balls, right? If we had city-owned teams and a salary cap system, we'd have far more fan support and far more responsible financing of stadiums. Also, I'd be willing to bet that every single league with a cap would have parity.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Random NCAA News
Only half of Div-I Black football players graduate; less than 40% of Div-I Black male basketball players. However, Black collegiate athletes are more likely to graduate than their non-athlete Black peers.
In Div-I Men's Bball, Georgetown beats #12 Alabama with a long-three from Hollis Thompson with 1.8 seconds left, proving beyond a doubt that the Tide are overrated, and the Hoyas should be ranked.
Monday, November 28, 2011
"NBA Lockout Ends and Players Get Played"
I know I wrote a piece talking about how I didn't care about the NBA lockout, but, well, that doesn't mean I'm happy with the outcome. This piece by David Zirin in the Nation pretty much sums up my feelings on this whole mess (short: "the rich got richer, the players got played and the fans didn’t get a damn thing"):
There are no promises that the owners will plow this newfound lucre into their teams. In fact, there are now greater restraints on spending than before. There are no assurances that any funds will be earmarked for coaches or scouts. There are no announcements that any of these savings will translate into lower ticket prices or NBA package discounts for fans. All it means is that the owners have received a financial windfall because they own and we don’t. Now Donald Sterling, owner of the LA Clippers, can buy some more slums. Now Phil Anschutz, minority-boss of the Lakers, can keep fighting the teaching of evolution in schools. Now Dick Devos of the Orlando Magic can give even more generously to Focus on the Family. Now every shadowy Koch brothers/Karl Rove political outfit that takes unlimited contributions will get a serious windfall just in time for the 2012 elections. Break out the bubbly.
This should sting every player, because coming off a year with record revenues, they should have been getting more, and instead they took historic cuts. Instead, their contracts are now not fully guaranteed. Instead, they are weakened. They are weakened even though they are the game. For the millions who paid good money to watch the Chicago Bulls player Michael Jordan soar, no one ever paid a cent to see the Charlotte Hornets owner Michael Jordan molt. Athletes are different than typical workers, and not just because their paychecks tower over our own. They are different because they fulfill the roles in production as both workers and product. They are the shoemaker and the shoe. Or as former Washington football great Brian Mitchell said to me, “In a restaurant, a chef cooks a steak. In sports, we are the chef and we are the steaks.”
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Sibling Rivalry, Thanksgiving Style: Harbaugh vs. Harbaugh!
Green Bay v. Detroit and San Francisco vs. Baltimore. What a schedule for to be thankful for.
Who's got it better than us? Noooo-body!
Monday, November 21, 2011
L.A. Galaxy wins MLS Cup!
credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times / November 20, 2011
More pictures here, via LAT.
And the wrap-up:
But [the MLS Cup win] may have been most important for Beckham, who needed a title to add an exclamation point to his controversial and transformative five years in MLS, ones in which he brought the Galaxy unprecedented levels of credibility and cash yet couldn't bring them a title.
Now, however, he's a triple-crown winner, with his MLS championship joining ones won with Manchester United and Real Madrid.Quad-crown, if you count that UEFA Champions League win along the way.
Oh, and here's captain Landon Donovan's beautiful, beautiful goal. Doesn't matter that there was just one all night; the one they got was just perfect:
Monday, November 7, 2011
Weekend Sports Wrap-Up: NCAAF, NFL, MLS
And Then There Were Five... But It Didn't Matter.
Last week, there were six undefeated teams, but it was inevitable that this week there would be no more than five, due to the long-anticipated Clash of the Titans between then-one-and-two LSU and Alabama.
A superb defensive performance on both sides led to an altogether boring exhibition as the Tigers beat the Crimson Tide 9-6 in OT. The big surprise was the BCS fallout... or lack thereof. Despite the loss, the strength of the Tide's schedule means the computers love them, and they drop only one spot to #3, Oklahoma State jumps to #2 after barely holding off an impressive Kansas State, and Stanford stays frosty at #4, despite jumping to USA Today #2 and Harris Poll #3. Boise State is the big loser this week, as the polls show that despite some computerized love, voters controlling 2/3 of the BCS score will never choose the Mountain West goliath over a one-loss SEC team (though Big 12 and Pac 12 are apparently different stories) Could be worse, Boise State; you could be in C-USA.
Oklahoma State holds their destinies in their own hands with a win over Oklahoma. Stanford needs to sweep their tests against #7 Oregon, overrated Notre Dame, and probably Pac 12 Southern Division champ Arizona State to even stay in the running, and then will likely need help via a Cowboys loss. If both the Cowboys and Cardinal drop a game somewhere? Get ready for another 9-6 Clash of the Kickers...
A superb defensive performance on both sides led to an altogether boring exhibition as the Tigers beat the Crimson Tide 9-6 in OT. The big surprise was the BCS fallout... or lack thereof. Despite the loss, the strength of the Tide's schedule means the computers love them, and they drop only one spot to #3, Oklahoma State jumps to #2 after barely holding off an impressive Kansas State, and Stanford stays frosty at #4, despite jumping to USA Today #2 and Harris Poll #3. Boise State is the big loser this week, as the polls show that despite some computerized love, voters controlling 2/3 of the BCS score will never choose the Mountain West goliath over a one-loss SEC team (though Big 12 and Pac 12 are apparently different stories) Could be worse, Boise State; you could be in C-USA.
Oklahoma State holds their destinies in their own hands with a win over Oklahoma. Stanford needs to sweep their tests against #7 Oregon, overrated Notre Dame, and probably Pac 12 Southern Division champ Arizona State to even stay in the running, and then will likely need help via a Cowboys loss. If both the Cowboys and Cardinal drop a game somewhere? Get ready for another 9-6 Clash of the Kickers...
The Colts Look to Get Luck-y, Who the Hell is "Matt Moore"?!
Because I'm a Niners fan, I have to start by saying that this team is the real deal, and I take back everything bad I ever said about Alex Smith. It is obvious now that he suffered from a lack of good coaching and the churning of offensive coordinators (5 in his tenure at SF) and head coaches and hair-brained schemes. But now he has Molder of Men Jim Harbaugh at the helm, and he looks like a completely different QB. He's no dynasty QB, and never will be, but this year he's playing scrappy, smart West Coast Offensive like he grew up doing it, rather than throwing bombs with the Utes' spread offense. 6 years is a long time.
Look at their schedule: The 49ers, #2 in the entire NFL, have only played one NFC West game, putting them on track for a 12-win season, and no one's keeping them out of the playoffs this year. Not bad for a team who finished 6-10 last season and has a Wikipedia subsection called "The difficult years" spanning the better part of a decade. The real test will be how they fare against playoff-quality teams, of which they have three: next week hosting the NFC leading NY Giants (coming off a huge upset of Tom Brady's struggling Patriots), Week 12 at ascendant Baltimore, and hosting the Steelers in Week 15. I'm especially interested in seeing how the Niners' middle-of-the-field-heavy offense handles Ray Lewis and the assassin-laden Ravens D.
Okay, since no one but me cares about the Niners, how 'bout them Colts? With Miami tearing about Kansas City like butter, the Colts are the proverbial Cheese, standing alone. Which means that they are winning the Suck for Luck sweepstakes. Given that the team is by this point pretty obviously worthless without Peyton Manning, you've got to figure that Andrew Luck is going to Indy come draft time. Which is pretty much the best thing that could happen to both the Heisman-frontrunner and the Colts dynasty. Peyton will be back neck year, it seems, and Luck would have valuable time to train under a master, a la Joe Montana/Steve Young, or Brett Favre/Aaron Rodgers. And we know how those guys turned out. Better to red shirt a few years under one of football's greats than to try to get into a messy, high-pressure, rookie-year fight for the starting job against the likes of Sam Bradford or Matt Moore...
Speaking of Matt Moore... who the hell is this guy? The Dolphins are a frighteningly bad 1-7 this season, but against what we thought was a solid Kansas City squad this year--as shown by their status as AFC West leaders--the 5th year, former Beaver (Oregon State, for you non-Pac 12ers) Matt Moore comes out of nowhere and throws 17/23, 244 yds, 3 TDs, no picks, earning him a 97.7 QB rating and the top QB performance of Week 10... this is a guy who has a QB rating of 79.7 and prior to Sunday, threw 1 TD and 4 INTs. Is he the real deal, or was KC really just that bad?
I'm voting that KC is just that bad.
MLS Cup, Nov. 20 @ 9p EST, on ESPN!
The MLS Cup Final will be the Houston Dynamo at L.A. Galaxy, as the Home Depot Center is the site of this year's Cup Final. Only one team (DC United) has ever won an MLS Cup at their home stadium.
The Houston Dynamo apparently looked really good against Sporting KC at Livestrong Sporting Arena, the gem of MLS stadiums. I wouldn't know, I didn't see any of it.
But I have seen the goal embedded here from L.A. Galaxy's 3-1 win over Real Salt Lake, a beautiful service from David Beckham right on the head of Mike Magee, who in now 3-for-3 in this playoff season, scoring every game. Mike Magee is in the right place at the right time, which is pretty much exactly what you want from a guy who can't necessarily make things happen on his own, but is fast and accurate. Good tactics by Bruce Arena on that one. The other two goals came off a Landon Donovan PK and Irish MNT captain Robbie Keane's first MLS playoff goal. Keane really stepped up, and was a one-man offense keeping RSL honest near the end of the game when the rest of the Galaxy had set its heels in and RSL was pushing everyone up in desperation. He'll be key to beating the Dynamo. The big question coming out of last night's match-up is: Where is Landon Donovan? This playoff run has been all Beckham, all the time, and Keane is making chances, even if he's only scored once. But Donovan seems relatively quiet, and will need to step up for the final.
The L.A. Galaxy and Houston Dynamo each have 2 MLS Cups, though the Dynamo franchise has another two from their previous incarnation as the original San Jose Earthquakes (not to be confused with the revitalized, current expansion team... it's a Cleveland Browns/Baltimore Ravens thing, you understand). Dynamos are 2-2 in the Cup Finals, Galaxy are 2-4. This will be the Galaxy's 7th visit to the MLS Cup Final, an MLS record. David Beckham has won silverware in the English Premiere League (Man U:6), La Liga (Real Madrid:1), and UEFA Champions League (Man U:1) and looks to add one in MLS to his trophy case in what may be his last season in the States. The teams split their meetings in the regular season, with L.A. winning at HDC back in may (1-0), and losing Houston's regular season finale at Houston (1-3)... but take that 1-3 loss with a grain of salt, since only one of the Galaxy's current A-team (DeLaGarza) started. Donovan Rickets was the starting goalie at the time, and the only starter playing as Galaxy had already locked up the Supporter's Shield. Take a look at the 10/23 L.A. lineup:
Donovan Ricketts, Frankie Hejduk (Ryan Thomas 76), Gregg Berhalter, Dasan Robinson, A.J. DeLaGarza, Hector Jimenez, Chris Birchall, Dan Keat, Michael Stephens, Jovan Kirovski (Chad Barrett 62), Jack McBean.
No Beckham, Donovan, Todd Dunivant, Keane, Magee, Omar Gonzalez, Chad Barrett, Sean Franklin, Josh Saunders, or Juninho. The Dynamo are a heavy underdog coming into this... for one thing, they'll be facing the newly explosive Robbie Keane up front, and Houston will be without team MVP and crucial midfielder Brad Davis, out with a torn right quad in the 39th minute against Sporting KC.
Friday, November 4, 2011
The Other Sunday Football: MLS Conference Championships
The Eastern and Western Conference Championships are now set, both for Sunday, but unfortunately with only one accessible to much of soccer-loving Americans.
For whatever reason, ESPN has only secured the rights to one of two of these semi-final match ups, so those without Fox Soccer Channel (damn you, RCN) will miss the 5:30p EST Eastern Conference Championship match up between Sporting Kansas City (#5) and Houston Dynamo (#6). Dynamo are unbeaten in their last eight consecutive games (6-0-2), their last loss coming in September to--you guessed it--Sporting KC. Sporting is in equally good form over the same period (6-1-3), having only dropped a one-goal loss to Real Salt Lake in the week following their drubbing of Houston.
The Dynamo are 2-1 in Conference Championships, though this is their first in the East (having been a Western team until this season, with the addition of expansion teams Vancouver Whitecaps and Portland Timbers). Sporting KC is 2-5 in Conference Championships, and 0-1 in Eastern Conference Championships since their 2005 shift from the West.
You have to love playoffs.
The rest of us will be sad for missing the opening act, but still quite pleased with a class of the titans as L.A. Galaxy (#1) hosts rivals Real Salt Lake (#3) at 9p EST, on ESPN (ONE!)/ESPND/ESPN3.com/TSN2 (for you Canadians), at the Home Depot Center. Everything went right for the Galaxy last night: despite losing an early, 4th minute goal on poor defending by the entire back four (special shout out to Omar Gonzales who was sloppy all night), the NY Red Bulls suffered a huge blow when Finnish international and key midfielder Teemu Tainio went out in the 14th minute on a hamstring injury. The momentum swung sharply, and though the Red Bulls showed flashes again a few more times, they never did regain their stride, with only 3 shots on goal the whole match (compared to Galaxy's 6). Playoff hero Mike Magee has a perfect header off of a perfect, Beckham-like service from Beckham-like midfielder David Beckham for the equalizer and lead on aggregate in the 42nd minute. A wonderful breakaway by David Beckham in the 75th resulted in a foul within the box, and Landon "I-never-miss-a-PK-unless-the-World-Cup-is-on-the-line" Donovan predictably scored on the penalty to seal the deal.
Clearly, the man of the match was David Beckham. Both scores last night ran through his efforts, and he's been having a hell of a season (his last on contract with the Galaxy), playing his heart out even after taking a nasty beating early on. The Galaxy will look to him again, though they'll need Donovan and Irish MNT captain and forward Robbie Keane to step up and carry their share of the load on the offensive side.
Since the 2011 MLS Cup Championship will be played at HDC, the Galaxy have been spared post-season travel (a huge blessing for the beleaguered USMNT star Landon Donovan) have nothing to do now but focus on winning. Galaxy are 1-1-0 against Real SL this year, destroyed in the early season away test at Rio Tinto Stadium (1-4), and besting Salt Lake at home last month (2-1). The last time Real Salt Lake and the Galaxy met in the playoffs was when Salt Lake denied the Galaxy the 2009 MLS Cup in a shoot out. The Galaxy are 6-4 all-time in Western Conference Championships. They are seeking their 3rd MLS Cup, Landon Donovan's fourth, and David Beckham's first. Real Salt Lake is 1-1 in Western Conference Championships.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
MLS Playoffs: Double-Header Tonight on ESPN2
Tonight on ESPN2 (and ESPND), it's a double-header (of sorts) in the MLS Playoffs.
At 8:30p EDT, Philly (#8) tries to come back against Houston Dynamo (#6) after dropping the Union's home leg, with a 1-2 deficit to make up (note: unlike many leagues abroad, MLS home-home playoffs are pure aggregate; there is no "away goal bonus," so the Union can tie with a 1-0 result and take it overtime and shoot-out).
The winner takes on rebranded Sporting KC (#5) (the club formerly known as the Wizards, and the State of Kansas's only professional major league sports team).
At 11p EDT, Supporter Shield's winner and star-studded L.A. Galaxy (#1) defends their 1-0 lead at home over also-star-studded N.Y. Red Bulls (# 10). The Home Depot Center in Carson City, CA is as impenetrable this year as Real Salt Lake's Rio Tinto Stadium was last season; like RSL in 2010, the Galaxy have not lost a game at HDC in 2011. To continue their MLS Cup quest this year, the Red Bulls will have to break that streak. Good news for them is that no other team is better suited for the task; the Red Bulls have the league-best record against the Galaxy (1-0-1), with a tie at their last visit to HDC. A tie won't cut it this time, though. Only a one-goal win will take it into overtime and possible shootout.
The winner takes on perennial power-house Real Salt Lake, the overall #3 seed in the playoffs, who managed to just hold on to a big lead and eke out a win over other-perennial-power-house Seattle Sounders (#2).
At 8:30p EDT, Philly (#8) tries to come back against Houston Dynamo (#6) after dropping the Union's home leg, with a 1-2 deficit to make up (note: unlike many leagues abroad, MLS home-home playoffs are pure aggregate; there is no "away goal bonus," so the Union can tie with a 1-0 result and take it overtime and shoot-out).
The winner takes on rebranded Sporting KC (#5) (the club formerly known as the Wizards, and the State of Kansas's only professional major league sports team).
At 11p EDT, Supporter Shield's winner and star-studded L.A. Galaxy (#1) defends their 1-0 lead at home over also-star-studded N.Y. Red Bulls (# 10). The Home Depot Center in Carson City, CA is as impenetrable this year as Real Salt Lake's Rio Tinto Stadium was last season; like RSL in 2010, the Galaxy have not lost a game at HDC in 2011. To continue their MLS Cup quest this year, the Red Bulls will have to break that streak. Good news for them is that no other team is better suited for the task; the Red Bulls have the league-best record against the Galaxy (1-0-1), with a tie at their last visit to HDC. A tie won't cut it this time, though. Only a one-goal win will take it into overtime and possible shootout.
The winner takes on perennial power-house Real Salt Lake, the overall #3 seed in the playoffs, who managed to just hold on to a big lead and eke out a win over other-perennial-power-house Seattle Sounders (#2).
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Looking for an angry fix
I'm sure many of our three readers are well familiar with The Basketball Jones blog. I'm not so sure how many folks know about the amazing song by Cheech & Chong, though. Pardon the indulgence, but in sixth or seventh grade, I bought Cheech & Chong's Greatest Hit - a collection of skits and songs with meaning I was only beginning to comprehend.* On that wonderful tape was the tune "Basketball Jones." You only need hear it once and every damn time you're jonesing for anything at all, be it 3 am pizza, a cheeseburger during the work day, or the velvety smooth caress of a cold beer, the song will pop into your head loudly and proudly.
The song was released in 1974 along with the short film. In 1974, the Celtics beat the Bucks (back when the Bucks were in the Western Conference). The following year, Rick Barry's Golden State Warriors** swept Wes Unseld's Washington Bullets in the NBA Finals. Regardless, and I know at least one guy will like this, check out the amazing lineup for the song:
Cheech Marin - Tyrone Shoelaces (voice)
Darlene Love - Cheerleader (voice) - Love had a number 1 hit in 1962.
Michelle Phillips - Cheerleader (voice) - uh, you might know her from the Mamas & the Papas.
Ronnie Spector - Cheerleader (voice) - kind of a big deal.
George Harrison - lead guitar - Yes. That George Harrison. Did this just blow your mind?
Klaus Voormann - bass - producer of the song "Da Da Da" from the iconic Volkswagen commercial.
Jim Karstein (often misspelled as Carstein) - drums - played a big show with a dude named Eric Clapton.
Jim Keltner - percussion - you've heard this guy even if you've never heard of him.
Carole King - electric piano - I'm not a fan, but almost every musician I know is.
Nicky Hopkins - piano - post-Zeppelin.
Tom Scott - saxophone - L.A. Express.
Billy Preston - organ - 5th Beatle. No big deal.
Given that this was 1974, this team looks a lot like either the Mavs or the Celtics with a lot of great players a little past their primes. Good luck with the Jones.
* - let's ignore the fact that I was 11 or 12 years old and listening frequently to this album on the way to or from school in my parents' car.
** - Rick Barry, aka the Miami Greyhound, really deserves his own post. I'll get to work on that.
*** - Until tonight, I'd never heard of Earl Foreman. If you've read the absolutely amazing "The Breaks of the Game" by David Halberstam, you know about Kermit Washington and a bit about Swen Nater as buddies in San Diego. They almost played together for the Virginia Squires thanks to Foreman, and thanks to Foreman they didn't.
The song was released in 1974 along with the short film. In 1974, the Celtics beat the Bucks (back when the Bucks were in the Western Conference). The following year, Rick Barry's Golden State Warriors** swept Wes Unseld's Washington Bullets in the NBA Finals. Regardless, and I know at least one guy will like this, check out the amazing lineup for the song:
Cheech Marin - Tyrone Shoelaces (voice)
Darlene Love - Cheerleader (voice) - Love had a number 1 hit in 1962.
Michelle Phillips - Cheerleader (voice) - uh, you might know her from the Mamas & the Papas.
Ronnie Spector - Cheerleader (voice) - kind of a big deal.
George Harrison - lead guitar - Yes. That George Harrison. Did this just blow your mind?
Klaus Voormann - bass - producer of the song "Da Da Da" from the iconic Volkswagen commercial.
Jim Karstein (often misspelled as Carstein) - drums - played a big show with a dude named Eric Clapton.
Jim Keltner - percussion - you've heard this guy even if you've never heard of him.
Carole King - electric piano - I'm not a fan, but almost every musician I know is.
Nicky Hopkins - piano - post-Zeppelin.
Tom Scott - saxophone - L.A. Express.
Billy Preston - organ - 5th Beatle. No big deal.
Given that this was 1974, this team looks a lot like either the Mavs or the Celtics with a lot of great players a little past their primes. Good luck with the Jones.
* - let's ignore the fact that I was 11 or 12 years old and listening frequently to this album on the way to or from school in my parents' car.
** - Rick Barry, aka the Miami Greyhound, really deserves his own post. I'll get to work on that.
*** - Until tonight, I'd never heard of Earl Foreman. If you've read the absolutely amazing "The Breaks of the Game" by David Halberstam, you know about Kermit Washington and a bit about Swen Nater as buddies in San Diego. They almost played together for the Virginia Squires thanks to Foreman, and thanks to Foreman they didn't.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
"An unmistakable whiff of the plantation"
NYT, not able to come up with its own stories, writes about the piece historian Taylor Branch did for the Atlantic, The Shame of College Sports. Here's the fighting words part which pissed people off:
“We should all recognize that the rules that forbid the athletes from being paid are unfounded and don’t have any basis and are an embarrassment and should be phased out,” Branch said. “They don’t have any force. I think the colleges should be free to give athletes less than a full scholarship, no scholarship and more than a scholarship. And the athletes should be free to bargain.”Branch wrote that the N.C.A.A. was a “classic cartel” that has never had any real power and that the terms “amateurism” and “student-athlete” were “cynical hoaxes, legalistic confections propagated by the universities so they can exploit the skills and fame of young athletes.”He also wrote that there “is an unmistakable whiff of the plantation” in the revenue-generating sports of major-college football and men’s basketball. He added, “College sports, as overseen by the N.C.A.A., is a system imposed by well-meaning paternalists and rationalized with hoary sentiments about caring for the well-being of the colonized.”
Thursday, October 20, 2011
The NBA Lockout
News today is that the top NBA players, most on the 2008 Olympic Dream team, will be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to over a million dollars each to participate in a two-week, international exhibition game tour. There are really four takeaways from this:
- Top NBA players are probably the most comfy with this lockout, more so even than David Stern and the owners, since they still have a lot of ways to make bank; no one is paying for tours of the role-players and bench guys. There are 450 members of the NBAPA, and I count 14-17 of them on the list of the Chosen Few.
- There may be more demand abroad than at home for the NBA right now. At home, we at least have the start of the NCAA men's and women's basketball seasons to sate our taste for hoops.
- The top players are hurting the NBAPA's negotiating position by making fans think that all NBA players are greedy bastards and not suffering at all from the lockout. They might not be--more below on that--but that's not the point. The point is that NBAPA President Derek Fisher has no control over messaging, and public sympathy is wearing thin.
- I really, really have a hard time caring and following the lockout news.
With the NFL lockout but a distant, almost-forgotten bad dream, and the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the NFL and NFL Players Association guaranteeing football through 2021, and with that whole "end of the U.S. economy" thing out of the way (until Thanksgiving, at least), basic cable and bloggers can turn their focus to the next example of intractable assholery, the NBA Lockout. But it's taken me nearly two months to write this post, because I just. can't. care. (It's not just me; Beau has been trying to write a post for over a month now, as well.)
Yes, there is STILL an NBA Lockout, 111 days old and looking uglier than ever. There's no hope in sight, with David Stern having already cancelled the first two weeks of the season, and the NBA deciding that the best way to deal with the Players Association's lawsuit alleging unfair labor practices is... their own lawsuit alleging unfair labor practices!
Unlike NFL Players, NBA Players really are (mostly) rich. You might remember that I kept beating the dead horse to get the word out that NFL players actually make an equivalent lifetime average salary of $89,000/year, but in practice probably less than that, not to mention their much-higher-than-average medical costs. Not so for for NBA players.
So, on average, it's not quite fair to call them The 1%, but they're pretty damn close. Given everything that's going on in the country and the world, that makes it pretty hard to care about a lost 2011-2012 season.
Yes, there is STILL an NBA Lockout, 111 days old and looking uglier than ever. There's no hope in sight, with David Stern having already cancelled the first two weeks of the season, and the NBA deciding that the best way to deal with the Players Association's lawsuit alleging unfair labor practices is... their own lawsuit alleging unfair labor practices!
Unlike NFL Players, NBA Players really are (mostly) rich. You might remember that I kept beating the dead horse to get the word out that NFL players actually make an equivalent lifetime average salary of $89,000/year, but in practice probably less than that, not to mention their much-higher-than-average medical costs. Not so for for NBA players.
- Average NBA player salary: $5.8 million
- Median NBA player salary: $3.1 million
- Average NBA career length: 4.8 years
- Equiv. 30-year career avg. salary: $496,000/year
So, on average, it's not quite fair to call them The 1%, but they're pretty damn close. Given everything that's going on in the country and the world, that makes it pretty hard to care about a lost 2011-2012 season.
I'd rather spend my time thinking about how the Niners are 5-1. Seriously, 5-1, on track to a possible first-round bye?!? I can hardly sleep.
Monday, October 17, 2011
"Sight Of Matt Millen On TV Simply Too Much For Nation’s Unemployed To Handle"
Must read sign-of-the-times from America's Finest News Source:
By the way, how nuts is it that both the Lions and the Niners are 5-1 and considered two of the best teams in the nation? Pretty nuts. Like, ESPN-hiring-Matt-Millen nuts.
In May 2009, a month in which the economy shed 345,00 jobs, ESPN announced it would be hiring [former Detriot Lions CEO Matt] Millen as a football analyst.
"I can't believe this guy got an interview, let alone got hired," said Bainridge, WA textile designer Cynthia Anderson, whose fabrics were considered among the field's best before the collapse of the domestic apparel industry in 2010. "What motivation do I have to go out there and apply for work while this dipshit is on national television?"
When approached for details, ESPN initially refused to comment on its hiring practices or reasons for employing Millen, who was a catastrophic failure at every level of football that did not involve tackling and is perhaps the man most synonymous with football-related ignorance in living memory. Sources at the network also refused to comment on the wisdom of showing the flagrantly employed Millen during broadcasts watched by many of the nation's jobless.
By the way, how nuts is it that both the Lions and the Niners are 5-1 and considered two of the best teams in the nation? Pretty nuts. Like, ESPN-hiring-Matt-Millen nuts.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Yanking Hank
In a statement shorter than a pay-by-the-word roommate ad, ESPN officially parted ways with Hank Williams, Jr. today in response to nonsensical political comments made by the performer on Fox & Friends Monday morning. I think the real hero here is the Huffington Post for finding a fabulous photo to complement this announcement.
ESPN pulled the Hank Williams, Jr. song from their Monday Night Football intro this week due to the comments, prompting Williams to make an apology nearly as nonsensical as his original comment comparing a golf game between Barack Obama and John Boehner to Adolf Hitler playing golf with the current Israeli Prime Minister who had not been born, nor was Israel in existence at the time Hitler would have been hitting the links.
"I have always been very passionate about Politics and Sports and this time it got the Best or Worst of me. The thought of the Leaders of both Parties Jukin and High Fiven on a Golf course, while so many Families are Struggling to get by simply made me Boil over and make a Dumb statement and I am very Sorry if it Offended anyone. I would like to Thank all my supporters. This was Not written by some Publicist."
If HWJ has a publicist, one has to assume that they insisted upon that last sentence for clarification. I think it's pretty obvious it was not written by a publicist since clearly it was written by an 8th grader. Although to be fair, those two things may not be mutually exclusive in the south.
It is not my intention to defend Bocephus, but the big question is: Really?!? If ESPN had not pulled the song Monday night, would anyone have even made the connection between the performer and cable sports network? Would there have been a public outcry about this? I don't think so. The comments made on the Fox News Network were too bizarre to be considered incendiary. And let's consider the source. Are the comments more offensive than some of his song lyrics?
"If the south woulda won we woulda had it made.
I'd make my supreme court down in Texas and we wouldn't have no killers getting off free.
If they were proven guilty then they would swing quickly,
instead of writin' books and smilin' on T.V."
[-from If the South Would Have Won]
I can't help but wonder if ESPN was just tired of the song that they inherited when they took over Monday Night Football and took this opportunity to finally get rid of it for good. Like an employee who gets on your nerves and you just wait for him to finally screw up badly enough for you to fire him. In the end, I don't know that there was widespread outrage about the comments, and I don't think that there will be much outrage that the song is finally retired. But let's not be self-righteous about it and just admit that the song is just a little played out.
You know who I wish would go off and offend someone and get pulled off the air? That fucking transformer robot on Fox Football. Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly need to book that robot post haste and get him on the record with some objectional remarks because if any NFL icon has grown tiresome and needs a final nail in it's coffin, it is that damn robot.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
NBA Lockout Continues
There is only one thing I look forward to if this NBA season is partially canceled: amazing commercials.
That, or trying to learn why Euroball has a trapezoidal paint.
That, or trying to learn why Euroball has a trapezoidal paint.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
PIF: And So It Begins...
Dear Loyal NFL Fans,
Tonight is the night. Despite threats to the contrary in the offseason, the National Football League 2011 season is beginning on time with the last two Super Bowl Champions facing off tonight. What does this mean? It means most of you are frantically setting your weekly fantasy rosters, tweaking and fine tuning like our jobs and lives depend on it. Chat windows are popping up everywhere with exchanges like this one between me and Beau:
me: what do you think, Tomlinson or Green-Ellis?
Beau: for?
me: fantasy
flex player
our league
Beau: oh dude.
you know I know nothing about football, right
me: This is going in tonights PIF
Beau: well then, I'd go with LT because the other guy has a hyphenated name, and I just don't trust hyphenated named people.
me: Beautiful
I'm willing to bet that this Balki Bartokomous-esque approach to fantasy football works. Perfect Strangers. It was this show backinaday. Anyway, this can't be good for Maurice Jones-Drew or Mike Sims-Walker. How about if you guys drop your mother's feminist statement of a last name and cease perpetuating the stereotype that black NFL players never seem to come from a traditional nuclear family. But I digress.
You're reading because Week 1 is a fresh start and no one ever predicts it right. But yet all over the internet and beyond smug jackasses make these "bold predictions" about a season that hasn't even come out of the womb yet. Tonight, the NFL's water breaks, and by Tuesday the afterbirth of media attention will turn each slightly unexpected outcome into the next big news story. This is what happens when sports updates fancy themselves "news". But if MSNBC can fancy themselves as such, who the fark.com am I to tell ESPN they can't?
The following predictions should not be the basis for any wager involving cash, first born children, or body parts:
Saints at Packers ***THURSDAY NIGHT SPECIAL***
The last two seasons' Super Bowl champs! Fuck yeah! this is how you start a season. Green Bay QB knows that the best way he can piss on the legacy of Brett Favre is to win more Super Bowls than him, which I think is better motivation than the Saints' "Waaahh are city is still broken from a rain event we had six years ago" bullshit. I mean that's all they're going on these days.
Packers 27, Saints 24
Falcons at Bears
I hate Atlanta.
Bears 21, Falcons 10
Bengals at Browns ***WEEK 1 MISERA-BOWL***
Seriously, are any of you coal breathing hicks in Ohio watching the NFL? you have the Buckeyes, a real football team with a winning tradition. Both of these teams are most famous for games they lost. Neither represents a particularly palatable metropolitan area. Although I have to hand it to Cleveland. They built a franchise in the '50s because Paul Brown wasn't afraid of having a few brothers on his team. Now they boast the only white 1,000 yard running back in the last quarter century. Racially progressive, Cleveland... who'd have thought?
Browns 31, Bengals 17
Bills at Chiefs
I'll buy you a house in Buffalo if you can name three starters on their defense. Seriously. Beer at Arrowhead Stadium costs more than a house in Buffalo.
Chiefs 30, Bills 10
Eagles at Rams ***UPSET OF THE WEEK***
ZOMG THA E-GULLS R LEGIT! MUUFUCKIN DREAM TEAM SON! Nope, I've seen this movie, and it goes straight to DVD. You may be able to buy a championship in baseball and basketball, but the Redskins have been trying this move for years and it doesn't work. Eagles QB Ron Mexico (thought I forgot about that. I didn't.) has one good year passing and all of the sudden he's Johnny Unitas with a criminal record (and herpes). And all these high priced folks they landed in the offseason? Jason Babin, Nnamdi Asowhatsit, Cullen Jenkins, Donald Lee, Vince Young... This all looks like something out of Daniel M. Snyder's evil playbook of schemes to sell jerseys of past-their-prime NFLers. Eagles are and will always be the Italian Army of the NFC. They'll keep saying they're gonna go all the way, and then they get their asses handed to them by Ethiopia.
Rams 20, Eagles 18
Lions at Buccaneers
I got nothing for this one. Go looking for a link on Cracked.com and tell me you don't wind up reading like 8 articles before you get back to what you were originally doing.
Lions 24, Buccaneers 21
Titans at Jaguars ***BLOWOUT OF THE WEEK***
The Jaguars will be in Los Angeles before the season is over. God they're terrible.
Titans 45, Jaguars 10
Steelers at Ravens ***GAME OF THE WEEK***
Having Ed Reed in your defensive backfield is like having the Konami code on your team.
Ravens 23, Steelers 21
Colts at Texans
No Peyton Manning! For the first time since PIF began insulting your intelligence in 2002, Peyton Manning will not be starting for the Indianapolis Colts. He has a strained media whore muscle or something. So recovering alcoholic aging journeyman Kerry Collins will be digging a giant hole to bury the Colts' season until Peyton unfucks himself. FTR, replacing Peyton Manning with Kerry Collins is like replacing a fine aged scotch with... a recovering alcoholic.
Texans 34, Colts 13
Giants at Redskins
New York plays Washington ten years to the day removed from the devastating terrorist acts that shocked a nation. There's going to be a fuckton of America behind this game. You know what? Bin Laden is fish food. We've systematically dismantled al-Qaeda's leadership. New York and Washington have recovered to become easily two of the best cities to live in or visit in the entire hemisphere. So it doesn't really matter which one of these teams wins.
Winner: AMERICA
Seahawks at 49ers
Well, if it isn't a blossoming rivalry in the festering cesspool of a division, the NFC West. Proving that you don't even have to be mediocre to win this division, Seattle last year finished with a losing record despite making it to the second round of the playoffs. Pete Carroll's team returns this year to to try and French Army his way back into the playoffs. Does new 9ers shot caller Jim Harbaugh have anything to say about it? No. No he does not.
Seahawks 28, 49ers 17
Vikings at Chargers
Man, I just don't care about this game at all.
Chargers 33, Vikings 27
Panthers at Cardinals
Like every date I've been on in the last year, I have very low expectations for this one.
Cardinals 10, Panthers 9
Cowboys at Jets
If the AMURRICA factor in the Skins-Giants game is going to be a force, you can bet your "Never Forget" bumper sticker that the Jets will be running high on emotion. "America's Team" has no idea what they will be getting into on this September 11th freedom fest in the Big Apple. I love the irony that drips from this statement: the Jets are going to topple these Cowboys.*
Jets 31, Cowboys 20
*fuck you, al-Qaeda
Patriots at Dolphins ***MNF***
The Patriots have hands down the whitest offense in football. QB- Tom Brady, it doesn't get much whiter. Offensive line? Five white guys. Here's where it gets tricky: WR- yes, there are big name guys like Dieon Branch and big egos like Chad Ochocinco... but last year they were the only team that started two different white guys at wide reciever, Julian Edelman and Wes Welker... and Welker is milky white. RB- Officially they have BenJarvus Green-Ellis as the starter, but FB Danny Woodhead has made appearances at tailback with Rob Gronkowski filling in at FB. That leaves Aaron Hernandez at TE. And he's almost white. I challenge you to find another team that can put a full eleven offensive players in an NFL game and have them all be vanilla.
Dolphins 27, Patriots 19
Raiders at Broncos ***MNF x 2***
Holy Jesus balls, what have I done?! I'm predicting MADNESS on Monday night! Two kinda shitty teams will UNLEASH upon an unsuspecting audience more points than the total number of Raider fans who have finished high school!
Raiders 51, Broncos 35
So not only is this week 1, it's the tenth anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks in new York and Washington. And as your resident war veteran, I want to relay a message to all you good Americans. Enough with the Drowning Pool song. You know the one. If you think you're showing support for our troops with a montage of war scenes to the soundtrack of a death metal chorus of "Let the bodies hit the floor," you are an asshole who hates America. That's not commemorating the fallen of an act of war committed on our soil, that's redneck blood lust that basically compares the most humane and dignified military in the world to Ghengis fucking Khan. I hate you all, I hate that song, God Bless America. See you next week.
-DM
Tonight is the night. Despite threats to the contrary in the offseason, the National Football League 2011 season is beginning on time with the last two Super Bowl Champions facing off tonight. What does this mean? It means most of you are frantically setting your weekly fantasy rosters, tweaking and fine tuning like our jobs and lives depend on it. Chat windows are popping up everywhere with exchanges like this one between me and Beau:
me: what do you think, Tomlinson or Green-Ellis?
Beau: for?
me: fantasy
flex player
our league
Beau: oh dude.
you know I know nothing about football, right
me: This is going in tonights PIF
Beau: well then, I'd go with LT because the other guy has a hyphenated name, and I just don't trust hyphenated named people.
me: Beautiful
I'm willing to bet that this Balki Bartokomous-esque approach to fantasy football works. Perfect Strangers. It was this show backinaday. Anyway, this can't be good for Maurice Jones-Drew or Mike Sims-Walker. How about if you guys drop your mother's feminist statement of a last name and cease perpetuating the stereotype that black NFL players never seem to come from a traditional nuclear family. But I digress.
You're reading because Week 1 is a fresh start and no one ever predicts it right. But yet all over the internet and beyond smug jackasses make these "bold predictions" about a season that hasn't even come out of the womb yet. Tonight, the NFL's water breaks, and by Tuesday the afterbirth of media attention will turn each slightly unexpected outcome into the next big news story. This is what happens when sports updates fancy themselves "news". But if MSNBC can fancy themselves as such, who the fark.com am I to tell ESPN they can't?
The following predictions should not be the basis for any wager involving cash, first born children, or body parts:
Saints at Packers ***THURSDAY NIGHT SPECIAL***
The last two seasons' Super Bowl champs! Fuck yeah! this is how you start a season. Green Bay QB knows that the best way he can piss on the legacy of Brett Favre is to win more Super Bowls than him, which I think is better motivation than the Saints' "Waaahh are city is still broken from a rain event we had six years ago" bullshit. I mean that's all they're going on these days.
Packers 27, Saints 24
Falcons at Bears
I hate Atlanta.
Bears 21, Falcons 10
Bengals at Browns ***WEEK 1 MISERA-BOWL***
Seriously, are any of you coal breathing hicks in Ohio watching the NFL? you have the Buckeyes, a real football team with a winning tradition. Both of these teams are most famous for games they lost. Neither represents a particularly palatable metropolitan area. Although I have to hand it to Cleveland. They built a franchise in the '50s because Paul Brown wasn't afraid of having a few brothers on his team. Now they boast the only white 1,000 yard running back in the last quarter century. Racially progressive, Cleveland... who'd have thought?
Browns 31, Bengals 17
Bills at Chiefs
I'll buy you a house in Buffalo if you can name three starters on their defense. Seriously. Beer at Arrowhead Stadium costs more than a house in Buffalo.
Chiefs 30, Bills 10
Eagles at Rams ***UPSET OF THE WEEK***
ZOMG THA E-GULLS R LEGIT! MUUFUCKIN DREAM TEAM SON! Nope, I've seen this movie, and it goes straight to DVD. You may be able to buy a championship in baseball and basketball, but the Redskins have been trying this move for years and it doesn't work. Eagles QB Ron Mexico (thought I forgot about that. I didn't.) has one good year passing and all of the sudden he's Johnny Unitas with a criminal record (and herpes). And all these high priced folks they landed in the offseason? Jason Babin, Nnamdi Asowhatsit, Cullen Jenkins, Donald Lee, Vince Young... This all looks like something out of Daniel M. Snyder's evil playbook of schemes to sell jerseys of past-their-prime NFLers. Eagles are and will always be the Italian Army of the NFC. They'll keep saying they're gonna go all the way, and then they get their asses handed to them by Ethiopia.
Rams 20, Eagles 18
Lions at Buccaneers
I got nothing for this one. Go looking for a link on Cracked.com and tell me you don't wind up reading like 8 articles before you get back to what you were originally doing.
Lions 24, Buccaneers 21
Titans at Jaguars ***BLOWOUT OF THE WEEK***
The Jaguars will be in Los Angeles before the season is over. God they're terrible.
Titans 45, Jaguars 10
Steelers at Ravens ***GAME OF THE WEEK***
Having Ed Reed in your defensive backfield is like having the Konami code on your team.
Ravens 23, Steelers 21
Colts at Texans
No Peyton Manning! For the first time since PIF began insulting your intelligence in 2002, Peyton Manning will not be starting for the Indianapolis Colts. He has a strained media whore muscle or something. So recovering alcoholic aging journeyman Kerry Collins will be digging a giant hole to bury the Colts' season until Peyton unfucks himself. FTR, replacing Peyton Manning with Kerry Collins is like replacing a fine aged scotch with... a recovering alcoholic.
Texans 34, Colts 13
Giants at Redskins
New York plays Washington ten years to the day removed from the devastating terrorist acts that shocked a nation. There's going to be a fuckton of America behind this game. You know what? Bin Laden is fish food. We've systematically dismantled al-Qaeda's leadership. New York and Washington have recovered to become easily two of the best cities to live in or visit in the entire hemisphere. So it doesn't really matter which one of these teams wins.
Winner: AMERICA
Seahawks at 49ers
Well, if it isn't a blossoming rivalry in the festering cesspool of a division, the NFC West. Proving that you don't even have to be mediocre to win this division, Seattle last year finished with a losing record despite making it to the second round of the playoffs. Pete Carroll's team returns this year to to try and French Army his way back into the playoffs. Does new 9ers shot caller Jim Harbaugh have anything to say about it? No. No he does not.
Seahawks 28, 49ers 17
Vikings at Chargers
Man, I just don't care about this game at all.
Chargers 33, Vikings 27
Panthers at Cardinals
Like every date I've been on in the last year, I have very low expectations for this one.
Cardinals 10, Panthers 9
Cowboys at Jets
If the AMURRICA factor in the Skins-Giants game is going to be a force, you can bet your "Never Forget" bumper sticker that the Jets will be running high on emotion. "America's Team" has no idea what they will be getting into on this September 11th freedom fest in the Big Apple. I love the irony that drips from this statement: the Jets are going to topple these Cowboys.*
Jets 31, Cowboys 20
*fuck you, al-Qaeda
Patriots at Dolphins ***MNF***
The Patriots have hands down the whitest offense in football. QB- Tom Brady, it doesn't get much whiter. Offensive line? Five white guys. Here's where it gets tricky: WR- yes, there are big name guys like Dieon Branch and big egos like Chad Ochocinco... but last year they were the only team that started two different white guys at wide reciever, Julian Edelman and Wes Welker... and Welker is milky white. RB- Officially they have BenJarvus Green-Ellis as the starter, but FB Danny Woodhead has made appearances at tailback with Rob Gronkowski filling in at FB. That leaves Aaron Hernandez at TE. And he's almost white. I challenge you to find another team that can put a full eleven offensive players in an NFL game and have them all be vanilla.
Dolphins 27, Patriots 19
Raiders at Broncos ***MNF x 2***
Holy Jesus balls, what have I done?! I'm predicting MADNESS on Monday night! Two kinda shitty teams will UNLEASH upon an unsuspecting audience more points than the total number of Raider fans who have finished high school!
Raiders 51, Broncos 35
So not only is this week 1, it's the tenth anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks in new York and Washington. And as your resident war veteran, I want to relay a message to all you good Americans. Enough with the Drowning Pool song. You know the one. If you think you're showing support for our troops with a montage of war scenes to the soundtrack of a death metal chorus of "Let the bodies hit the floor," you are an asshole who hates America. That's not commemorating the fallen of an act of war committed on our soil, that's redneck blood lust that basically compares the most humane and dignified military in the world to Ghengis fucking Khan. I hate you all, I hate that song, God Bless America. See you next week.
-DM
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tragic Plane Crash Shakes Hockey World
- photo via AP
Just now from AP:
TUNOSHNA, Russia (AP) — A private Russian jet carrying a top ice hockey team slammed into a riverbank moments after takeoff Wednesday, killing at least 43 people in one of the worst plane crashes ever involving a sports team.
Both Russia and the world of hockey were left stunned by the deaths of so many international stars in one catastrophic event. Two other people on board were critically injured.
[...]
The plane was carrying the Lokomotiv ice hockey team from Yaroslavl to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where the team was to play Thursday against Dinamo Minsk in the opening game of the season for the Kontinental Hockey League. The ministry said it had 45 people on board, including 37 passengers and eight crew.
The Emergency Ministry said Czech players Josef Vasicek, Karel Rachunek and Jan Marek, Swedish goalie Stefan Liv, Canadian coach Brad McCrimmon, Latvian defenseman Karlis Skrastins and defenseman Ruslan Salehi of Belarus were among those killed. Slovakian national team captain Pavol Demitra, who played in the NHL for the St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks, was also among the dead, officials said.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
NHL Tragedies
Derek Boogaard was found dead in his home on May 13, 2011 from a lethal combination of alcohol and painkillers. He was 28 years old.
Rick Rypien was found dead in his home on August 15, 2011. The cause of death was determined to be suicide. He was 27.
Yesterday, August 31, 2011, Wade Belak was found dead in his home. It was released today that the death was suicide. He was 35 years old.
All three of these men were NHL players and their combined number of career Penalties in Minutes (PIM) is 5,583. That number includes games played in minor leagues. Total NHL PIMs is 2,078. Total number of goals scored in the NHL between all three players in the entirety of their careers: 20.
Call them what you like: Enforcers, Goons, Fighters. It is an unofficial and controversial role in hockey. [Note: Rick Rypien has been mentioned in this blog before, with a video posted of him yanking a fan out of the stands.] The debate about whether fighting should be allowed in hockey is ongoing. Recently the NHL has shown less tolerance for head injuries, but fighting has been around as long as the game of hockey. Nothing gets the fans on their feet and cheering quicker than when two players throw down the gloves.
The off-season in hockey is only about four months long, yet this short period of time has seen a great deal of tragedy in 2011. This pattern is troubling, and while it does not appear that the deaths are immediately related, it does shine a brighter light on the enforcer role, and further the debate of the place of fighting in hockey.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
U.S. Open Baby
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| Arthur Ashe Stadium |
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2009 - Court 11, Round 3: Kateryna Bondarenko def. Anastassia Rodionov |
Is standing at the net a bit close? Instead, head over to Louie Armstrong where it is almost guaranteed that you will be in the midst of watching a great match when you hear screaming from the grandstand and rumbling that another classic match is being played right next door. That's your cue to leave your seat, climb the bleachers to the catwalk between Louie and the Grandstand, and get a bird's eye view of both amazing matches.
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2010 – Louis Armstrong Stadium Robin Soderling |
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| 2010 – Grandstand: Gael Monfils |
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| Billie Jean King National Tennis Center |
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| U.S. Open Signature Cocktail Ice 4 oz Vodka 3/4 Cup Seltzer 1/8 Cup Lemonade Splash Chambord Mix well and add tennis ball shaped melon!** |
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| Flushing Meadows Corona Park - Queens, NY |
Drop a comment below if you go out and see some tennis!
*Photos generously provided by Agata Porter
** All amounts have been modified by Jason and Agata to increase maximum deliciousness and potency!
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
FIFA is $occer
- 18th FIFA President and corrupt mofo, Sepp Blatter
Check out this excellent piece on the evolution of FIFA into its modern, corrupted form. Here's a key excerpt on how FIFA revolutionized the way the rest of the sports world thinks about sponsorships and money:
At his first dinner as [FIFA's 17th] president, [João] Havelange encountered the German businessman Horst Dassler, the son of the founder of adidas. Dassler, an aggressive, manipulative entrepreneur who was then serving as the CEO of adidas France, had thought a great deal about how to capitalize on the explosion in the popularity of televised sport. Over a series of meetings, Havelange, Dassler, and Dassler's partner, Patrick Nally, devised what eventually became the template for modern sports sponsorship. As the soccer historian David Goldblatt writes in The Ball is Round, the plan had four components:
First, only the very largest multinational companies, whose advertising budgets could bear the load and whose global reach matched the TV audience on offer, should be approached as sponsors. Second, sponsorship and advertising would be segmented by product type: There could be only one soft drink, one beer, one microelectronics firm, or one financial services company that could be the official World Cup product or supplier. Third, FIFA would have total control over all forms of TV rights, advertising, stadium space, etc. Any and all existing deals in a host country would have to go. Fourth, FIFA itself would not handle the details of the sponsorship and TV deals. Marketing and TV rights would be handed over for a guaranteed sum of money to an intermediary who would sell them on.
To cover the last part, the selling of TV rights and sponsorships, Dassler created a marketing company called ISL, short for International Sports and Leisure, and established an office across the street from FIFA headquarters in Zurich.
The combined effect of Havelange's two insights [the other being support of Africa and Asia as a new power base] was to co[n]vert FIFA into a sort of hydraulic cash-flow machine.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Politically Incorrect Football: No, I will not predict the 2011 Season
Dear NFL fans,
It's been a long, strange offseason. I have been travelling for work for a solid year, so I haven't had to bear the brunt of the absurdity, but suffice to say that most NFL fans had their intelligence insulted and players before plays and owners finally decided that no, we're not going to forego billions and billions of dollars because we're not getting a big enough percentage of said billions of dollars.
So great, late July comes and we finally get word that the NFL season is happening! The draft went off without a hitch, players are coming in to training camp and now we're a couple of preseason games in... Everything is back to normal! I can start neglecting my imaginary girlfriend on Sundays, and that void in my life that I'd been filling with alcohol will now be filled with football. And alcohol.
Wrong.
I am submitting to you, loyal fans of the most-watched sports league on this spinning blue orb, that the entire National Football League 2011 season will be the biggest fluke in the history of sports. I'm not going to waste the time and energy expounding upon what teams are going to do what because anyone who claims to be making a serious attempt at such an endeavor is selling a plate of shit fit for a TGI Friday's menu.
People forget that this was the longest work stoppage in the history of the NFL. But Murphy, there was no work! It was the OFF-season! Au contraire, nameless Italics voice. We lost free agency, where teams can spend months courting the best suited players to their team. Instead we got three frantic days of grab bag signings, and teams wound up unevenly loading some positions while neglecting others. And while we're at it, there were no offseason workouts, where new players (i.e. those free agents that they normally sign in March) and the new rookie class all get to know each other. This year, the start of training camp was like the first day of high school. Rookies were the freshman and free agents were the transfer students. Only difference is that unlike most American high school students, these guys now have a little future job security. At least until 2021.
Further exacerbating that point, the lack of offseason workouts and controlled team activities will inevitably lead to disastrous injuries across the league. I'd say I feel sorry for the players a little bit, but fuck them, they're getting millions of dollars to do that to their bodies. This is what you fought for, jackasses. So the combination of lack of master planning, lack of team cohesiveness, and lack of conditioning will result in many games this season being played with about the same level of mastery as a land war in Africa.
There is no reason on earth I should be "predicting" what's going to happen. It's like predicting where the Westboro Baptist Church will be protesting next, or Kim Jong Il's wardrobe selection for the day. They're not predictions. They're guesses pulled out of your ass, between yesterday's Taco Bell sampler box and that polyp you should really have checked out.
But the Reverend Doctor Robert Michael Pierre Gustav Toutont Beauregard Finley III, Esquire (aka Beau, the "B" in JB Sports Chat) came at me and insisted I provide some sort of NFL preseason content. And I don't blame him. This is a sports blog. That's what sports blogs do. But fair warning, if you expect anything I predict to actually happen, you shouldn't be watching sports, you should be watching your diet and trying to eliminate paint chips from your daily consumption.
But before I get into that, a quick note to Entertainment and Sports Programming Network: Hey assholes, when I'm overseas for work and the only American station I have to watch is ESPN America, why in the hell would you broadcast the Little League World Series? NFL preseason football, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer... hell, the Canadian Football League. Any college sport. I'd even take high school women's field hockey. But when you're my only link back to the Land of the Free and you're broadcasting me a bunch of 12-year-olds as Aruba faces Japan in the LLWS quarterfinals, all your doing is making me want to blow Bristol, Connecticut and South Williamsport, Pennsylvania off the map. Get your programming priorities straight, dammit!!!
Okay, on with the predictions:
1) Within 365 days of this post, the Jacksonville Jaguars will relocate to Los Angeles. 26 of the 38 Jaguars fans will move with them.
2) The division winners are going to be teams nobody expects. All these smug sportscasters are banally making the safe prediction that the Patriots, Packers, and Eagles will win their respective divisions. This year is going to be a fluke. It will be teams we don't expect, like the Memphis Showboats, the North Melbourne Kangaroos, the Tonawonda Kardex, and the Buffalo Bills.
3) Albert Haynesworth (DT, Patriots) will spend at least one night in jail. And he will fall in love.
4) White people who claim to be 1/16th Apache will be the only people who will continue to be offended by the name of the Washington Redskins. Like the Native American community in America doesn't have bigger fish to fry right now.
5) The underground cult-like fan base for Browns RB Peyton Hillis will bestow upon him the nickname "The Cleveland White".
6) Tony Romo will continue to make the same kind of comical blunders we've come to expect from a Polish-Mexican quarterback.
7) Troy Aikman will once again accidentally say the C-word on the air
8) Tom Brady will sleep with your girlfriend, just because he's an asshole and he can. (Besides... you're not happy with her. It will be a good reason to call it quits with her).
9) An NFL player will do something with a gun that will be even stupider than what Plaxico Burress did. My guess is a Cincinnati Bengal.
10) People in the following cities will have virtually nothing to live for unless their team makes a conference championship: Saint Louis, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Houston, Phoenix, and Oakland.
LOCK OF THE YEAR: Philadelphia will continue to be the most ironically named city on earth.
Normally at times like this, I'd post some old statistics off of which we might be able to gauge what will go down this year in the NFL. But there's virtually nothing. The only thing I could think of pertains to other seasons with work stoppages... In league history, there have been two other work stoppages. Both of those seasons, the Super Bowl was won by the same team. An unlikely team that many people discounted, and both years that team had an unproven veteran quarterback with little of value on his resume. That's right, the Washington Redskins won the Super Bowl after the 1982 season and the 1987 season, and they are going to win it in 2011. If history can tell us one thing about what will happen in 2011, it's that the Lombardi trophy will be coming back to the Nation's Capital, and nobody will see it coming.
That's all I've got for the preseason, folks. I'm going to go eat a doner kebab. I'll see you in September when I'm back from Germany and done travelling for good.
It's been a long, strange offseason. I have been travelling for work for a solid year, so I haven't had to bear the brunt of the absurdity, but suffice to say that most NFL fans had their intelligence insulted and players before plays and owners finally decided that no, we're not going to forego billions and billions of dollars because we're not getting a big enough percentage of said billions of dollars.
So great, late July comes and we finally get word that the NFL season is happening! The draft went off without a hitch, players are coming in to training camp and now we're a couple of preseason games in... Everything is back to normal! I can start neglecting my imaginary girlfriend on Sundays, and that void in my life that I'd been filling with alcohol will now be filled with football. And alcohol.
Wrong.
I am submitting to you, loyal fans of the most-watched sports league on this spinning blue orb, that the entire National Football League 2011 season will be the biggest fluke in the history of sports. I'm not going to waste the time and energy expounding upon what teams are going to do what because anyone who claims to be making a serious attempt at such an endeavor is selling a plate of shit fit for a TGI Friday's menu.
People forget that this was the longest work stoppage in the history of the NFL. But Murphy, there was no work! It was the OFF-season! Au contraire, nameless Italics voice. We lost free agency, where teams can spend months courting the best suited players to their team. Instead we got three frantic days of grab bag signings, and teams wound up unevenly loading some positions while neglecting others. And while we're at it, there were no offseason workouts, where new players (i.e. those free agents that they normally sign in March) and the new rookie class all get to know each other. This year, the start of training camp was like the first day of high school. Rookies were the freshman and free agents were the transfer students. Only difference is that unlike most American high school students, these guys now have a little future job security. At least until 2021.
Further exacerbating that point, the lack of offseason workouts and controlled team activities will inevitably lead to disastrous injuries across the league. I'd say I feel sorry for the players a little bit, but fuck them, they're getting millions of dollars to do that to their bodies. This is what you fought for, jackasses. So the combination of lack of master planning, lack of team cohesiveness, and lack of conditioning will result in many games this season being played with about the same level of mastery as a land war in Africa.
There is no reason on earth I should be "predicting" what's going to happen. It's like predicting where the Westboro Baptist Church will be protesting next, or Kim Jong Il's wardrobe selection for the day. They're not predictions. They're guesses pulled out of your ass, between yesterday's Taco Bell sampler box and that polyp you should really have checked out.
But the Reverend Doctor Robert Michael Pierre Gustav Toutont Beauregard Finley III, Esquire (aka Beau, the "B" in JB Sports Chat) came at me and insisted I provide some sort of NFL preseason content. And I don't blame him. This is a sports blog. That's what sports blogs do. But fair warning, if you expect anything I predict to actually happen, you shouldn't be watching sports, you should be watching your diet and trying to eliminate paint chips from your daily consumption.
But before I get into that, a quick note to Entertainment and Sports Programming Network: Hey assholes, when I'm overseas for work and the only American station I have to watch is ESPN America, why in the hell would you broadcast the Little League World Series? NFL preseason football, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer... hell, the Canadian Football League. Any college sport. I'd even take high school women's field hockey. But when you're my only link back to the Land of the Free and you're broadcasting me a bunch of 12-year-olds as Aruba faces Japan in the LLWS quarterfinals, all your doing is making me want to blow Bristol, Connecticut and South Williamsport, Pennsylvania off the map. Get your programming priorities straight, dammit!!!Okay, on with the predictions:
1) Within 365 days of this post, the Jacksonville Jaguars will relocate to Los Angeles. 26 of the 38 Jaguars fans will move with them.
2) The division winners are going to be teams nobody expects. All these smug sportscasters are banally making the safe prediction that the Patriots, Packers, and Eagles will win their respective divisions. This year is going to be a fluke. It will be teams we don't expect, like the Memphis Showboats, the North Melbourne Kangaroos, the Tonawonda Kardex, and the Buffalo Bills.
3) Albert Haynesworth (DT, Patriots) will spend at least one night in jail. And he will fall in love.
4) White people who claim to be 1/16th Apache will be the only people who will continue to be offended by the name of the Washington Redskins. Like the Native American community in America doesn't have bigger fish to fry right now.5) The underground cult-like fan base for Browns RB Peyton Hillis will bestow upon him the nickname "The Cleveland White".
6) Tony Romo will continue to make the same kind of comical blunders we've come to expect from a Polish-Mexican quarterback.
7) Troy Aikman will once again accidentally say the C-word on the air
8) Tom Brady will sleep with your girlfriend, just because he's an asshole and he can. (Besides... you're not happy with her. It will be a good reason to call it quits with her).
9) An NFL player will do something with a gun that will be even stupider than what Plaxico Burress did. My guess is a Cincinnati Bengal.
10) People in the following cities will have virtually nothing to live for unless their team makes a conference championship: Saint Louis, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Houston, Phoenix, and Oakland.
LOCK OF THE YEAR: Philadelphia will continue to be the most ironically named city on earth.
Normally at times like this, I'd post some old statistics off of which we might be able to gauge what will go down this year in the NFL. But there's virtually nothing. The only thing I could think of pertains to other seasons with work stoppages... In league history, there have been two other work stoppages. Both of those seasons, the Super Bowl was won by the same team. An unlikely team that many people discounted, and both years that team had an unproven veteran quarterback with little of value on his resume. That's right, the Washington Redskins won the Super Bowl after the 1982 season and the 1987 season, and they are going to win it in 2011. If history can tell us one thing about what will happen in 2011, it's that the Lombardi trophy will be coming back to the Nation's Capital, and nobody will see it coming.
That's all I've got for the preseason, folks. I'm going to go eat a doner kebab. I'll see you in September when I'm back from Germany and done travelling for good.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Georgetown Hoyas in Fight with CBA's Bayi Rockets
Earlier today, or later today, depending on how you want to look at it, the Georgetown men's basketball team was involved in a brawl in China. The team was playing an exhibition against the Bayi Rockets, a Chinese Basketball Association team made up of players who serve in the People's Liberation Army (Chinese military). The game, however, was cut short when a melee erupted with the score tied at 64.
The Hoyas out-fouled the Rockets 28-11 in the first half. As a Georgetown fan present states:
The Washington Post has the details:
Disgusting.
Here's a link to the video if you'd like to see Clark essentially get jumped by two Bayi players, followed by bedlam.
The Hoyas out-fouled the Rockets 28-11 in the first half. As a Georgetown fan present states:
The whole thing came undone in the third. About two minutes in, the ridiculously lopsided foul calls continued (we were in the bonus again 2 1/2 minutes in) and the first real shoving match kicked off over a loose ball. The players on the court separated each other pretty quickly, but then the craziest thing I've ever seen happened- one of the Bayi big men got in JT3's face and almost took a swing. He was so shocked he didn't know what to do. So that upped the ante a bit.
Then the foul calls truly took on a comical dimension. We supposedly fouled them every time down the court, despite some really good defense on some possessions. There were four or five intentional fouls called, giving them four shots each time down the court. JT3 was called for a technical for stepping over the line onto the court. I counted Bayi scoring two field goals in the entire third quarter.
The Washington Post has the details:
Immediately before the fighting began, Bayi forward-center Hu Ke was called for a foul against Georgetown’s Jason Clark. The senior guard clearly took exception to the hard foul and said so to Hu, trigger[ing] an exchange of shoves.Hu is 6'10". Clark is 6'2" on a good day. The benches cleared. Chairs were thrown. Fans began to storm the court.
A woman sitting in the Georgetown fan section directly behind the bench implored Chinese police to try to calm the situation, saying someone was going to get hurt. The Chinese police had been watching the tensions escalate to the point of physical confrontations but made no attempts to break up any of the fights taking place on the court.This was an incredibly dangerous situation for a bunch of young men (kids, really), alumni, and Georgetown coaches and assistants. Coach Thompson managed to arrange an organized escape to the buses without the help of police.
Before anyone was seriously hurt, Thompson said, “We’re outta here,” and pointed toward the tunnel behind the Hoyas bench leading underneath the stands.
As Thompson and his staff summoned players together and began escorting them off the court, the group had to dodge plastic water bottles being hurled from the stands. Once they reached the safety of the locker room, the team immediately gathered all its equipment and headed for the buses outside.
Members of the Hoyas staff were trying to find a police escort for the entire Georgetown contingent, including alumni and supporters who attended the game as part of a 10-day tour of China, fearing reprisals from Chinese fans. But rather than wait, Thompson told everyone to walk to the buses together.
Disgusting.
Here's a link to the video if you'd like to see Clark essentially get jumped by two Bayi players, followed by bedlam.
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