Tuesday, July 31, 2007

KG's a Celtic: Another Blow to the Knicks :)

I loathe Isiah Thomas and Jim Dolan and what has befallen my previously beloved New York Knicks. However, I have vowed that as long as those assholes are involved with the Knicks, I renounce my support for the team. In fact, after the way Larry Brown was treated nothing makes me happier than to see the Knicks suffer.

And that brings me to the KG trade. I love it. It almost virtually dooms the Knicks to missing the playoffs again. I had a temporary set back when the Knicks acquired Zach Randolph for the proverbial bag of donuts. Oh, I shouldn't say that. Those were players that Thomas drafted/acquired. And according to Stephen A. Smith Isiah Thomas is an amazing evaluator of talent, especially when it comes to the draft, so they must be great players. Except for the fact that Channing Frye who was the #8 pick in the 2005 draft is softer than the Stay-Puff marshmellow man.

Anyways, while I never understood how Randolph and Curry would play together and how they would keep the opponents score under 200 with no interior defense, it pained me to see Isiah actually get the better part of a deal and potentially have a chance at the playoffs next season.

Even better, Isiah had floated the idea that the Knicks could be a player in the KG sweepstakes and buffoons like Ken Berger of Newsday actually printed that drivel. But alas Isiah was outmanuvered by DANNY F-ING AINGE of all people. The one GM that most people thought was more incompetent than Isiah. Just great, great news. A smile has come back over my face.

Trade Deadline Blues for Met Fans

My head is going to explode. I really do think that Omar Minaya is a great GM, but tonight I watch Guillermo Mota blow the 300th win for Tom Glavine. Another blown hold for Mota another grey hair for me. I swear to God that Omar should start personally injecting Mota with steroids again so that he'd at least be effective in the bullpen. Otherwise, I think the Mets are better off with Mota suspended rather than blowing leads.

I can't take it. The Red Sox get Gagne for next to nothing (a 5th starter and a 5th outfielder) instead of the Mets while at the same time the Braves get both Texiera and Dotel. No Gagne, no Dotel, not even Chad Cordero or Jon Rauch. Oh my God, is that what I'm willing to settle for, Jon Rauch? Please kill me.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Marbury Still Clueless

Italy is one of my favorite countries to visit. That's why today's report that Stephon Marbury intends to play hoops in Italy in the Euroleague is both preposterous and upsetting. The Italian people are wonderful, nice and certainly don't deserve to have a moron like Marbury foisted on them. The idea saddens me.

But the most galling thing about the report is Marbury's reasoning. He acts as if the only reason that the Knicks wouldn't want to sign him (or any other team for that matter) is because of creaky knees. Hey Starbury, ever think it has anything to do with the fact that your a cancer on every team you've been associated with? You don't make your teammates better, every team you leave gets better and every team you go to gets worse. Oh, and I forgot that you pout, complain and disrupt a team when things don't go your way. The way you undermined Larry Brown, the one guy who could have actually helped your development as a player, was completely despicable.

But I will say that Marbury's self-comparison to David Beckham is pretty on target. He would be an aging "star" (although never the elite player that Beckham was back in the day) who went to another league in another country where 99% of the population won't give a damn that he came.

To all my friends in Italy, I can only hope for your sake that Marbury either has a career ending injury or convinces the Knicks to pay him again when his contract is up. With boobs like Isiah and James Dolan running the show, that's as likely an outcome as any.

"Dog Days" Ahead for Michael Vick

Hard not to resist the pun on this one. I was stunned to see the breaking news on ESPN as soon as I got to the pool hall last night. Not surprised, but I didn't expect the announcement. And it's reported that Vick or his posse didn't expect it either from reports on ESPN.

No question that Michael Vick is in trouble. The issue has never abated since it was first reported that illegal dog fighting training facilities were found on a piece of property that he owned in Virginia. While he's owed his day in court, I never thought that his public statements -- that he had no idea what was going on in his own property -- were credible. It's the same sort of "I'm a star, so I can't get in trouble" attitude that we've all unfortunately become to expect from professional athletes.

Vick is basically screwed at this point (as are the Falcons). The Feds typically don't indict unless they're pretty sure of a conviction, as evidenced by their 95% conviction rate. And the odds are pretty good that one of Vick's friends (i.e. co-defendants) will roll on Vick for a reduced sentence.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out over the coming months.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Fantasy Hoops - Initial Installment

One of the other things that I'm going to write about (and may even launch a separate blog once the season starts is fantasy basketball. I've been in a fantasy league for almost 20 years, and quite successful, especially recently, having won it all 3 of the past 5 years. I feel that the insights and projections from the many national writers aren't any better than mine, so I will contribute my own info.

Anyway, the NBA season never really stops. We had the finals end last month along with the NBA draft (one of my favorite days of the year). And this month is began the Vegas and Orlando summer leagues. But yesterday started the official free agency signing period.

Only a few major moves so far:

Rashard Lewis to Orlando: While Otis Smith has been blasted for overpaying for Lewis, at least he used his cap money to get the best player available. There are so many years where GMs get killed for hoarding all their cap money only to have no one take it, that I'm glad to see someone be aggressive and get the player they targeted. From a fantasy standpoint, this doesn't really help Lewis' value tremendously. His scoring should increase slightly to the 22-24ppg mark, but all else should stay about the same. The real beneficiaries should be man-child Dwight Howard who will now get a little more spacing down on the block because there is a shooter that needs to be guarded. Jameer Nelson might see his assist numbers increase as now there's someone who can actually put the ball in the basket on a consistent basis.

Darko Milicic to Memphis: Can't talk about Lewis without following up directly with Darko. I haven't seen an agent blow up like Cornstein did in a while...especially when the result is that his player becomes an UFA which would ostensibly allow for a bidding war and let the player choose the opportunity that they think will be best for them. Anyway, Darko teased us at the end of the 2005-6 season and again in last year's playoffs. But 12 & 7 are not truly great numbers in any case. Add to the fact that Darko couldn't even beat out Tony Battie for the starting job to begin the season and never averaged 30 mpg. Now I understand that Memphis has a coach in Iavaroni that should put in a system that should be good for Darko, but I still don't expect much. Yes there's no other true center on the team, but I have a hard time thinking that Darko will average more than 28 mpg on Memphis either. Too many athletic energy guys like Warrick, Kinsey who will earn their minutes. Gay and Miller (if he can stay healthy) will eat a lot of minutes too. So look for Darko if you need blocks, otherwise, he's not going to have much impact.

One last guy I want to mention has yet to sign -- Mo Williams. Mo (who I astutely drafted in the 8th round last year) seems to be leaning to the Heat even though all he can get is the MLE instead of bigger money ($8M+/year) from the Bucks. Defintely would be a huge upgrade from Jason Williams, but he goes from a second option with the Bucks to a third option behind D-Wade and Shaq (other than during Shaq's normal 40 game vacation in the middle of the season). I think would help Miami's chances of going deep in the playoff's, but probably modestly hurt Mo's stats in fantasy-land. The Bucks were all perimeter and Shaq will need the ball. Also Wade will handle the ball much more than Redd did, and is a much better rebounder so it should bring down Mo's assists and rebounds slightly.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Introducing My Blog

Hello, I just wanted to say hi. I'm going to be using this blog to talk about all sorts of things, as the title of the blog says. I'll be blunt, honest and hopefully sometimes funny. I aspire to write like Bill Simmons, ESPN's "The Sports Guy", who for those of you like Jon Stewart on the "The Daily Show", would simply love...if you like sports. Anyway, I'll post when the mood or topic strikes me.