I can’t watch…and the Knicks get kicked while lying in the fetal position
I draw one positive and one negative from last nights Heat/Pistons game. The positive is that I was right and the Heat won. Always nice to get your predictions right, though admittedly that wasn’t much of a stretch. The negative is that I can’t watch this series. I really can’t. Not after watching the Suns/Clippers and not while thinking about all the potential the Mavs/Suns series has. So if your looking for some sort of interesting take on what happened last night, let me apologize right now. I just don’t have it in me. I’m sorry. The Heat won, 91-86, and if you want a more in depth recap I’ll point you to ESPN.com. I’m sure I’ll watch the rest of the series but I’m looking forward to tonight’s Game 1 (at 8:30 on TNT) between the Mavs and the Suns about a hundred times more then I am any more Heat/Pistons games.
But despite my inability to process the Heat/Pistons series, I will talk about the NBA. Or to be more precise, the NBA draft. Last night was the NBA Draft lottery and now we know that the Toronto Raptors are on the clock after landing the first pick. The Raptors had only an 8.8% chance of winning the draft which certainly must anger the Portland Trailblazers who fell to the number four pick despite having a 25% chance of being in the number one slot. Now that the Raptors have a real GM in Bryan Colangelo, a man who actually knows basketball unlike the previous holder of that title (Rafael Araujo 8th overall anyone?), Toronto has an interesting mix of young talent to build on. Chris Bosh is an unquestioned stud, Charlie Villanueva is solid; toss in whomever the number one pick ends up being, along with a nice chunk of cap space and you’ve got something going.
For me though the real story of the lottery is who is picking second. The Chicago Bulls. What’s so interesting about that? Well that pick originally belonged to the New York Knicks but Isaiah Thomas, in his infinite wisdom, decided to include the Knicks pick in the Eddy Curry trade. Lucky for the Bulls, the Knicks imploded under the odd leadership of Larry Brown and the abysmal-as-usual player personnel choices (Jerome James? Steve Francis?) of Thomas. Now instead of having a chance to rebuild, or at the least improve, with a top two player, the Knicks get to watch the Bulls draft a difference maker who, were it not for Thomas’ anti-Midas touch, should be in a New York uniform. I hope Thomas does take over as coach of the Knicks. That would be the only proper way for him to complete the circle, right? I mean the man is one of the top-three or so point guards of all time, yet everything he has done since retiring involving basketball has been an utter failure. He abandoned the Raptors, he destroyed the CBA, he coached an underachieving Pacers team and his reign as GM of the Knicks is almost too brutal to put into words. I feel like if Thomas came up to me on the street and told me that a basketball is round, I’d almost naturally think it was square, despite what I know, just because Thomas is always, always wrong.
For the record I have no idea who will go where in the draft. As the draft approaches I’ll try to get more knowledgeable but at this point there really doesn’t seem to be any franchise-type guys available. Tyrus Thomas has upside but is a couple years away from contributing; I’ve never really like LaMarcus Aldridge and I really don’t like Rudy Gay, though I do think Marcus “I steal laptops†Williams is going to be very good. We’ll have more on the draft as it approaches.
The ballpark: a lovely place to take the whole family
Via the good folks at Deadspin we get this story: A Houston police officer has been relieved of his duties because during one of Lt. Jeffery Olesen’s off days he decided to have sex with his wife and his wife’s female friend in a unisex bathroom at Minute Maid Park during an Astros game. Officer Olesen was busted when a fan with a young child entered the bathroom, which apparently the three adults inside had been to engrossed with themselves to remember to lock. I must say, it’s certainly an interesting way to get fired.
As promised
As I said I would yesterday, I give you the blog post Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wrote in regards to his team beating the Spurs. I can’t do it justice by summarizing, so I’ll just let the man speak for himself. (Link)
Odds and Ends
The NFL refuses to let Reggie Bush wear number 5. This is NFL micromanaging at its worst. Who cares at this point what number players wear? (Link)
Site News
A couple of things here. First, today’s note might not feature the items you are so accustomed to seeing and that’s mostly because I had a really busy day yesterday and was up much latter then I anticipated so, honestly, I didn’t get around to recapping every baseball game from last night (Albert Pujols did hit his 23rd home run though) or putting up tonight’s baseball schedule (I may get rid of this altogether unless there is an outcry in favor of keeping it). I know, this is only the third day and already I’m slacking. It’s sad I know. I’ll try not to make it a habit, yesterday just got hectic. I did manage to pump out almost a thousand words though.