Playoffs? (In my best Jim Mora voice

Well. I haven't been able to write as much as I would have like. Darn Disneyland, work and kids getting in the way. I regret that I was unable to preview the western conference. Here are my thoughts about the playoffs to this point.



1. Deshawn Stevenson is the gift that keeps on giving. He may be the only guy in the league whose trading could cause me to shout for joy....when he was traded for Gordan Giricek. Seriously, thanks alot DeShawn, way to think it through buddy. If you haven't been following this story, DeShawn has harbored a personal grudge against LeBron James for some unknown reason (this has to involve something off the court, I will get investigators on this), and has decided to call the King out as overrated. He then repeated his taunt right before the playoffs. After LeBron has knocked his team out of the playoffs the last two years. LeBron then compared himself to Jay Z and DeShawn to a rapper named Soulja Boy (with the apparent point being that DeShawn is a loser and the King is the King). Now the rappers are involved and it is a whole, big fun mess.



So I had already made my prediction of the Wizards winning the series before DeShawn started opening his stupid yapper. Nice going buddy. I'd like to remind you once and for all...you are DeShawn Stevenson. You suck. You make lots of stupid decisions. Somebody should put a muzzle on you. You called out one of the 3 best players in the league, who has, at times in his career, played uninspired basketball. Your team arguably had a talent advantage coming into this game, seeing as half the Cavs should be playing for the Idaho Stampede in the CBA. Yet you go and AWAKE THE SLEEPING BEAR. This may rank up there with the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor as a "what the hell were you thinking" awaking the bear moment. How did DeShawn expect this to end well. Especially when he sucks. If it was someone like Kobe calling out LeBron, he could go back it up by pouring in 50 and shaking his finger at Wally Szerbiak or whichever other poor shmuck is trying to guard him. But DeShawn Freaking Stevenson? Needless to say I want a do-over on this one.



2. I still think the Pistons will win, but I do think they have been exposed in this series. Philly is an athletic team, and have run circles around the Pistons at times. In my preview blog, I stated that the Pistons are one of the only teams out there that could put 5 guys out there that can shoot. This is also their problem, they really have no one that can bang. Rasheed could do it, but to often he is content to sit on the perimeter. I think this may be why the Jazz do so well against them. They don't have the inside presence to make us pay for the human matador (Boozer).



3. Atlanta also appears to be talking a whole lot of smack to the Celtics, and even pulled out a game there. I expect Boston to win tonight and win the series 4-1, but the Hawks have showed some moxie. Did you see Horford (who I love) get into Pierce's face and taunt him after breaking his ankles? Not sure that was the smartest move, but then again, Pierce is no LeBron. If Horford had done that to KG, he might have found his guts splattered all over the court. KG is insane.



4. Orlando/Toronto has been every bit as boring as I imagined. Except I am trying to figure out the ceiling for Dwight Howard. He is a monster. I have never seen a set of shoulders like that on a 21 year old 7 footer. He would scare me except he is a big time Pollyanna. The David Robinson comparisons may be right. Great player, might be too nice and lack a killer instinct enough to transcend the sport. Maybe they should send him to live with Garnett for a month.



Speaking of Robinson, I recently saw a message board thread in which people compared Robinson to Karl Malone, with the majority of the people in the thread choosing Robinson as the better player. This baffled me, and tells me how few people actually watch the games or remember anything about these guys. We remember their careers in bits. Truth is Malone destroyed Robinson throughout his career. Robinson was his personal whipping boy. He elbowed him in to submission and destroyed him in the playoffs with regularity. People forget that the Jazz owned the Spurs in the 90s, much in the same way that the Spurs have owned the Jazz during the Duncan era. I know I am a biased Jazz fan, but I would take Malone any day of the week and twice on Sunday. People get skewed vision because Robinson won two titles at the end of his career while riding the XXXL coattails of Tim Duncan.



5. The Jazz Series. I don't really want to write about it because I don't want to jinx it. Here are some points.

• I think I underestimated how good a defensive team Houston is. They give you fits out there. Battier would be the most annoying player on the planet if Manu Ginobili didn't live and breathe. But, I would take him on my team any day. He is absolutely relentless, and hits that open three every time.


• The problem with Houston is that they have McGrady, and like 8 very good role players. The thing is, I'm not sure they are better with Yao, especially against the Jazz. Yao is a defensive liability, and Boozer goes around him while Okur pulls him out to the perimeter where he is not comfortable. Also, Landry is just a beast, and Houston really took off after they started playing him. Landry has been killing the Jazz on the offensive glass. Another player I really like.
• McGrady annoys me. No doubting his talent, and I'm sure he is a great guy. But I don't think he has it when it counts. That is the difference between him and guys like Michael Jordan and Kobe, who want to eat your young. McGrady doesn't lack the confidence.
• He is also a moron. He said that the Jazz' defense isn't working on him, when he is shooting under 40% for the series and coming off a 9-25 night. Either the defense is pretty effective, or you are just a crappy shooter, I will take a little bit of both. His shot selection is awful, but I guess that's what he has to do to help them win. Plus, I don't think it was smart for him to diss Deron (saying that he doesn't even know how to pronounce his name) after Deron had just massacred the Rockets in the 4th quarter, including a poster dunk over Battier. Deron Williams is about to have 3 more career playoff victories in his 3 years than you have had in your entire, insignificant 11 year career T-Mac.
• I think we should be playing Brewer more, especially in the 4th. I know Jerry likes his rotations, and I know Korver is always a threat out there, but Korver has not been shooting particularly well. And, Brewer is one of those guys that always seems to be getting open, is improving on defense, and is always in the passing lanes. I thought they missed his scrappiness in the 4th quarter in the last two games.
• Deron is taking a beating out there, and I hope he gets out of this series unscathed. The good news is (and there is not much good news playing the Lakers) he will be playing Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic in the next round, unless the Zen Master decides to put Kobe on him.
• The Jazz had better get their outside shooting figured out quick. How do you go 0-14 from 3 at home? Boozer also better get things figured out. We are never going to beat the Lakes if he keeps having 3-13 nights. I think Boozer has run out of gas a little bit, as he hasn't been playing well for a while now.

More to come, but I will have to post the rest later.

Tiger Woods...If we didn't know he was good before

http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=3348702

This killed me for some reason. So Tiger Woods, playing with a bum knee that needs arthroscopic surgery, not hardly making a putt all week, and playing somewhat inconsistent with his driver, still finishes second at the Masters, against the best field in the world. Unbelievable. I would almost say this is like Jordan's flu game against the Jazz, but we all know that Jordan was just hung over, not suffering from the flu : ).

Seriously though, I watched most of the Masters on Saturday and Sunday, and never once thought Tiger was playing exceptionally well--he never could get a run going. Now we find out that he went under the knife the day after the tournament. And despite all this, he finishes second? That, my friends is domination.

Here is my question, which athlete has dominated their sport to the greatest degree over the last 20 years?

• Tiger Woods from 1997 to the present?
• Lance Armstrong from 1998 to 2005?
• Roger Federer from 2004 to 2007?
• Annika Sorenstam?
• Michael Jordan from 1991 to 1998 (barring his two year gambling expulsion...uh, I mean "retirement")

Any others I am missing?

I would say Armstrong, because he dominated the Tour De France to an unprecedented degree, and became public emeny number 1 in France. Anyone that is public enemy number 1 in France automatically receives my adulation...Well, except for Hitler (but enough French welcomed the German army that I am not sure he was public enemy number 1) but I digress. HOWEVAH (in my best Stephen A. Simth), I don't follow cycling that closely, but from my understanding, Armstrong skipped almost every other event on the tour and concentrated solely on the Tour De France. That would be like Tiger only playing the Masters each year (and winning it, mind you). Plus, I am having a tough time coming to grips with a sport where the majority of the participants are not trying to win, but to protect their racer. This is like Hockey with 6 goons on the ice and one guy trying to score, I don't get it. Plus, there is that little doping thing....I know it has never been proven, but does anyone really believe there was none of that going on? Of course, all the other spandex-wearing Euros were certainly doing it too, so that is probably a wash.

Federer had perhaps the most dominant 3 year stretch ever in mens tennis. However, I am not sure the field has been that strong over the last couple of years, with the exception of Nadal, who is unbeatable on clay. I don't think he has had to go up against the kind of competition that McEnroe, Connors, Borg, and even Sampras and Agassi had to go up against. Still, it is hard to argue with his brilliance. The dude is a machine.

I haven't watched enough womens golf to put Sorenstam in persepctive (or any LPGA events for that matter, and even if I had watched, I wouldn't admit it). I had to look her up. She has won 10 majors since 1994. Since Tiger has won more than that since 1997 in a more competitive sport, he automatically gets the leg up. I won't discuss this anymore.

Jordan was personally responsible for a handful of the "greatest 50 players of all time" retiring ringless, including Malone, Stockton, Barkley and Ewing. That would have included Olajuwon and Drexler as well, but Jordan had to be banished by David Stern to the Birmingham Barons for two years. From 1991 to 1998, he won the championship in each year he played with the exception of his March comeback in 1995. He was named MVP three times, and probably should have been the MVP each season (sorry Karl and Charles). Not only that, he led teams prominently featuring figures like Bill Wennington, Bill Cartwright, Steve Kerr, John Paxson, Luc Longley, and the like to championships. Yeah, I know he had Pippen, but still...The only thing against Jordan here is that he is the only person discussed that is involved in a team sport. Still, did anyone else on the Bulls keep you up at night? He is the most transcedent player ever to play a team sport, and that has to count for something.

Tiger has been running laps around the field since 1997, with the exception of two "swing changes" from 1998-1999 and 2004-2005 (when he let Phil Mickelson and his Bro take a couple) where he looked mortal for a short time, before methodically destroying the field again. He has won 13 majors, only 5 from the all-time lead. He has won 64 tournaments. The % of tournaments he wins (in which he has entered) is staggering, and completely unprecedented. He causes other golfers to melt down playing next to him (I am going to have to look up the scoring average of his playing partners, this has to be documented somewhere...I'll bet it's not good). He has revolutionized the sport of golf. No other athlete has a bigger hold on the ratings and revenues of their sport. He has made gazillionaires out of a ton of other golfers, who should all be thanking Tiger for the increased purses. He has forced other golfers to hire personal trainers and become fitness fanatics (except Phil and Daly and a few others like that). The stamp he put on the sport may be the greatest single stamp anyone has put on their game.

I think I will have to go with Tiger on this one. Thoughts?

NBA Playoffs (Eastern Conference) Addendum

I thought this link was awesome. High Comedy.

http://sportstwo.com/NBA/TeamSalaries/NEWYORK

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Isaiah Thomas. Add to these hilarious figures the fact the Knicks are still paying Millions to players who are no longer on their team (such as Jalen Rose, GO BLUE!!!) and it becomes dowright hysterical.

I wish Isaiah or Billy King were salary negotiators at my law firm. I would have a seven figure salary, a yacht and a cabin in Aspen. One can dare to dream.

On the other hand, check this out.

http://sportstwo.com/NBA/TeamSalaries/UTAH

There are only a few here that are out of whack (Harpring, Collins, Hart), and these are only slightly out of whack, not significant. Collins is out of whack only because he should be flipping burgers or doing something else with that Stanford degree rather than playing in the NBA. Harp brings so much to the table (missed layups aside) and provides one player that will never be in Jerry's doghouse, so he is at least close to worth it.

On second thought, the Artist Formerly Known as Andrei Kirilenko is out of whack. And we lucked out that D Fish opportunistically bailed to LA, if for no other reason than it forced Jerry to play Ronnie Brewer (who voila! is an extremely effective slasher).

I am a little concerned by the mere fact the Jazz have Scott Layden on their bench. I am afraid that Knick cooties will infect the team. I think we need to spray his chair with Lysol every night.

NBA Playoffs

For my initial post on this blog, I have decided to discuss the NBA playoffs. Simply put, the NBA playoffs have always been a big deal to me. I will be on pins and needles for the next couple of weeks, and will be a ton of fun to be around. Having grown up in Utah, there was only one professional team, leading most of us Jazz fans to throw our hearts into it with the passion of rooting for three teams. This has generally led to a great deal of heartache...especially in '98 with the famous pushoff (um..shot?) by Michael Jordan.

Anyway, I am starting to get an inkling of what Red Sox fans felt prior to 2004, when their team had gone 86 years without winning a world series, despite a series of near misses. You are always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and always expecting the worst to happen. Take this year for instance. The Jazz have as good a shot as any team to win the title. There is no team without a flaw. The Spurs are getting creaky and glue-guy/flopper extraordinaire Manu Ginobili is not healthy. The Lakers are not completely healthy. The Jazz own the Hornets, who rely too much on one player. The Suns have an identity crisis and a PG with 50,000,000 miles on the odometer. The Rockets rely on a superstar that has never won a playoff series and a group of role players (Landry and Battier and Harris and Scola and Jackson, oh my). The Mavs stopped playing defense sometime in 2006. The Nuggets are....well, the Nuggets and harbors the most eclectic collection of psychos since the immortal 1999 Trailblazers. Rasheed, Rueben Patterson, JR Rider, Damon Stoudamire and crew will never be topped, this is like DiMaggio's 56 game hit streak, Cy Young's 521 victories and VanderMeer's back to back no hitters. Although, Isaiah has really tried with the Marbury, Randolph and Eddy Curry deals, and the Blazers tried to outdo themselves by the Randolph and Miles acquisitions....but I digress.

The point is, even though the Jazz have as good a shot as anyone in the west, I still can't convince myself it will happen. The good news, however, is that the Jazz now have an alpha dog (Deron Williams) with some Cajones, as opposed to one (Karl Malone) who seemed to come up short in most of the biggest situations (See Seattle, game 7 1996; Chicago, game 6 1998). Hopefully he can usher in a new era for the Jazz. Thing is, I am worried that our pourous interior defense, led by the deplorably defenseless Carlos Boozer, will be the thing that bites us in the end.

Anyway, I will start my playoff preview with the NBDL, also known as the NBA Eastern Conference. I am pretty sure the Kansas Jayhawks could have made the playoffs in this conference. Or the Mountain View Bruins (I am sure Jeff Gardner could give Doc Rivers a run for his money). I will start with the Eastern Conference because the playoff matchups have actually been set. The Western Conference will follow tomorrow...if I get time (will be in sunny California starting tomorrow night).

#1 Celtics v. # 8 Atlanta Hawks (aka BYE) - Unbelievable, the NBA actually went to a bye for the 1 seed in the east. Well...not really, but it may as well be. The C's should roll in this round, and be able to give their creaky big three some decent rest.

Actually, when you look at it, the Hawks have some talent. Joe Johnson is a legit all-star (though not good enough to carry a team), Bibby is a solid player who can make the big shot (and more importantly has solved their long-deplorable point guard position), Horford is a fantastic rookie who can guard 3 positions and has a developing post up game, Josh Smith is one of the best wing defenders in the game, and could lead the league in blocks at 6-9. The problem is, none of these guys is a go-to scorer, even Johnson. The C's, on the other hand, have 3 go-to guys in Garnett, Allen and Pierce, the games best low post defender in Garnett, a very good perimeter defender in Rondo, and some good bench veterans led by ET himself (Sam Cassell). You get the point...blowout.

#2 Pistons v. #7 Philly - The Pistons are actually better positioned, IMO, than they have been over the last couple years, possibly including their title run in '04. They still have one of the league's best starting fives in Billups, Annorexic Rip, 'Sheed, Annorexic Tay, and Creaky McDyess (on his third set of knees). But the difference this year is that they finally have developed some depth, including Theo Ratliff's Expiring Contract, a revelation in Cheney, Washington's finest (Rodney Stuckey), a fantastic bench forward out of the Bob Huggins school of hard knocks (Jason Maxiell), Aron Afflalo, etc. They have the added advantage of being able to give you 5 legitimate offensive threats (each of their five starters has deep range on their shots), rather than playing 4 on 5 with Ben Wallace in there. I actually like this team to upset Boston, but I am jumping ahead of myself....

Philly is a weird team, and it is inexplicable that they are winning, other than the fact that it is easy explicible to win in the east. They have a solid PG in Andre Miller (who can't score outside 10 feet), a ball-hog athletic wing in Andre Iguoudala, a serial-overpaid defensive minded center (Dalembert), a solid rookie (Thaddeus Young), a couple of pretty decent, no-name guards (Willie Green and Sweet Lou Williams) and a reserve post players against whom it is advisable to wear a cup (Reggie "nad grab" Evas). Decent team, pretty athletic, no alpha dog, very little outside shooting. If only they would have kept Giricek....If only?

Detroit in 5

#3 Orlando v. # 6 Toronto - Yawn. Orlando isn't bad. But...they live and die by the three, and will ultimately die by it. They have a team of shameless chuckers such as Rashard ($118 million) Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu. Dwight Howard is going to be one of the best centers the game has seen, and is already a defensive/rebounding best. However, his offensive game essentially constists of "see ball, get ball, dunk ball". He is not ready to lead a team deep into the playoffs. Meer-Meer is good, but will get exploited by bigger guards (Chauncey Billups, anyone?). The rest of the team is a group of undistinguished role players...Except one

That one is Carlos Arroyo. He is distinguishable only in that if he hadn't have been such an unmitigated failure of a starting PG, a huge baby, and had his own penthouse suite in Jerry Sloan's doghouse, the Jazz never would have been crappy enough to draft Deron Williams, and would not have drafted D Will after giving Arroyo an inexplicable $5 million deal. I would like to thank Arroyo for being a failure, Detroit for taking him off ours hands, and the Portland Trailblazers for deciding that they liked a good-citizen, average teenage shooting guard as much as Williams and Paul and trading out of that third spot. Thank you all for making it possible.

Toronto is a lousy team. The have a head-case for a superstar (Chris Bosh). They have a group of ultra soft Italians and Europeans led by one Andrea Bargnani (the number 1 picks in 2005 and 2006 were FANTASTIC), a pretty good Spanish PG (Jose Calderon), a backup PG who is a health risk to himself every time he takes the court (T.J. Ford), a serial chucker (Kris Humphries) who had the Presidential Suite in Sloan's doghouse.

I don't think Orlando is great, but Toronto has been brutal. Orlando in 5.

# 4 Cleveland v. # 5 Washington - I look forward to a root canal more than watching any game in this series. I do appreciate LeBron, and he is fun to watch, but the various rabble that plays with him bores me (and the rest of America) to tears. The immortal Jim Paxson (with a little help from Carlos Boozer) provided LeBron with an NBDL cast starring a 7-3 Lithuanian who can barely walk, a pretty-boy from Miami (Ohio) that has been punched out by a teammate everywhere he has gone, a guy named Boobie, the worst shooting point guard of my lifetime (Eric Snow), a washed up center who can't score from outside two feet (Ben Wallace), a guy that thanks his lucky stars for Olawakandi and Kwame Brown, so as to avoid being the worst Number 1 pick of the last 20 years (Joe Smith), a motormouth who can do nothing but shoot 3s, and hasn't even been doing that well (Damon Jones). Brilliant guys, just Brilliant. You get one of the three best players in the game on his rookie contract, and this is what you surround him with, really? That said, there is no greater indictment of the NBDL (Eastern) Conference than that this pitiful team made the finals last year. I do like Delonte West OK...I guess.

Washington has the chance to be better, when healthy. And Gil Arenas is always entertaining because he is borderline loco. Jamison and Butler can fill it up as well. However, I can't take a team that starts DeShawn Stevenson at the 2 seriously, I just can't.

I guess Butler will probably guard LeBron. These playoffs could be the time when LBJ says "screw it" and takes 35 shots a game, Kobe style. I would if I were him--better that than throwing it down low to Ben Wallace. I just think Washington, if healthy has more options than Cleveland, and the only thing that would carry the Cavs through is a Hurculean performance from Bron-Bron. I don't think it will quite happen. Washington will win in 6, and LBJ will rip another day off his personal calendar, only about 800 until he will join his pal P Diddy and become a Brooklyn Net.

I have just analyzed perhaps the most boring set of conference first round games in the history of the NBA. I need some Zoloft.