The Monday Musings

With the Lakers doing the inevitable last night (a game earlier than I thought. Stern is really slipping in his ability to influence the outcome of games and series. He needed to extend this series, but he lets the Lakers roll over the Magic on the road?! A travesty! An outrage! Next time Stern needs to either a) assign "refs better suited to extending the series" b) assign a coach better suited to extending the series than Stan Van Gundy or c) get someone to teach Dwight Howard some post moves. Really, any at all besides dunking or putbacks on offensive rebounds), and the Penguins pulling the game seven upset of Detwah Friday night, we have officially entered the barren stretch on the sports calendar known as Nothing But Baseball (or NBB if you will- and I will), which stretches from mid-June to late August. No real games of any kind except baseball from now until late August when college football starts. Sure, we'll have the NBA draft in a few weeks, NBA free agency starting July 1, NFL teams will start reporting for camp middle to end of next month, and then the kiddies will report in August for college football. So we have a solid month before there's really anything of substance to talk about for football, and two months before any real games begin.

In the meantime? Um, yeah good question. I'll be trying to figure out the "6 in-6 out" NFL playoff teams, which will include the Super Secret Sleeper nobody will see coming. Last year's winners were Baltimore (which I called- although I doubted it would happen if Troy Smith didn't win the starting QB job because obviously you cannot win with a rookie QB! Can't be done! We now know better) and Atlanta (nope!). Again, this needs to be a team nobody sees coming so Seattle is out of the running (although barring another horrible rash of injuries they should win the NFC West), and Kansas City might too (I know this is already Bill Simmons' early front runner for SSS, so we'll see how much coverage they get with Cassell and coach Josh McDaniel there. They'll definitely be better and could even win a division that won't be very good- once again I am not a fan of San Diego or Denver- but it depends on how much media coverage they get before the season. I've actually already got a front-runner of my own, and am feeling pretty good about it, but better do some more research before making the final decision. Two things I can guarantee you- it won't be Detroit or Oakland. It will never be Detroit or Oakland as long as the Fords and Al Davis are running those teams.

I also plan on studying up hardcore on Big Ten football. I'm taking my role very seriously this year over on Jer's Gopher football blog and plan to know everything humanly possible about the Big Ten. College football has officially taken over as my favorite sport on earth, so it won't be hard to really throw myself into it.

Otherwise? We can look forward to Blake Griffin going #1 to the Clippers (even they can't screw that one up. Also, people are making WAY too big a deal of Zach Randolph screwing things up there. He has two more years left on his deal, so yes, he's not going to be a good influence on Griffin as a rookie, but he should be dealable the next season, so you're only looking at 1-2 years of Zach Randolph. Not the end of the world, people, not the end of the world), Memphis doing something dumb (like not taking Ricky Rubio second), Minnesota doing something dumb (I don't think requires further elaboration, does it?), and Portland and the Stolen Sonics making smart picks.

NBA free agency and trades? Will be much ado about nothing, as usual. A lot of teams need to do something but the economy will probably only force those way over the cap to make moves to get under, not to make themselves demonstrably better. There's very few teams with a ton of cap space, and fewer willing to spend it. Detroit will basically have their choice of Carlos Boozer, Lamar Odom, or whichever free agent they want. Sounds like Phoenix is serious about moving Shaq, and so far there's rumors that both Cleveland and Dallas are very interested. And really, why wouldn't they be? I mean why wouldn't any team be interested in an overweight, overpaid (scheduled to make $20,000,000 next year!!!) 37 year old center whose body can no longer handle playing a full season and who would most definitely require a contract extension through his age 40 season if you deal for him? What a deal! Where can I sign up for that?!?

Seriously, what is Cleveland thinking? They did't lose to Orlando because Big Z, Ben Wallace, or Side Show Bob couldn't guard Dwight Howard one-on-one, they lost because a) Mike Brown refused to put smaller players on the floor who could guard Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu and b) Cleveland just wasn't that good. They weren't. We were all fooled into thinking the Cavs were a great team because of their regular season record, yet they were exposed badly by Orlando for having a subpar supporting cast around Lebron. The Cavs need more talent around Bronbron, and I just don't see how Shaq does that. There has to be better options available via trade to give him help than Shaq.

Anyway, so other than rumors and rumors and more rumors, there won't be much of substance to talk about for the next two solid freaking months!! Good thing it's summer and judging by the weather today, Minnesota might actually get some real summer weather. Let the season of NBB begin!