End Times in Miami?

So it's been quite a while since my last post and my excuse is that I've been very busy. In the past month I've moved from Ohio to Colorado and started a new job with the Craig Daily Press. For all my Eastern Time Zone readers, that means the posts are going to be coming across the horn later at night. Apologies for that. But with internet newly installed in my apartment, I'm ready to get back to doing some serious posting. It just so happens that I'm coming back during a particularly interesting time in sports.

There will be tennis posts to come. The Euro Soccer Championships will be thrilling, but they can wait. The New York Mets are enjoying success I could not have imagined at this point in the year, but it's still early in baseball. There has been an inordinate amount of news coming out of the Atlantic 10 this summer, and we'll get there soon enough. But I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that my interests match up with those of ESPN; that is to say, I want to talk about the Miami Heat.

If you have an excellent memory, you'll recall that I wrote about the Heat in one of my most recent posts. I talked about not being worried about the Heat, because they're just too talented to lose to most of the teams in the NBA when the games really matter. I continued to feel that way when the Indiana Pacers took a 2-1 lead on the Heat, and Miami won the next three games. I still didn't worry when the Celtics came back to tie the Eastern Conference Finals 2-2. Even Bosh-less, the Heat have way more talent than Boston. But now, there is nothing but worry for the Heat, because they are a game down and have to win in Boston to stay alive. Not impossible, but not feeling likely right now.

So how did this happen? How did Miami go from overwhelming favorite to the brink? Was it because we (I) overestimated them? I don't think so. They are the same team as last year (probably a bit better), the loss of Bosh notwithstanding. While I've battled the "inability to close" idea that ESPN and others have propagated since last season, it keeps coming true. But I think the term "close" is the wrong one. No one can close a game better than the Miami Heat when they have an eight point lead. They play loose and are unstoppable on offense, like normal. As a result, teams can't get any closer down the stretch.

But when Miami is in a two or three-point game, or losing by a few, the offense just doesn't seem to flow as freely. Dwyane Wade and Lebron James' drives to the basket don't even seem as smooth. They play a forced, rough style of basketball. During a normal part of any game, the layups are beautiful, inventive and always seem to drop. At the end of a close one, though, something is missing (couldn't find a video of Garnett blocking James down the stretch of game 5, but that's a good example. Just a basic, straight-line drive to the basket. That's not going to work in the NBA most times.) And it's not just better defense.

This is very interesting, because Wade and James have proven many times in the past that they are capable. Lebron James is the same guy that went for 47 against the eventual champion Boston Celtics in game 7, and single-handedly beat the Detroit Pistons in two overtimes in 2007. But in years past, he hasn't been there. He is still as dominant as ever, but isn't dominating at the right time, or at least not dominating enough to make that "right time" not matter.

Will that come back? Game 6 in Boston would be a good place to start.

Who cares if a storm is a-brewing in Oklahoma City?

The NBA Season has begun, and while for many sports fans that is as exciting as a poopy-flavored lollipop, for the people in Oklahoma City, it is a thrilling prospect.

Their team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, lost the Western Conference Finals in six games to the eventual champion Dallas Mavericks. Despite the disappointment that always accompanies having your season ended with a loss, the Thunder had plenty to look forward to. They were the youngest team in the league, with two of its best young players and a nucleus of talent that seemed to genuinely enjoy playing with each other and would continue to improve. Things got even better after the lockout ended. The Thunder saw the Mavericks lose the defensive player that gave them fits in the postseason (Tyson Chandler), saw the Lakers get royally screwed by the NBA in the Chris Paul debacle, and watched the Spurs get another year older. Those were the three teams seeded higher than them in last year's Western Conference. Imagine the lofty expectations for 2012.

So imagine my surprise when, after a 4-0 start for the Thunder, all I am hearing about on Sportscenter and reading about online is whether Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant can get along. Come on. Of course we still remember Westbrook taking bad shot after bad shot against the Mavs, but he wasn't the reason they lost. Have you forgotten that Dirk Nowitski was scoring 65 a game and shooting 99 percent from the foul line throughout the playoffs? The Thunda's fate was sealed, whether Westbrook was hitting those shots or not.

And yes, I am aware of the arguing on the sidelines that happened during the Thunder's win at Memphis in the team's third game of the season. But guess what? Westbrook was polishing off an 0-for-13-er on the night. Who wouldn't be pissed off during and after a game like that? And now, after Westbrook made several big plays down the stretch against Dallas and Durant hit a game-winning buzzer-beater, while half of Twitter was celebrating the shot, the other half could only find time to comment on the "half-hearted" hug the two players shared afterward in celebration. Get a life.

Maybe Westbrook isn't as happy as he could possibly be in Oklahoma City. But I'm not buying into some seething hatred he holds for Kevin Durant. The guys have grown up in the NBA together. They've shared immense amount of success at a young age by feeding off each other. Together. Whether or not Scott Brooks blames one for the team's failures is moot. That might represent a problem in the coach-player relationship, but the not the one between teammates.

And beyond all that, we shouldn't be worried about Westbrook leaving until at least after this season is done. The Thunder are one of four teams I would say have a legitimate shot at a championship this season (Heat, Bulls and Lakers are the other three. Really, the Lakers would need a full 58 games of good play from Andrew Bynum to be legit. That remains to be seen). Westbrook would be crazy to leave before this season is done. Even if he wants to be the alpha dog, or play in a bigger market, there is no place he could go that would give him a better title shot that OKC this year. So there's not point until after the season.

At any rate, it would be great if we could stop hearing about the discontent on the Thunder's sideline and in the locker room. I'm not buying it, and doesn't their play so far (especially KD's shot last night) deserve a bit more airtime?

Moving Madness

Earlier in the week Jose Reyes made a crazy-expensive deal with the Marlins. As a New York Mets fan, it was sad to see Reyes go, but something I had been preparing for. On a bigger-picture scale, it was the type of signing all sports fans today have to get accustomed to. Players don't stay with the same team for their entire careers anymore; Michael Jordan and Brett Favre made sure we understood that. And teams are often more interested in moving a hot commodity who they think they can get good rebuilding value for. Sometimes, teams just don't have the money to make a move for a top-tier athlete. Whatever the reasons are, the fact remains: the professional sports landscape today is one of big business in which everybody is looking to make a move.

Still, knowing that about sports couldn't have prepared you for last night's whirlwind. December 8, 2011 is an afternoon and night I'll remember for a long time, as I read about Albert Pujols signing with the Angels in baseball, enjoyed Bill Simmons' unrest about the Celtics pursuing Chris Paul, scratched my head over Tyson Chandler likely heading to the New York Knicks, watched one of the best comedy episodes of TV I've ever seen in Community's "Regional Holiday Music" (probably the show's last shot at getting renewed for a fourth season), read that the Angels had also managed to grab pitcher CJ Wilson, heard Chris Paul was heading to the LA Lakers, and finally, found out the deal had been put on hold by the NBA because supposedly some owners thought the NBA was up to no good making another superpower team.

Not to mention there was an NFL game going on (luckily not an especially important one), college football awards being handed out, and the best hour of TV happening on FX from 10-11 p.m. Whoa.

First, take a look at the Angels. They went 86-76 last year, lost the AL West by 10 games and the AL Wildcard by 5. Signing the best position player and pitcher this offseason has got to improve their team by at five games you would think. I would figure it puts them into the discussion of the best teams in baseball. Their pitching rotation will now boast Jered Weaver, Dan Haren and Wilson, while their lineup will now boast Albert Pujols (whoever else is there doesn't really matter. They could bring up an entire Triple A roster and so long as those guys got on base every once in awhile, Pujols would make sure they came home). It is insane how much the Angels would appear to have improved with the addition of two men. What's more, is how (relatively) inexpensive it was for them. Pujols' $250 million is of course through the roof, but everyone knew that would be the case. Take a look at Wilson's deal though: 5 years, $77.5 million. AJ Burnett and John Lackey each signed deals for 5 years, $82.5 million, with the Yankees and Red Sox, respectively. Read that again. The Angels managed to sign Wilson for $5 million less than two pitchers he is better (significantly better?) than. Well done.

On the other hand, the St. Louis Cardinals are done. They lost their manager (one of the best in baseball history) to retirement, and then the best player in baseball during the offseason. Even with Adam Wainwright back in the rotation, counting on Lance Berkman and Matt Holliday to drive home at least 220 runs does not strike me as a sustainable model. But hey, St. Louis fans, you guys have enjoyed a pretty good run for awhile. Two World Series titles and seven NL Central titles since 2000 is a lot to be proud of. But it might be a bit to have anything more to cheer about.

As for the moves (or lack thereof) in the NBA, I was really surprised to hear about Tyson Chandler going to the Knicks, because signing Chandler would definitely knock the Knicks out of the running for Chris Paul. They wouldn't have the cap space or the trade fodder to make a deal for Paul happen. Perhaps the Knicks had heard through the grapevine that they were no longer in the running the for Paul, and went for the best they could get. Whatever the Knicks' reasoning, as I thought more about the signing, the more I thought it was a decent move, simply because having Tyson Chandler in the paint will make things way easier on Amare Stoudemire. Chandler will now be the guy guarding opponents' big men, and he will likely be the guy who is guarded by the opponents' center. This mean's (a)Stoudemire will be able to focus more of his efforts on offense (b) his won't have to bruise in the paint as much at either end, and (c) he'll be taking it much easier on his weak knees. That makes for a competitive Knicks team this year. Maybe not a title contender, but top 3 in the East? I could see it, especially if Dwight Howard moves and the Celtics get even older with a pissed off Rondo.

Then came the most wild news of the night. Chris Paul was traded to the Lakers, while Pau Gasol was going to the Rockets, while Lamar Odom, Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Goran Dragic and a first-round pick were the Hornets' prize. It seemed like a fair enough trade. The Lakers get the player they wanted, the Rockets get a player they like a lot to replace Yao Ming and clear some cap space, while the Hornets get about as good a deal as they are going to get for Paul, who will be leaving at some point during or after this season.

But then the unthinkable happened. David Stern did his best Foghorn Leghorn impression and nixed the deal. "Now, hold on, I say hold on just one cotton pickin' moment!" The NBA technically owns the New Orleans Hornets right now, but was planning on allowing them to take care of themselves. Not so fast, evidently. The initial reports were that several owners had complained that the league was trying to create another superpower team at one of its signature franchises. Stern has since said "All decisions are made on the basis of what is in the best interests of the Hornets. In the case of the trade proposal that was made to the Hornets for Chris Paul, we decided, free from the influence of other NBA owners, that the team was better served with Chris in a Hornets uniform than by the outcome of the terms of that trade." Whatever reason is true, they're both moronic. First, if owners can really hold that much sway in what's going on, then the NBA is the most corrupt organization in sports. And Stern's quote is correct, but it is short-sighted. Of course the Hornets will be better with Chris Paul as their point guard. That's not the reason for this trade, though. The reason for the trade is that Chris Paul does not plan on resigning in New Orleans, so the Hornets understand it is better to move him now and get as much as possible than to have him sign elsewhere after this season and get absolutely nothing. Does Stern not get that? What the hell is going on here? What is really going on behind the scenes, because it doesn't make any sense.

Now, the news has come today that Dwight Howard is looking to go the Nets, but he had an illegal meeting with the Nets that his current team, the Orlando Magic, is protesting. Gaaaaaaahhh! But Howard says there was no meeting. Gaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! Whatever the case is, it sounds like Superman is going to end up in New Jersey. And Mikhail Prokhorov will have the NBA's best center and second best point guard on his team's roster. Does this make the Nets an Eastern contender? Probably not? But I'd say it makes them a playoff sleeper. Howard carried the Magic to the NBA Championship series with nobody close to as good as Deron Williams as a teammate. You can't underestimate how good those two guys are.

A whooooooole lot happened yesterday. But also, a whole lot didn't happen. Whatever ends up happening, if the NBA season is half as exciting as December 8, I won't be able to stop watching.

Smörgåsbord Saturday: Dayton Flyers, NFL and the NBA returns

Given my work schedule this week, there was a lot I wanted to write about today, so this will be the first Smörgåsbord Saturday, a column where I write shorter bits about a bunch of different things. If all goes according to plan, I'll produce a smörgåsbord every Saturday. There will at least be one every couple. Right, let's get to it.

Dayton survives again
First things first. The UD basketball won another game in the Old Spice Classic, advancing to the finals of the early-season tournament with a 56-49 win over Fairfield. Fairfield the winner of the MAAC last season, is a team that many casual fans have never heard of, but make no mistake. This is a good win for UD, even though it won't show up on any late-season resumes of what UD has done so far. I was unable to watch the game, much to my disappointment, but the texts I received about the proceedings indicated that UD did not play especially well. The fact that they scored just 56 points would appear to support that opinion, since it is UD's lowest offensive output so far by 11 points. Chris Johnson played another poor game, scoring just five points and attempting just two two-point shots (again). Paul Williams had his worst game so far. The bright spots for Dayton were Matt Kavanaugh (again!) grabbing double-digit rebounds and (sigh) Josh Parker. Parker (who I'm working on a nickname for) scored 13 in the first half and was the reason Dayton was in the game. This is the type of performance we'll see from Parker three to five times a year, much like Charles Little before him. A few times a year, all the bad shots he puts up will drop, and he will have an excellent game. Hopefully, those games continue to come for Parker when the other players are struggling like they were Friday.
Next up for UD is Minnesota, a game that I think will be extremely difficult for Dayton to win. Minnesota is nothing special this season, but the Gophers boast plenty of size that I believe will bother UD on defense and not be stopped on offense. Kavanaugh and Josh Benson will need to have career days defensively to keep up on the glass and in the low-post.

Turkey Day Football
There were some interesting games happening on Thanksgiving Day in the NFL, and the one that seemed the least interesting going in ended up being the most interesting. So what did we learn? The Lions are not a threat come playoff time, even though they will still probably make the postseason. They were dismantled by the Packers. The Cowboys are almost certain to win the NFC East now, but are also almost certain to lose in the Wildcard round of the playoffs to some inferior team. They just aren't that good. The 49ers are not explosive enough to win unless they win the turnover battle significantly. And the Ravens? They are my new pick to win the Super Bowl. Because despite losses to Tennessee, Jacksonville and Seattle, the Ravens have shown that those were instances of them just shutting it down because they don't care about weak opponents. When they get up for game (which they will in the playoffs) they're incredible. The defense is absolutely ravenous. I think it's good enough to beat Green Bay.

Congrats to members of the 2011 NBA Draft
Can't help but feel happy for guys like Nolan Smith, Norris Cole and Kyle Singler. They were all drafted into decent-to-good situations, and then had to sit by and do nothing while waiting for the NBA to come up with a new CBA. What were guys like Cole, a Cleveland State grad and late-first round pick, doing during all that time? He wasn't collecting any money from his contracts, we know that much. Well, Norris, you can get excited, finally. The NBA appears to have a deal set, and that means you can start collecting some big-boy checks, as well as begin your campaign for the Miami Heat starting point guard position (which you'll probably have on lockdown before season's end). Have fun throwing oops to Lebron and D-Wade. Bring back the flat top with that awesome fade, and try to get the rest of your team to employ it on their domes as well. That's just the type of thing that could get the public back on the Heat's side. How could we not root for a team that is all rocking the 80's flat top?

Happy Saturday. Ohio State is actually playing Michigan close. A nice surprise for all the Ohio people I know on a nice Saturday.

Lockout angst: When did baseball become the good example?

It doesn't feel like all that long ago when baseball had an awful strike, missed a ton of time, and alienated many of its fans into jumping ship because they didn't want to deal with these rich guys' "problems" anymore.

For a modern example of what happened to the MLB in 1994-95, look no further than what Netflix has done the past five months, or what the NBA is trying to do as we speak. Both are excellent emulations of that less-than-excellent situation from 16 years ago in baseball.

So after all the messy news about the NFL lockout and among all the messy news about the NBA lockout (which is looking about as bad as Jared Leto's face in Fight Club), it was almost impossible to believe that I could be reading this.

According to the report, Major League Baseball has reached a verbal labor agreement between the players and owners for when their current deal runs out in...DECEMBER. Wait, What? They're allowed to negotiate and be productive before the current deal runs out? That's so weird, cause I would have thought if that was the case the NFL and NBA might have taken advantage of some negotiating sessions before they actually entered the lockout phase.

Since when did the MLB start setting the good example? This post comes on the heels of what I wrote about yesterday, when they made more good moves (adding more teams to the playoffs and moving the Astros to the AL). Sure, basketball and football were facing bigger issues that needed working out when they came out of their most recent labors deals than baseball is. But come on. This is the way this stuff is supposed to go down. Some smart people get together who understand what is going on, talk it out, and come up with a new deal. You don't get petty and take potshots at each other in between negotiations, offer deals that you know aren't going to be accepted because they are unreasonable, and wait forever to actually negotiate in earnest. If you'd have told me five years ago that in 2011 we would have three separate labor negotiations happen, that two of them would go poorly and one would go well, I would have never guessed the good would have come from baseball. If you'd have told me baseball would do a better job than the NBA or especially the NFL, I would have called you an idiot.

But here we are, in 2011, and the MLB appears to have done a good job making sure it can hang onto the momentum it gained from a phenomenal close to the regular season, phenomenal playoffs and PHENOMENAL World Series. NFL, NBA, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Your ne'er-do-well older brother just got called into the game and won the town over because you two were unavailable. Make sure you don't do this again, or Hockey just may slip on by you as well.

Can we extend the college basketball season?

I've given up on the NBA. There is still plenty of opportunity for an NBA season to happen, and it probably will happen once most of the players have been without paychecks for a month or two or three. But I can't even stand to think about that. Even a 40 game NBA season wouldn't be started for a long time to come.

So is there any way we could get the college basketball season started up earlier? Or maybe move the conference tournaments three weeks and add eight or nine more games to every team's schedule? That way I'd have a little bit more ball to watch.

I'm sick of reading headlines about NBA Labor discussions, the college conference shuffle and my fantasy football players continuing to be injured. Don't Andre Johnson and Darren McFadden understand that we're smack in the middle of the bye portion of football season, and I don't have anybody else to put in the game? I digress, though. This wasn't supposed to be about football.

It was supposed to be an appeal to the NCAA: find a way to give me 3 more Big Mondays, Super Tuesdays, ACC Wednesdays and all the other wacky names ESPN should start giving to days of the week during college basketball season. Find a way to give me an extra three weeks of Duke games on television (because Duke is always on TV. It's probably the biggest perk of being a Duke fan). Most of all, just give me more basketball to watch, because As awesome as the NFL is, it's only two (sometimes three) days a week. And two (sometimes three) out of seven just isn't getting it done anymore.

eNBArrassment

See what I did there? Pretty clever. Wait, you're not a fan? No? Okay, probably best if that kind of thing stops here and now.

At any rate, I wanted to throw myself into the unending and ever-growing group of people complaining about the NBA Lockout. And I'm angry for four big reasons.

1. Just like the NFL lockout, fans can't help but feel like this is a ridiculous argument between a bunch of rich guys and richer guys who want more money (In the NBA of course this is not completely the case: the owners say they are losing money, and the players just don't want to feel like they are getting ripped off in the new deal).
2. Two excellent articles by Malcolm Gladwell that he wrote for Grantland.com. These articles present two well-written ideas against the owners in this lockout mess.
3. The nonsense that we are continuously fed with the goal of keeping us from going insane. In the most recent story on ESPN.com, Commissioner David Stern said he doesn't think Christmas games would happen if a deal wasn't reached by Tuesday. This comes a week after Stern told us the first two weeks would be gone if a deal wasn't reach by the past Monday. So in a week, we went from losing two weeks to losing eight?!?! If the potential start date moved back one or two weeks, that might make a little bit of sense. But this is completely out of proportion. Quit lying to me, please! I just want to know how salty I should get about how much basketball I'm going to be missing.
4. I had really gotten into the NBA again. I grew up watching the NBA as religiously as any other type of basketball. I saw the end of Jordan's career (with the Bulls) and the rise of the Spurs. But at that point I was just a 9 to 12 year old kid. And when the last lockout season hit the NBA, it pissed a lot of people off. One of those was my dad, who stopped watching the NBA entirely. As a young guy, I didn't go out of my way to catch NBA games on TV, especially since there is no local team to champion when you're leaving in Dayton. But the NBA had started to get my attention the last few years, and I was really following it closely in 2010-11. From the people I speak to about these things, the NBA had regained a lot of fans it had lost. It's popularity was on the rise. If an entire season disappears again, what is going to happen to those fans? I'm guessing they'll depart, just like they did in 2003.

Sigh. Sometimes I wish these morons could just see the consequences of what they're doing beyond how it is affecting them for the next two weeks. Yeah, owners, it'll be great if you get a 50/50 deal. But if you piss off half your fan-base in the process, guess what? You'll still be losing money!

Quit wasting my time and yours.

NBA Conference Finals

Two games have passed in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals and, as is always the case with the NBA, there are some things from those games worth paying attention to and others that aren't. So what have we learned so far?

In the Eastern Conference Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat, the two games have been extremely different in the second halves. The first halves in each game were almost identical scorewise (tied at 48 in game one, 48-46 Miami in game two). The difference in game one was a dominant Bulls second half, in which they held Miami to just 34 points. The Bulls offensive output in the second half of game two? 29 points. Clearly defense has been the key in the first two games of the series. But I'm not convinced it's just defense that's making that difference.

In game one, Derrick Rose went 10-22 from the field and scored 28 points, Luol Deng added 21 on 7-15 shooting, and Taj Gibson came of the bench to be the spark plug, scoring nine points and grabbing seven boards, with some emphatic dunks to boot. On the other side, only Chris Bosh had a good game for Miami. His 30 points were big, but Lebron James and Dwyane Wade only combined for 33 points (15 and 18, respectively). I think it's safe to say Miami is going to struggle if those two put up anemic offensive numbers like that.

Flash forward to game two. In a Miami win, James and Wade went for a combined 53 points and 19 rebounds. Udonis Haslem came off the bench and provided 13 big points and 5 rebounds, along with some emphatic dunks. For the Bulls, things didn't go so well. Rose scored 23 points, but on 7-23 shooting. Deng had only 13 after scoring nine in the first quarter, and Gibson wasn't so big off the bench, with eight points and one board. Sound familiar?

Basically, the script was flipped between games. I don't think Chicago's defense changed much, James and Wade just made more shots in game two. Miami's defense did change a bit, with their two stars manning up on Rose more often, but it's not likely that will result in a 7-23 performance every night. He's just too good for something like that. Who knows if Haslem and Gibson will be big off the bench ever again in this series as well.

So what have we learned through two games of the Eastern Conference Finals? Damn, not as much as we thought. Chicago was extremely impressive in game one's second half, and then Lebron was extremely impressive in game two's fourth quarter. Hopefully we'll be treated to a game three in which both teams play well: Rose going for 25-plus, and three of Chicago's role players going for 15 or more, while James and Wade complete another 50-plus point performance, while both team's benches contribute, but Chicago's bench is a bit better. I think coming into the series that is what a prototype game would have looked like, and until we see one, it's going to be hard to say what'll happen from here on out.