Author: Vin

Vin is a Philly boy who shouldn't be invited into your house because he'll judge you on your book and music collection. He owns Dawkins, Utley, Iverson, and Lindros jerseys, which is all you really need to know about him. He can be reached at [email protected].

Categories
NBA General

Around the Rim: Hawks High-Flier Gets Grounded



Which is more gruesome?

1. Another Guard Goes Down
Thanks to a nagging bruise in his right calf, Joe Johnson is going to be benched for at least the next three to four weeks and it’s possible that Johnson could be done for the year. So, if you thought that the Hawks were pitiful before, just wait til you get a load of this lineup. Atlanta was the league’s worst offense (92.9 ppg) before losing Johnson’s 25 points per game which equals to missing 27 percent of their total offense. But so far, it’s worked out all right for Atlanta. The Hawks hit the century mark in a win over the Wizards in Hotlanta on Wednesday in the first game without their superstar, and they have a series of creampuffs waiting for them. Games against Memphis, Minnesota, Philadelphia and Boston should help ease the transition.

2. Going Under The Knife
It’s been a week and a half since Shaun Livingston suffered one of the ugliest injuries that has ever occurred on the pro hardwood, now he’ll have to wait four days until he will undergo major reconstructive surgery on his left knee on Tuesday. Then the fun starts; Livingston will have between nine months and year’s worth of rehab before he can even hope of suiting up with the Clips. If it’s not bad enough that LA has lost their future at the point guard position, they’re also going it without their point guard of the present. Sam Cassell, a.k.a. Gollum, a.k.a. ET, a.k.a. the ugliest man alive, has missed the last three games with a groin injury. The situation has gotten so dire that the Clippers are forced to play Dukie Daniel Ewing at the point as they quickly slide out of the playoff picture. Probably a good thing; the world would most likely implode should the Clippers make the postseason in consecutive seasons.

3. Do Not Adjust Your Television
OK, the league could be getting carried away with this one. With St. Patrick’s Day approaching, the Sonics will honor the drunken holiday by wearing their green road uniform at home while the Celtics will also be in green, as always. But two other teams will also be donning alternate green uniforms for the occasion: Chicago and New York. Yup, the Bulls and Knicks are going to be wearing green! How strange is that going to look? Why not just have the Spurs were neon-orange uniforms on Halloween? And the Magic can were camouflage on Memorial Day. The NBA will do anything for a buck; they’ll even desecrate two of the most traditional uniforms in the history of the game. At least go and screw up some ugly uniforms like Atlanta’s or Memphis’.

Thursday’s Player of the Day: Manu Ginobili @ Sacramento 29 min, 31 pts (FG: 9-16, 3FG: 5-9, FT: 8-10), 5 reb, 3 ast, 4 stl

Friday’s Game to Watch: New Jersey (28-33) @ Houston (37-24) It’s going to be a family reunion in Houston as cousins Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady get together for what could be a highlight filled affair. New Jersey has lost three straight but still remains just behind the eighth place Magic in the East, but if they could ever could get their act together they could make a run at the division leading Raptors and grab one of the top four seeds. Houston, on the other hand, won’t be able to improve on their fifth seed so they are simply looking to finish the season strong and remain healthy for the post season. The team’s biggest concern at the moment is simply implementing Yao Ming back into the game plan.

Buzzer Beater: Stephon Marbury is already planning for his life after basketball and the first step toward his post retirement career begins today. That’s because his show, “Stars on Stars” will debut today at 4:30 on Fox SportsNet. His first guest will be Kobe Bryant, but don’t expect Marbury to bring up Bryant’s recent suspension for whacking Marko Jaric in the head because the show was actually taped before training camp. This should be interesting; Marbury is the only active NBA player to have his own TV show. But as long as he can form complete sentences and not fall off the set, he will have already hurdled the bar set by Magic Johnson.

Categories
College Basketball

Oh so that’s why Pokey Chatman left so quickly


We were wondering why everyone was searching for Pokey Chatman. Yes, it’s a little odd when the coach of the #10 ranked team in womens college basketball announces she’s leaving just before the NCAA tourney but not to merit the amount of buzz that “Pokey Chatman” was getting. But now the reason is clear.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune is reporting that the reason for Chatman’s abrupt departure is because she had inappropriate conduct with players and ESPN reported that she had improper sexual relations with a former player. Although she was originally expected to coach the team through the NCAA tourney, she is going to leave immediately instead.

This story would be 1000x better if it was Coach K/ JJ Redick, Pat Riley/Tim Hardway, or Jerry Sloan/ John Amaechi. Oh man that would be priceless.

Links:
[Times-Picayune]: Chatman avoids NCAA tournament, leaves LSU

Categories
College Football

USC’s "White Nation" just a joke… ha ha


We know the the kids today are all up on their myspace and facebook social networking buzzword blah blah blah but we gotta think that athletic directors must hate those things. It’s fun for the athletes but has only caused trouble for the athletic departments and their PR staff.

The latest in Bad Idea Jeans is a facebook group created by five white USC football players called “White Nation”, which featured a graphic of a black baby in handcuffs. (“arrest black babies before they become criminals.”) The group was created by Clay Matthews and included teammates David Buehler, Brian Cushing, Dan Deckas and Dallas Sartz.

The players said that the group was created as an inside joke because a coach nicknamed them “White Nation”. Unlike the “oops, it was my wife’s phen-phen” excuse, we actually believe them. Still, we have to ask, are they fucking retarded?

Look, everyone jokes about race and most of them aren’t racist (much) but it’s still a bad idea to do that on a public forum when you’re a part of a high profile college football program. If you don’t want it on the internet and people to spread it around, don’t put it on the internet. The internet is an evil place, full of bloggers who have nothing better to do than to tell the world how stupid you are.

Links:

[Daily Trojan]: Facebook group lands USC football player in hot water
[LA Times]: Racism issue raised in USC players’ Web page

Categories
NHL General

NHLPA chief accused of monitoring player emails


As if the NHL didn’t have enough problems already, the head of the NHL players association, Ted Saskin, has been accused of monitoring player emails, which he in turn blames on his predecessor Bob Goodenow.


In an interview with Canadian Press yesterday, Saskin said he plans to participate in the call.

“The board will learn that Bob Goodenow had instructed NHLPA employees to review player email accounts and this occurred during the lockout and I was not aware of this until much later,” Saskin said. “I also plan to tell the board … I have never accessed a player email account and I have never ordered NHLPA technical staff to access player email accounts.”

Goodenow issued his own statement denying any part in the alleged email monitoring. “I am unaware of an instance where the security of a single player’s email or other personal information was compromised.

Yikes. Most corporations have the right to monitor the emails of their employees but everybody kind of expects that. To monitor the emails of hockey players is really odd. What exactly would you find except for them badmouthing the players union, the owners and sending around chain emails? (“Hello, I am Dr.Borris Olga. and I represent Mr. Mikhail Khordokovsky former C.E.O of Yukos Oil Company in Russia. If you do not wish to be traded to the Flyers or Kings, please continue reading….”)

An NHL agent named Ritch Winter said that Saskin is technically telling the truth because he didn’t do any of it himself, he just ordered someone else to do it. A union staff member confirmed that a printout of Edmonton goalie Dwayne Roloson’s email was on Saskin’s desk.

Here’s the email going around from hockey player to hockey player:

“Dear Ted Saskin. You sir, are an asshole. Best, ______”

Links:
[The Star]: Saskin, Goodenow face off

Categories
MLB General

MLB says screw the cable subscribers


MLB has completed a seven-year, $700M deal with DirecTV. A deal that was so bad for the fan, it caught the eye of Senator John Kerry. “Extra Innings” had more than 500,000 television subscribers last year and only 5,000 would be frozen out by the new deal because they can’t get satellite service.

However, everyone had been in an uproar because anyone who doesn’t have DirecTV would have to switch from their cable providers. DirecTV and MLB tried to address those concerns by allowing cable providers the same package if it could match the terms of the deal with DirecTV. Unfortunately, that probably won’t happen. IN Demand’s president said the terms were impossible and called it a “defacto exclusive deal”.

While we feel for MLB fans and we think there should be more choices and not less, what about NFL fans? DirecTV and the NFL have been holding us hostage for years. Where was the senatorial media posturing when that deal was struck? Anyway, back to Extra Innings. May we suggest that you completely screw DirecTV and switch to the web based version. Sure the quality isn’t as good but you get to watch the day games at work.

Links:
[Boston Herald]: DirecTV strikes MLB deal

Categories
New England Patriots

Tom Brady really is going for the baby daddy record


Can someone sit Tom Brady down and explain to him where babies come from? Because getting 2 chicks pregnant within the span of a season is not something the poster boy for NFL quarterbacks should be doing. A Brazilian website equivalent of Page Six is reporting that Gisele Bundchen is two months pregnant and Tom Brady is the father.

Sweet baby Jesus. At this rate, he’ll overtake Shawn Kemp by the 2009 season. Hey Tom, you know Visa’s Five Layers of Protection only apply to credit card purchases right?

Links:
[Boston Globe]: Report: Bundchen pregnant by Brady

Categories
General Sports

Stuck in Prison? Why not get ESPN?


Because of overcrowding in California prisons, the Department of Creatiosn created a video that is strangely like a timeshare recruiting video trying to convince convicts to move to a prison in Tennessee. Apparently the video gets played daily in California prisons like some weird 1984 propaganda film.

In true sales video style, it also has testimonials from earlier transferees:


You get 79 cable channels here. ESPN. You can’t beat that. We watch sports all day. That’s what we’ve been doing since we’ve been here: watching sports,” said one inmate.
Another inmate said that everyone got along at his prison and called fellow inmates “buddies.”
“Your cells are open all day long except for a few counts, from 6:15, 6:30 in the morning to 10:30 at night, and 12:30 on weekends,” said one inmate.

Hey, and ass rapings only occur on alternate Tuesdays! Can you imagine if you got there and prison officials edited ESPN so all you ever got was reruns of Quite Frankly with Stephen A Smith, Stu Scott and Skip Bayless? That would be cruel and unusual punishment.

Links:
[NBC11]: Calif. Inmates Tempted By Cheeseburgers, ESPN In Tennessee

Categories
NBA General

Around the Rim: They All Look Like a Bunch of Girlie Men, Right?



I just pop random pills!

1. What’s Wrong With Kids These Days?
Kobe Bryant’s smack to Marko Jaric’s head didn’t result in a win for the Lakers against the Timberwolves, and it probably cost Los Angeles their game against Milwaukee last night. That’s because David Stern suspended Bryant for the game against the Bucks, stripping the Lakers of his 29.2 points per game average as Milwaukee rolled to an easy 110-90 victory. Lex Luthor, er, Charlie Villanueva torched the Zen Master’s decimated lineup for 26 points on 10 of 12 shooting.

While Bryant kept quiet about the incident, Jaric came out and actually supported Bryant’s behavior. “I haven’t seen the replay, but if you ask me what I thought about the play when it happened, I don’t think he did it intentionally, and I don’t think players should be suspended for things that happen unintentionally,” Jaric told ESPN.com. First Tyler Hansborough says Gerald Henderson smashing his nose into his face was accidental, and now Jaric calls Bryant’s cheap shot unintentional? It’s getting kinda hard to blame the sucker punchers when the sucker punchees condone getting their craniums cracked.

2. $5 Million Bargain
Dwight Howard’s 18 points, 12 rebounds and two blocks per game has earned him a lot of recognition this year, but he’s not going to receive his most valuable award until this summer when he becomes a free agent. Orlando is expected to offer Howard a deal which would generate the young All-Star $87.5 million over the next five years. The first year of the deal would be worth approximately $14.5 million and increase to about $20.5 million. That’s about a $10 million raise from his current salary of $4.8 million. Howard is obviously the future of the franchise and he might be the future of the league. At 6-11 and 265 pounds, Howard has one of the most chiseled bodies in all the league and he can perform feats that smaller players only dream about. Once the Magic begin giving Howard a superstar’s share of the shots, he’s only averaging 11 attempts per game, he’s going to truly become an unstoppable force on both ends of the court.

3. Dropping Bombs
After smoking virtually every team in the NBA this year, the Suns nearly dropped the ball against one of the weakest teams in the league. In fact, it took a career-high 32 points from Leandro Barbosa off the bench and an extra five minutes for the Suns could put away the Bobcats, 115-106. Phoenix’s previous five games against the Cats were won by an average of 15.8 points. Barbosa nailed seven of the team’s 19 treys which was just one shy of the franchise record. Raja Bell threw in five triples of his own in the contest to help offset some of 44 points that Adam Morrison and Gerald Wallace teamed up for. It probably wasn’t the kind of win Phoenix was expecting before the game, but winning eight out of nine games is still pretty good, regardless of the competition.

Wednesday’s Player of the Day: LeBron James @ Detroit 51 min, 41 pts (FG: 17-31, 3FG: 1-3, FT: 6-8), 7 reb, 8 ast, 3 stl, 1 blk

Thursday’s Game to Watch: San Antonio (43-18) @ Sacramento (28-32) Thanks to a ten game win streak, the Spurs have quietly moved ahead of Utah for the third best record in the league. It took a while, but SA has regained their trademark defense (league best 89.8 points against) that led them to three championships in seven years. Tim Duncan appears to be completely healthy for the first time in a long time which is bad news for opposing defenders. The Kings have won five of their last six games and sit just one game behind the Clippers for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. It will be interesting to see just how long the Kings can maintain their current high level of play without starter Ron Artest who was dismissed from the team on Monday.

Buzzer Beater: One of the league’s most admirable citizens over the past decade has been Lindsey Hunter, but being a good guy doesn’t get anyone out of a positive drug test. But it’s probably not what you think; it’s not weed, it’s not cocaine or steroids. No, Hunter proved that he was indeed a good guy by getting busted for phentermine, a pill commonly used by his wife for weight loss. Hunter’s airtight explanation for popping his partner’s pills was simply that “we do that at our house.” But regardless of reason, the little pill is going to cost Hunter a lot of money. $205,000 over a 10 game suspension to be exact. But it’s worth it; have you seen how trim he looks?

Categories
MLB General

Go ahead and keep taking HGH


Dr. Don Catlin, the scientist who MLB hired to develop a urine screening test to discover HGH told the Denver Post that a reliable test for HGH might never be developed. MLB banned HGH recently but doesn’t test for it because the drug policy only allows urine testing because blood testing is “an invasion of privacy”. The NFL players union also does not allow blood testing.

So basically, you can take HGH all you want without getting caught unless you do something stupid like having a boatload of it in your house when federal agents raid it.

As for the drug test, we are very suspicious of everyone so we can’t help but think maybe the Dr. Catlin has already discovered a test for HGH and is planting this information with the Denver Post so that athletes who are cheating will continue to do so. Then, just as they think they’re getting away with it… bam… all of the sudden the drug test is the next day and includes a urine test for HGH. And when the results get back, a lot of minor leaguers will be getting their call up to the show.

Links:
[Denver Post]: Test for HGH may be fiction

Categories
Boxing

March 8 in sports history: Ali goes down!


In 1971: Joe Frazier handed Muhammed Ali his first professional defeat in a 15 round decision at Madison Square Garden. It was the first of three classic matches between the rivals, and it was the first time in history that a fight featured two undefeated champs (Ali was stripped of his title for refusing to go to Vietnam). It was simply dubbed “The Fight of the Century.” It lived up to its billing, as the two battled into the fifteenth round. Referee Al Mercante later claimed that Ali (who predicted he would knock Frazier out in the sixth) gave away many rounds. Most who watched, however, found that it was hard for Ali to “give away” rounds when he was being mercilessly pounded in the corner by Frazier, who sent Ali to the canvas in the fifteenth. Ali survived the knockout, but Frazier won comfortably on all three cards. The fight was one of the most hyped events in sports history, with over 700 press credentials awarded (and another 500 turned down). There were even some celebrities who couldn’t get good seats, but Frank Sinatra smartly got the best seat in the house, snapping pictures on the ringside apron as a photographer for Life Magazine.

In 2004: The National Hockey League officially erased any doubts about its “The U.S. media only talks about hockey when something bad happens” status with one of its ugliest incidents in years. Wanting revenge for a hit by the Colorado Avalanche’s Steve Moore which knocked out star player Markus Naslund three weeks before, Vancouver Canucks forward Todd Bertuzzi came up to Moore from behind and punched him on the side of the head. Moore was knocked out immediately, and he fell face first to the ice. It didn’t help that all 245 lbs. of Bertuzzi fell right on top of him. It didn’t help any more when three other players piled on top of them. Moore suffered a broken neck, a concussion and severe lacerations on his face. Three days later, Bertuzzi was suspended for the rest of the season (including the playoffs) and would not be reinstated until after the lockout in 2005. The atmosphere in Vancouver’s GM Place was ugly that night, as the Canucks vowed to get even with Moore (who did fight earlier in the game). But, as Rogers Sportsnet announcer Jim Hughson said, “the score settling has gone too far.” Bertuzzi later plead guilty to assault and received probation. Moore has also attempted to sue Bertuzzi for over $15 million in lost wages and damages and has still not played a game since.