Ahh it feels good to be back. Sorry to everyone out there who have been having withdraws from my amazing sports blog but as we all know life gets in the way of itself sometimes and caused my brief hiatus. See, that's why you love this blog...because it's about sports but I know big words like hiatus.
Back to sports, hella has gone on in the past few weeks since my last post, The NBA Draft has come and gone, Stephen Strasburg and Ubaldo Jimenez have both heated up and subsequently cooled off, more NBA trades, more idiot athletes getting themselves in trouble with the law and in less than two days the Free Agency period starts for the NBA. Oh what an exciting time in sports!
First I'd like to start with the NBA Draft. While this draft seemed a little lackluster there was some good talent taken that will help to shape the upcoming NBA season. John Wall went first to the Washington Wizards who also picked up Kirk Heinrich from the Chicago Bulls in an attempt by the Bulls to shed as many contractual obligations as possible in order to lure free agents to the Windy City. Who knows if this will pay off however with the Miami Heat doing the same and actually doing a better job of it. Chicago has enough cap space to offer max contracts to two players while Miami has enough to sign on three potential players. Back to free agency in a moment though. It's hard to get excited about picks 2-4 as they all went according to what most of thought. Sacramento however was able to pick up center Demarcus Couzins, who has the potential to be one of the most dominant big men in the league in his rookie season. Couple him with Tyreke Evans, 2009 Rookie of the Year, and a possible skilled veteran through free agency and the Kings actually become relevant again. Can we expect a big enough drop off from the other Pacific Division teams for the Kings to get in though? Will Couzins be able to control his temper and his weight enough to be effective? Will Geoff Petrie leave the Kings organization as has been rumored by some? Only time will tell, but from a ridiculously hot day in late June, the Kings are definitely looking better than they did this time last year.
On to Free Agency! So at 12:01 A.M. this Thursday teams will be able to legally start courting potential free agents to come and play for them. At this point before fere agency starts many teams still feel they're in the hunt for some of the future all-stars available. Now while I could wax poetic about which teams are pursuing which players if you have any interest in sports you probably know as much as I know already, so I would like to look at it from a different approach. What are the teams that gutted their benches going to do when and if thy don't land those free agents? There are only so many and if two or three of them all end up going to the same time are we going to be left with one or two mega teams and a bunch of other shitty teams? Will parity in the league be at an all-time low? Imagine if Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh all go to the Miami Heat and Joe Johnson and Carlos Boozer/Amare Stoudamire go to the Bulls, now we have at least 5 or 6 other teams who have been playing horrible basketball for the past 4 or 5 years while maneuvering themselves into position to get these free agents without any stars. So what, are they going to wait for another 4 or 5 years til these players are back on the market? Will these mega-teams steamroll the rest of the league? To me this kind of free agency sounds exciting because we all love winners. When the Patriots were winning games during their (almost) perfect season it was a very exciting time for the NFL, I would love seeing an NBA team go 75-7 or even better than that. But if one or two teams dominate that much it is going to suck having to watch the rest of the league. The playoffs will be a joke and it will hurt the NBA more and more over the next few years. But like I said, it will be exciting to see those few mega-teams if it happens, lets just hope it doesn't water down the rest of the league so much the NBA sucks even worse.
To baseball. My San Francisco Giants have been sucking recently but a lot of other teams have as well, so I guess all things considered it could be worse. What I want to focus on however is something I have written about before and that is pitching. Ubaldo Jimenez, who just a little bit ago was the darling of the league. With an earned run average of just over 1, he was on pace to go 15-1 before the All-Star Break, which in recent times is fairly unheard of. Since then he has gotten a no-decision and a win, but his era has gone from 1.13 all the way up to a 1.86. Still leading the major leagues, but he is starting to show signs he isn't invincible. Strasburg has lost his first game now and has been less dominant, he is on a shitty Nationals team though so it's no surprise that he isn't winning every start. There has been talk too wondering whether or not he should be on the All-Star team, and I say no. No way does he deserve a spot. Rookies, especially rookies who haven't even been playing the whole year shouldn't be on the team unless they are blow you away amazing and while Strasburg is good he has amassed a total of 5 professional starts (and only 2 wins) and that is nowhere near All-Star caliber.
Oh and a quick nod to the Men's USA Soccer team, good job making it as far as you did. I don't think a lot of people expected you to make it so far and really compete against a superior team in Ghana. But thank God I don't have to listen to those Vuvuzelas anymore. Thinking about it though...it would be kinda cool to get one of those to distract the opposing pitcher at my softball games...
And one last bit, for my hockey team I am going to follow from now on...The Toronto Maple Leafs.
Another last place team for me to love. Great.
Up Next...The Man of La Mancha on Vinyl...
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