Oh LeBron, now we have to hate you.
Amidst all the hoopla, stories, non-stories, rumors, innuendo, and general media frenzy surrounding LeBron James’ pending free agency decision, I resisted writing anything. There are several reasons. One, is that no one reads this blog except me, a couple of my friends, and a few spam crawlers, so basically no one cared and I had no obligation to express my thoughts and opinions on what was going on. Second, there was waaaaaaaaaay too much attention being paid to LeBron and his little ego fest already, punctuated by his ESPN special, which successfully conveyed five seconds worth of information into an hour-long event. The best way to stand up to that was to not feed the beast, even by writing how ridiculous it was. Third, was that there really was no story to write about. LeBron was a free agent, there were five or six teams with a chance to sign him, and eventually he would pick one. That was the situation, and absolutely nothing more ever happened with it over the past several to change it or be worth spending every waking minute obsessing over it (easy to say up here in NBAless Seattle, as opposed to Cleveland). Now that he has announced that he is going to Miami, I felt like it was appropriate and needed for me to give my thoughts.
We were all witnesses, LeBron made sure of that. We just never wanted to see what ended up happening.
I guess I can start with LeBron himself. A lot of people are throwing out opinions and psycho analysis about him. They’re saying he’s immature, he lacked a father figure, he subconsciously needs to feel like part of a group, whatever. Maybe it’s true, but I’m not a psychiatrist, I don’t read astrological charts, and I don’t know him. I’ll try to stick to the basics. More than anything, we learned that he is a self-absorbed kid with a massive ego. Not a real shocker when you’re talking about a 25-year-old NBA player, but I think we’re all surprised by how much and how big. The way he went out of his way to make a spectacle of this entire process, and culminate it with an ego feeding one hour special amazed me. To keep this in perspective, this was, contrary to what LeBron James or the media would have you think, not the biggest sports ever by the biggest sports star ever. Those titles both belong to Michael Jordan. When he made the decision to come out of retirement and come back to basketball, he didn’t have a special, an sit down interview, or even a press conference. He did it with a one line press release that said “I’m back”, and then was in uniform playing for the Bulls right after. Say what you will about what kind of person Jordan is, but think about the difference between those for a minute. This has actually made me like Jordan, who’s rep has been in a bit of decline the last year or so, more than ever. LeBron James is not Michael Jordan, in soooooo many ways, and never will come close. Jordan would never do this. He would never decide that leading a team to a title was just too hard and up and leave the Bulls to go join Magic in LA , Bird in Boston, or even Ewing and best bud Charles Oakley in New York. The great ones want to do it on their own. Not with no help, but they have a need to be the alpha dog that lead a team to a championship. Kobe Bryant went out of his way for that chance, because he is wired the same way as Jordan. LeBron would rather be Scottie Pippen or Pau Gasol. It’s an ego thing, but it’s different. Jordan fed his ego through his own accomplishments and the respect and accolades that came with them. LeBron just wants attention. He wants to be liked. Jordan could give a damn if you liked him or not, but you would respect him as a basketball player. Jordan had the kind of ego that drives people to become corporate titans, industry innovators, and leaders of nations. LeBron has the ego of an 22-year-old wanna be actress with daddy issues.
The other big difference between them, and reason Jordan would never do this, is because Jordan cared. Unlike most athletes, Jordan cared as much as, if not more than, the fans. He couldn’t stand losing. It ate him up inside. It fueled him to work harder and get better. He would never have done this to the fans of Chicago. They were his people, and he would bring them championships or he would die trying. You think an injury like James had in the playoffs would have slowed Jordan? Hell no! Even if his team would have still lost, it wouldn’t be because of him. He’s keep filling the stat sheet up and performing like the greatest player of all time. Even if he had an injury so bad he couldn’t play well, then he would have been equally, just as spectacularly bad. He would have kept driving, kept jacking up shots, kept pushing himself farther than his body could handle. He would go down in such an epic ball of flames that it would be remembered. LeBron got an owie and just stopped trying. He stopped shooting. He deferred to inferior teammates. He did have it in him though, which he made the mistake of proving. He got hurt and pouted, then threw up 38-12-7 in a brilliant game three, only to fade back when it counted in games six and seven and let the Celtics have what they wanted more.
Lastly, on LeBron anyway, he’s just not a good guy. He might smile a lot and be nice to your face. but he doesn’t really care about anyone else outside his world or how his actions affect them. I might not agree with what he did, but I get it. He wanted to lighten his burden, play with his friends, and have fun in Miami. That’s fine. But good god, have some respect for the people you are shafting along the way. There was no way around hurting and betraying several groups of basketball fans, but to make such a purposefully public Spectacle of it is just cruel. It’s like buying a commercial spot during your local news to tell your girlfriend your breaking up with her, then introducing your new hotter girlfriend that you’ve been having an affair with the last two weeks and making out with her before throwing back to the anchors so they could talk about it and make sure everybody in town knew. Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh didn’t have specials or press conferences. They came on TOGETHER and announced it before taking questions from Mike Wilbon and classily going back to their business. That’s the way it should be done. I know in todays media with a 24 hour news cycle and all that, that you can’t avoid having everything be a story. But Wade and Bosh did what they needed to do to appease the media and fans, then let it be. LeBron went out of his way to get more attention and make sure that even though the entire country was already focused on nothing but him the last two weeks, they were going to be glued to their sets for one last glorious self-indulgent moment. Also, it’s probably the least of people’s concerns, but what about his sponsors? Take Nike for instance. They’re paying mega bucks to be the official brand and endorser of the greatest player in the game. Now all that money is going to be getting paid to Dwayne Wade’s sidekick. Will James, who always talked about establishing himself as a world-wide brand, be worth as much when he’s no longer averaging 30 points per game, winning MVPs, playing second banana on Miami Heat?
And now Miami has the best threesome of players on any team in the NBA. They are instantly a top five team, and title contenders. And they will win titles. Maybe not this year, the rest of the roster will just be too thin, but in the next couple off seasons, the will use exceptions and drat picks to round out the rest of their rotation. By 2012, at the latest, they should begin a run of what will be multiple championships, maybe four to eight, and the basketball world will be the worse for it. This whole thing just seems so contrived to me. it just feels..wrong. I don’t want any part of it and will be rooting from afar for them to fail. The worst part is that fans in Miami won’t appreciate it. They’ll take it for granted. How can they not? Most championships in sports are earned. Teams are carefully built. They grow and go through tough times and growing pains and are the better for it, and that makes the championship that much sweeter. There will be none of that in Miami. They have their big three now and titles will be expected. they bought their stars on the free market. The fans will cheer, but they won’t really have anything invested in it. Miami has hardly any basketball tradition to begin with and just won a title in 2006. They’ll get their championships, but they’ll be hollow. It’ll be like dating a brainless model. Sure she’s super hot and you’re happy to be screwing her, but it’s not really fulfilling and definitely isn’t the same as meeting a girl you really like and having a real relationship.
Then there are the poor people of Cleveland. Many have said that he didn’t make any contributions to the city and never really gave them anything, but they are lying. He did give a lot. If he didn’t it would hurt so much. He didn’t give what he promised or what you wanted, an NBA championship, but he did give some. At least having won a title would have made this easier. Sure he left, but he gave you what you wanted. He did would have done what he said he would do for you, and now it was time to do for himself. You’d still be mad, but you’d understand. What’s so bad is that he gave just enough to make it hurt. He gave you a glimpse at what could be the best player ever. He gave highlight reel plays and memorable games. He took you right to the brink, only to take it all away. That town’s sports fans have been crushed more often and worse than any other. This is up there with the worst, but probably not the most crushing. That would have to be Art Modell taking their beloved Browns to Baltimore. I’m going to try and make this positive. Look Cleveland, LeBron betrayed you. He made promises and he didn’t keep them. He showed that he never really cared for you like you did for him and left you out in the cold. It sucks. It’s horrible. Look at the bright side though, now you get to hate him. You can fill the air waves with snide comments and rants on what a phony he is. You can burn his jersey. You can boo him like mad every time he sets foot in the state of Ohio. You can take all your pain, frustration, and anger and direct it right at him for the rest of his career and beyond. You can have a new purpose, and as that happens, basketball will go on. Things will get better again. It could be worse and you know it. Take it from a guy in Seattle. We have no team. We have no one to hate. Oklahoma doesn’t come to town two or three times a year so we can boo them. We just have a big sad empty feeling, and that’s much worse than what you have right now with LeBron. Think of how you felt when the Browns left for no reason at all. That’s how we feel, except that at least when the Browns left, you knew someone cared. The NFL quickly announced a new expansion franchise and a new team was in place within a couple of years. No one cares about Seattle. Hell, the commissioner was one of the biggest forces in helping hijack our team to Oklahoma City. There is no team promised for us. No light on the horizon.
To me this seems like the final chapter for the NBA and me. Sure the Sonics leaving made me hate the NBA and David Stern, but I was too big a sports fan and too big a basketball fan to give it up entirely. I’d still watch a few games a year. Mostly, I’d flip through channels when nothing else was on and come across LeBron. I’d always stay and watch. He was fun and you could never pass it up, because he could always put up a game that would go down in history and you didn’t want to miss that. In a matter of minutes though, or maybe it was a matter of weeks, he went from being one of my favorite players and the best show in the game to public enemy number one. I can’t stand him anymore. I can’t stand his attitude, his ego, his selfishness, or his naivety. I hate him. Now what do I have left to root for in the NBA? You always have to have a favorite among the games great players. You have to choose a side. Russell or Chamberlain? Bird or Magic? Jordan or anyone else? There are no sides for me anymore. My previous fav was Kevin Durant see my previous post), but how can I root for him and the Thunder (god what a stupid name for a team)? What? Am I going to have to root for Kobe now? No thanks. People in Cleveland can at least get behind something. Up here in Seattle, we’ll just have to sit this one out.
Durant signs extension with evil
Remember when KD dropped 42 on the Warriors his last game as a Sonic? Ugh...
Over two years gone now, I still had one more hope, one more source of possible happiness from my one time Seattle SuperSonics. More over it was a hope for their star player, Kevin Durant, who spent all of one year in the pacific northwest. Opt out. That’s all I ever wanted from him. You see, I loved KD in as a college player, my favorite non-Husky hooper at the time, and even with the Sonics departure imminent, I still remember how excited my friends and I were when Seattle landed the number two pick in the lottery and I knew that it meant Durant was going to be a Sonic. I always liked him more as a player than Oden, who I knew Portland would have to take with the first pick. Yes, I know that’s easy to say now, but it really is true. Oden didn’t seem to have much offensive game in my opinion, was often hurt, and looked like an older version of Robert Parrish, which couldn’t be good. He was still a great prospect, but why take the next Dikembe Mutombo, when you could have the next Elgin Baylor and George Gervin rolled into one?
He was raw his rookie year, but you saw the talent and knew it was only a matter of time. It became harder to watch as the season went one and the certainty that my childhood team was indeed going to leave my beautiful hometown in the 12th biggest media market in the country, where they won an NBA championship, to go to some podunk town in the middle of nowhere, led by an owner who was about the equivalent of the anti-christ (On a tangent note, although I hate Clay Bennett and believe he’s one of they biggest a-holes ever, I don’t really blame him. I would have done the same thing in his shoes, as would 99% of Sonic fans. In fact we probably will do it to New Orleans or Memphis or some other team in the next few years. David Stern and Howard Schultz are really to blame and are both equally big a-holes in their own right. Schultz in particular, is one of the most worthless d-bags I’ve ever met in my entire life.). One tiny consolation was out there for me though. I thought and hoped that when his rookie contract was up, and Durant had achieved superstar status, he would opt out of his contact, become a free agent and get as far away from Oklahoma as he could. He would go to New York or LA or whatever, and the Thunder would be left a talentless shell of a team. They would start to lose games, fans would stop coming, and the NBA would realize that Oklahoma City can’t support an NBA franchise, and the team would be forced to eventually move. Not back to Seattle, I’m not that delusional and would hope we had a new team by then, but somewhere, anywhere else. I would be able to say “I told you so”, and Clay Bennett, Aubrey McClenden, and everyone in OKC (who I really don’t know and should have anything against, but I can’t help it) would know how we felt up in Seattle when they ripped our team away. It came halfway true this year, as Durant led the league in scoring and was second in the MVP voting. All that was left was for him to become a free agent after next season. That won’t happen though. Durant apparently has agreed an $86 million extension to stay by Clay Bennett’s side for the next five years (ESPN article: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5360721). To make matters worse, GM Sam Presti has done a fantastic job putting the team together and they look like they will be contenders for quite a while. Teamed with Russell Westbrook, who was a Sonic for about 10 minutes, Durant looks like he’ll be able to grab multiple titles in his career, which looks like it will be going anywhere, geographically speaking. Meanwhile, we’ll just sit up in NBA no mans land and wait for Husky basketball to start. Who needs the NBA anyway. (Seriously, did you see game 7? That was awful basketball.)
Another side to the story around USC sanctions
I know most people’s reactions to the sanctions levied upon USC range from “they finally got what they deserve” to all out jubilation, especially up here in Pac-10/Husky country. ESPN’s Jay Bilas has written a really good article showing the other side of how the investigation and penalties went down. The findings produced by the NCAA are sketchy at best and while the Trojan football program probably does deserve some punishment, which it had already self-imposed, what was brought down on them was probably a bit too harsh. Especially since I am not one of those people who believes a coach does or should know every single thing that happens in the lives of every person associated with his team. Aside from the revelations and views from Bilas on the matter, and the legendary coach he compares Carroll to, there are two things that I found suprising and deplorable.
Which one of these coaches doesn't belong?
First off, did you know that through all these investigations into USC athletics, that former basketball coach Tim Floyd was found to be not found guilty of anything? I don’t know what to think about that. My first reaction, was “are you effing crazy!?” He seemed like one of the biggest slime bags ever. By my memory, weren’t there reports that he personally was seen handing money to OJ Mayo’s agent/handler? Weren’t basketball, not football violations the first and main thing that USC admitted too and punished themselves for a year ago? I was and still am baffled. If you think about it though, if the “evidence that the NCAA had against Floyd was so flimsy as to be nonexistent”, as Bilas’ article says, then how was this fair to Floyd? He lost his job over this. He’s basically blacklisted in college basketball at this point, regulated to never being anything more than an assistant coach in the NBA (not that that is so bad). I may not have liked the guy, but is a great college coach. Hell, that’s part of why I hated him. I’m a Husky fan, he was at USC, and building a great program that threatened our basketball power. If he had sucked, I not only would not have hated him, I probably would have been a fan and hoped that he stayed at USC forever (think Paul Wolff). The NCAA basically ruined or at least significantly hurt this guy’s life over nothing. I might hate him in the sports world, but in the real world, I don’t think anyone deserves that.
Then there was the second mini revelation I had from the article. Did you know “…that the chair of the Committee on Infractions that slammed USC is Paul Dee, the former athletic director at Miami? Dee was in charge of the Miami program when the Hurricanes’ football team was hit with some of the most severe sanctions in NCAA history.” You’ve got to be kidding me. As Bilas goes on to say, “Why is Dee, who presided over a cheating and scandalous program by NCAA standards, allowed to chair the Committee on Infractions, which sits in judgment of other programs?” I have no idea myself. That’s like putting Nixon in charge of the Senate ethics committee.
Check out the article. I really think it will be worth your time (and hopefully this was too): http://insider.espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/blog?name=bilas_jay&id=5345541
Don’t we all wish? Thanks to Jarod and The Midwest Sports Fan for brightening my day. Hey, if things worked out like this it would even stop John Calapari from stealing recruits from UW! Check it out: http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2010/06/source-lebron-wade-bosh-to-seattle/. I also recommend reading some of the comments. Hilarious how some people are getting all angry about how this is totally unfounded and he’s such a horrible journalist with bad sources. (The link can be a little slow to come up, but just give it a minute.)
Seeing this in Seattle would be about the only thing that could make up for having Stern and Bennett hijack our team to OKC. (pic from slamdunkcentral.com)
M’s Finally Make Trade!…Wait, What!?
With a record of 31-44, everybody has been wondering when the Seattle Mariners would finally start making some deals. Well, they final have, trading prospects Ezequiel Carrera and Juan Diaz to the Cleveland Indians to bring first baseman Russell Branyan back to Seattle. Yes, you read that right, a team that is currently 15 games out of first place at the end of June just traded two prospects for an injury plagued, 34 year old 1B/DH. I, like most fans, am completely flabbergasted by the move.
Seattle general manager Jack Zduriencik said, “It gives you the legitimate threat in your lineup, and it was important for us to do this at this time”.
I doubt Russell Branyan's return to Seattle will be celebrated quite as much as Ken Griffey Jr's. (pic from Geoff Baker's Seattle Times Miriner Blog)
Really? At this time? Maybe during the offseason, or spring training, or even at the end of April, but I challenge Zduriencik, Don Wakamatsu, or anyone to rationalize why it makes any sense now. The season is over, and anyone who says otherwise is either in serious denial or just plain crazy. Nothing Branyan does between now and the end of the season makes any difference, positive anyway, on the Mariners season. He can hit 50 homers the rest of the way and the Mariners will still finish in last place. Look, I was optimistic as anyone entering the year. Sure we were a flawed team with serious offensive questions, but I could see how it could have worked. Say the weak lineup we have had performed at least close to where it should, and great starting pitching would have given (and has) a chance to win a decent amount of games. You keep it close in a weak division, stay around .500, and then make a couple deals at the deadline for another bat or two and then you make a run at the post season. Once you are in the playoffs, a rotation with Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee (and possibly if God shined down on us Erik Bedard for 5 solid innings a game) gives you a great chance on taking four games out of any seven game series. That’s not what happened though. Even if we play to the capability people thought we had at the beginning of the year, the Mariners are already 13 games under .500. Playing .500ish the rest of the way still makes them a 90+ loss team. At a time when they should be dumping higher priced veterans for the best deal possible to help restock their depleted farm system and build for next year, they are doing the opposite.
The move is nonsensical in general, but let’s talk about Russell Branyan specifically for a minute. If you are making the argument that adding one bat to the middle of our lineup will make us that much better (it doesn’t), then how is this the guy? I assume like last year, he doesn’t want to and won’t be made to bat in the middle of the order, because he doesn’t feel comfortable in the three or four spots in the lineup, so like last year, he’ll be batting either second (.196 avg in 221 AB) or fifth (.305 avg in 141 AB), which is not where we need him the most. As far as actual run producing, he’s batting .217 with runners in scoring position, so it’s not like he’s a clutch bat or RBI machine this year, and he never has been. Looking at his “career year” in 2009, when he was with the M’s and played half his games in Safeco Field, he wasn’t any better. He batted a meager .234 with runners in scoring position. Not exactly my definition of a productive major league bat (although yes, it is outstanding for a Mariner). As far as power, 19 of his 31 home runs were solo homers (and no it’s not because we didn’t get guys on base for him and he had way more at bats with none on – he had 221 AB with the bases empty and 210 AB with runners on). To compound the issue, the Mariners have had a huge problem this of carrying too many players on their roster that either can’t play or are a liability in the field (Sweeney, Griffey, Bradley). We saw last year that Branyan’s back won’t hold up if you start him at first every day, so you just added another.
What this has trade has really done for me is make me really start to doubt Jack Zduriencik for the first time. In year one, everything he did was magic. Moves like getting Franklin Gutierrez and Jason Vargas in the JJ Putz trade, signing Branyan at next to nothing, bringing back Griffey, picking up David Aardsma, and so on. Every move he made was gold. They were all long shots, so it was bound to even out. He took flyers on Casey Kotchman and Ryan Garko, dumped Carlos Silva for Milton Bradley, resigned Erik Bedard, and they didn’t work. No big deal. None of it cost us much, and we really are a team that was still building for the future, and he didn’t mortgage that with any of those moves. And hey, the Cliff Lee deal has worked out spectacularly on an individual level, even if it hasn’t really impacted the team. The Figgins deal gave me pause (a lot of money for a guy that was about a .260 career hitter at Safeco coming into this year and didn’t fill the power void we have in our lineup), but I don’t think will be a total bust in the long run, but this deal? Was Jackie Z high? It reminds me of a trade a guy accidently accepts in his fantasy league when he’s drunk. And these weren’t top prospects, but they seemed like decent ones (for more on them, check out : http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/majors/trade-central/2010/2610264.html). For an organization that lacks depth both on it’s major league roster and in it’s farm system, they can scarcely afford to up even the least promising of young players. It’s not like I think he should be fired, but I am a little more wary of the direction of the team and what he might do the rest of this year leading up to the trade deadline. Let’s hope it all goes okay. Actually, I kind of hope was just drunk and made one idiotic move, and we can all trust that he’ll lay off the sauce until after July 31st.
Former BHS star Steve Schilling could be a day 2 pick in the 2011 draft (pic from WCBN Sports: Maize & Blog - maizeandblog.blogspot.com)
Mel Kiper’s 2011 NFL draft: Top 5 draft-eligibles (you need an ESPN Insider account): http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/draft10/insider/news/story?id=5273221
ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. has released his initial list of the top five draft prospects at each position and if you’re a fan of the NFL and the NFL Draft, it’s a must read. There are two local angles here. First and most obvious is that UW Senior QB Jake Locker is ranked as the top prospect at his position, edging out fellow Pac-10 passer Andrew Luck, the talented redshirt sophomore from Stanford. Also of note is that former Bellevue High star and current Michigan Wolverine Steve Schilling is ranked as the #3 offensive guard prospect for 2011. To make it perfectly clear, I’m an unapologetic fan of Steve’s, as he’s my best friends little brother (shout out to Mike Tudor!) and I’ve known him since the days when he was still quite a bit smaller than me (for reference, he’s about twice my size now). For those of you that probably haven’t followed his career since he left the state I’ll provide a little recap:
After starring at Bellevue High, Steve chose Michigan over, among other schools, his hometown Washington Huskies (Yes, I still like, or rather hate, to imagine what our offense would look like with a top NFL prospect anchoring the o-line for Locker and all the talented skill players). Steve arrived in Ann Arbor and redshirted his freshman year in 2006. In his first full year in 2007, he started every game; two at right guard and 11 at right tackle, opposite future number one pick John Long, and was named to the Freshman All-America Team. He was stayed at right tackle in 2008, and started the first 11 games, before missing the finale against Ohio State due to injury. He switched to guard last year, his natural NFL position, and started all 12 games at left guard for a Michigan team that ranked third in the Big Ten in scoring and averaged 186 yards on the ground. He was co-recipient of the Hugh R. Rader Jr. Award as Michigan’s top offensive linemen with Mark Ortmann, and an All-Big Ten honorable mention.
He’ll enter this year hoping to help lead the Wolverines to an improvement over their 5-7 record from last season, and their first bowl game since coach Rich Rodriguez took over. This year’s offensive line class doesn’t look that strong overall, so being the #3 OG might not put him as high as last year, when Mike Iupati went mid first round (#17 to the 49ers) and there were four guards off the board by the end of the second round. There’s no interior o-line prospects projected in the first round next year, but it should still have him in the second to early third round range at this point. Personally, I look for Schilling to move up the board as the season progresses, and especially after the combine, where I think he will surprise and impress some people. He’s probably been held back a little bit draft status wise by his team’s overall lack of success the last couple years. Since o-linemen don’t get to really put up a lot of stats, it’s usually team success that helps get them attention and measure how good they are, and the Wolverines just haven’t had a lot the last two years. In the end, I think he’ll be right on par with Ohio State guard Justin Boren (Mel’s #2) by draft day, and ahead of Florida State guard Rodney Hudson (Mel’s current #1), who I just don’t think has the size most would look for in an elite prospect. He’s probably more athletic than most realize, and it should also be of note that he is young for his age (Yes, I know that statement makes no sense, but I think it works), as even though he’s going to be a 5th year senior, he’s only 21 years old, and won’t even turn 22 until a few months after next year’s April NFL Draft. I’ll throw some more updates up on Steve as we go through the college season and up to the draft.
Update (6/24/2010) – Schilling was just named to the watch list for the 2010 Outland Trophy, presented annually to the nation’s outstanding lineman. You can read the details here: http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/062410aaa.html
Local Slant On NBA Finals
With the Sonics long gone to the middle of nowhere, it can be hard to get into the NBA Finals…or if you had to watch some of the absolutely horrible basketball being played, it can be hard to get into the NBA finals (I kidd. While game 7 was atrocious, it was also exciting.). So here is a Washington slant on the series with a finals highlight reel of former Gonzaga star and 2006 number three overall draft pick Adam Morrison! I love the last part when he has to tap Bynum (I think that’s who it is) like four times before he finally gives him a look like “who’s this strange, homeless looking white guy who’s touching me?”, and then finally gives him a begrudging fist bump. At least the Lakers won, so we didn’t have to see Adam wander around the court crying again. Thanks Jimmy Kimmel.
Bittersweet Comeback For USA
Wow! What a game. The US rallied for an amazing comeback to tie Slovenia 2-2 and keep their hopes of advancing in the World Cup alive. Despite the great play from the US in the second half, the two great goals, and the most exciting game of the World Cup so far, the story will focus on what could have been…what should have been. If you’re following soccer at all, you know we were robbed of one of the greatest comebacks in WC history when an 85th minute goal by Maurice Edu was called back for…well, no one really knows why, not even the ref. If you’ve seen it, I’m sure you have your own opinion of how horrible/unfair/BS it was. I don’t even know what to say about it, and probably can’t add anything that hasn’t been said already, so we’ll just link to the top recaps and opinions by professionals:
ESPN recap:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report?id=264045&cc=5901&ver=us
The Bleacher Report has a good article on it with quotes from Donovan:
Jamele Hill’s (great writer) piece on ESPN:
Former US Player Eric Wynalda (Yahoo! Sports) takes it to the next level:
http://g.sports.yahoo.com/soccer/world-cup/video/ssworldcup-19013964/did-the-usa-lose-a-win-20404462
Ha! The Slovenian coach didn’t think the ref mattered:
Grades for the US Players (if you play FIFA, these will be interesting to you):
World Cup Fever!
We’re a week into World Cup 2010 South Africa and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. Let me preface this by saying that I like soccer, I don’t love it (it falls behind football, basketball, golf, and baseball for me), but I do love the World Cup. I just could never get into watching Premier League or other top futball (yeah, like how I did that) leagues from overseas. I need a home team to root for and players I know and have a connection with (on a sports level, nothing creepy). I tried picking a random team and jumping on the bandwagon, or rooting for a friends favorite club, but I just couldn’t get into it. This was solved when Seattle got an MLS team, but watching a third class league isn’t my favorite thing either (although I do love my Sounders FC). It’s like following the Aqua Sox, just because you live in Everett. How can you be that into it when there’s the Mariners down the road, which are almost considered a Major League club. Additionally, there’s not a lot
Josie Altidore and the US will need to pick up the scoring to win Group C.
of scoring in soccer, which I’m okay with, but it’s hard to live and die on every play when they don’t all matter. Over the course of a long MLS season, each game is not truly vital to their success, and of course then there are the friendlies, which don’t matter at all. Then there is the World Cup. Do I know the league? Yes, it’s called the world, which I became familiar with during my primary education. Do I have a home team to root for? Yes, it’s called America. Get on board people! Are there players I recognized and is it the top-level of competition? Check and check. This is the cream of the crop that each of the top 32 countries has to offer. And you don’t have to be a soccer fanatic to know Landon Donovan, Josie Altidore, and Tim Howard among other US players. Casual soccer fans should know most of the starters on the US team and be well aware of the best from around the world like Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Renaldo, and Lionel Messi. Finally, you just can’t beat the fact that every game, every scoring chance, and every play is so important. If you lose, you’re out. Soccer is at it’s best when you are hanging on every play. When you get excited during the buildup, or agonize over a missed assignment. That’s my feeling on the World Cup overall. Now let’s get down to some more specific topics from this year’s event. We’ll start with the bad, and then get positive.
The Vuvuzelas
A big deal is being made of the South African horns that make it sound like the stadium is being attacked by swarms of killer bees. I think there is just waaaaay too much fuss being made over this. Is it annoying? Yes, but after you have watched for a little bit, it just turns into background noise that I hardly even notice. Obviously it does bother some people more than me, but so what? Just deal with it. The fact that people in America are calling for them to be banned is outrageous. It’s a part of South African culture and they are welcome to do whatever they want. Who are we to legislate what is or isn’t okay for them to do at a sporting event in their country. If we’re going to get all petty about it, let’s talk about getting rid of thunder sticks, dancing ground crews, and the wave.
The Ties
Another thing that I think people are making way too big a deal of is the number of ties. Yes, there are ties in soccer. Deal with it. I didn’t hear too many people complaining when the US managed a tie with England? Depending on your teams perspective, even a tie should be/is viewed as a success or failure. Be proud or excited for host South Africa when they tie Mexico. Besides, there haven’t even been that many ties! Through today, there have been 20 games played, with just six ties. That doesn’t seem excessive to me. And besides that, we’re only a week and a half into this thing! Give it some time and you’ll see less ties as team get more aggressive. You can only tie in group play anyway, so this will all be a moot point in another week.
USA! USA! USA!
Speaking of ties, the one we got against England was a big deal for us. We basically managed to neutralize our biggest competition in Group C. Now we just need to take care of business against Slovenia and Algeria, two teams ranked at least 10 spots below us in the FIFA World Rankings. The key here is to not have a letdown, which I don’t think we will. Getting to the Confederations Cup final was awesome, but let’s not get too crazy. Getting out of group play is still a good accomplishment for US National Soccer and should be viewed as a success. Having said that, remember us upsetting Spain in the Confederation Cup? If we make it past group play, we’ll be in a good ol’ March madness style playoff where anything can happen. The key for the US is going to be goal differential. Assuming both us and England win our next two games, whoever has won by the most will be the number one spot and have a much easier road to the final (not that I think we are going that far). If we can win the top spot, we get to play the #2 team from Group D, which would most likely be Ghana, a team ranked 32nd in the world, 18 spots below the US, or possibly Serbia, who is ranked one spot behind the US at #15. Either way at worst we’re facing an opponent we are pretty much even with. After that we’d potentially be facing the winner of a Mexico vs South Korea game. Both teams ranked below us that we can beat. It’s gets harder to predict after that, but in my ESPN Bracket Predictor, that would lead to a match with world #1 Brazil and be the end of the ride. Imagine the United States reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup and then even getting to play in the third place game. It would be an amazing ride for fans, an epic accomplishment for the team, and a massive statement to the rest of the world on where US soccer now stands. Conversely, if we only manage to snag the second spot in our group, we’d play Group D winner Germany, who is ranked #6 in the world and looked great in their first game. If by some miracle we upset them, we’d likely have reigning FIFA Player of the Year Lionel Messi and Argentina waiting to send us home.
That’s what makes every play and every goal so important. We can’t just win 1-0 the next two games, we need to win by multiple goals to be sure to outpace England and create what believe it or not would be a realistic path to the semis. So stop worrying about horns and ties (unless they are for the US), get up early and enjoy some world-class soccer. Get behind your country, and hope to see the next step in the evolution of US soccer. You could be watching history be made.
The Blog is Back!
Yes, yes, yes, I know my readers (all four of you, counting me) will be super excited to hear that I am now committed to doing some regular writing again. I’d toyed with formats and schedules that would work to fit my life and what i wanted to do with this blog, but never really found one. So, I have decided not to have any rhyme or reason to why or when I post. I have a real job with long hours and putting pressure and deadlines on myself to write made this a bit more of a burden than what it was meant to be – fun outlet for me to enjoy writing about sports. So, from now on I will just be writing when i feel like it. I can’t guarantee that there will be articles on certain days or a certain number of posts per week, but will say that I will be doing more than I have for the last few months. So if you want to keep up with the blog, you’ll just have to check back randomly, or follow it on Facebook or Twitter. No sense wasting more time on this post, as no one wants to read more about my reasons for writing and I don’t want to keep giving them. Time for a new post…
