Eddy Curry Is Having A Terrible Year.

You have to feel for Eddy Curry.

Only a few weeks into 2009 and it already seems like he’s had the worst year anyone could hope for.

First this happened. The short of it is, Curry is being accused of a lot of absurd things and even if some of them are true, it just seems to bizarre to give any thought to until the matter is settled before a judge. Eddy Curry said these claims are completely false (sort of).

Yesterday there was breaking news that one of Curry’s ex-girlfriend’s (and mother to one of his children) was murdered outside her apartment, allegedly by a different ex-boyfriend.

Curry was in Philadelphia playing against the Sixers. Obviously he was distraught.

Shit is pretty horrible.

Our thoughts go out to him.

Antonio McDyess Will Re-Sign Wil The Detroit Pistons.

Antonio McDyess has decided to reject offers from 18 teams and go back to the Detroit Pistons.

He’ll be able to start playing with the Pistons again in early December (1 month after the trade occurred).

All though this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone it is still pretty funny in retrospect to recall the day the trade happened and remember the sports media trying to play the whole thing up as if McDyess or the Nuggets ever had any intention of him setting foot on their court.

We remember Mike Breen or someone from ESPN being like “Well, he’s played in Denver before, so a great homecoming for both Chauncey and for Antonio McDyess”.

I understand why buyouts exist. I get why GMs like them. But I really don’t think a player should be able to go back to the team they were traded from in the same season via a buyout and re-signing.

The Celtics did something similar with Gary Payton for Antoine Walker and the Atlanta Hawks a few years back. Sure, it worked out nicely for the C’s, but it sort of makes the trades in the NBA seem kind of like a joke.

Basically, the trade was Billups for Iverson straight up with the condition that the Nuggets buy out McDyess to gain extra cap space for future seasons. In return, the Pistons get an expiring contract and the Nuggets get a guy on a longer contract (who plays defense).

I just don’t think the whole “here-take-this-guy-from-us-pay-him-let-him-walk-and-come-back-to-us-for-less-money” thing is very fair. To me it sort of taints to validity of trades to begin with.

For The First Time Ever, More Teams Should Strive To Be Like The New Jersey Nets.

The New Jersey Nets announced plans today to start helping their fans get jobs.

The deal is, a fan submits a resume to the Nets who will pass the resume around to all relevant openings for their sponsors and the The Nets will also invite the person to a job fair at the Izod Center and give them 4 free tickets to a Nets game so they can have a relaxing night out.

Chief Executive Brett Yormark explains:

“Hopefully they’ll come out and experience the Nets, and then when times get better they’ll invest in us, because we invested in them [...] No other team is doing that, and I think it’s the appropriate thing to do, because times are tough.”

Truly one of the classiest things any professional sports team has done in a while.

The Detroit Lions, Pistons, Red Wings and Tigers should probably follow suit ASAP. All though, giving away free Lions tickets will most likely turn out to be a night devoid of relaxation for all parties involved.

Former KU Stars Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur Earn David Stern’s Scorn.

Listen up Supernintendo Chalmers and Darrell Arthur, because I’m only gonna say this once:

I’ll be the first person to tell you that David Stern is a giant piece of trash. He’s too old, oversensitive and dramatic to lead a pro sports league like the NBA at this point in his life. Stern treats owners like Gods, treats players like babies and lets Refs do whatever they want (Tim Donaghy comes to mind).

But…

When you are at an NBA-lead Rookie seminar that’s supposed to be about how to act appropriately as an NBA player and other such nonsense, DON’T GET HIGH IN YOUR HOTEL ROOM!

Seriously guys. Seriously.

I’m not saying you can’t act all Ricky Williams-esq. when you are in the comfort of your home. You are adults. Do what you want. Use discretion. BUT NEVER DO IT WHERE YOU WILL GET CAUGHT!

Seriously? Have you two been too busy playing High School and Jayhawks’ basketball to follow the NBA at all the last few seasons?

David Stern hates NBA players. The guy seems to get off on making them look like fools.

You know how when you were in Junior High you had one teacher who HATED kids? That’s what David Stern is. He just wants everyone to play basketball, have no personality, make no noise and go home everynight.

Do you really want to piss him off?

Oh…too late.

USA Beats Greece, Avoids Another Embarrassing Turn Of Events.

Team USA or the “Redeem Team” as they have been called by everyone in the US media, has defeated Greece.

Sick.

Now let’s all do a victory lap.

The thing is, The USA should be head and shoulders better than every other nation in the World at basketball.

I truly believe that the United States consistently produces the majority of the most elite players in the World.

Obviously, there are Dirk Nowitzski’s and Yao Ming’s out there, but to try and justify the collection of All Stars that is Team USA losing to an international team? Absurd.

There is no way in hell the Greek team is anywhere near as talented as the American team.

Maybe they have talented players. Maybe they have great chemistry or experience.

Great.

But if you want to argue with me that Kalabadous Ntrouskis and Argomyous Phloposkous are in the same talent universe as LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, you are drunk, high or just being a moron.

Now, obviously I understand that because Olympic basketball relies on guys actually playing as a team and deciding to play defense, it is clear why Team USA is beatable. Obviously they don’t have chemistry the way that the 07-08 Celtics did. Clearly they haven’t played together as much….etc.

I’m glad that Dwayne Wade looks like he’s back. That guy was a contender. I hope 08-09 is more of the same.

Chris Bosh will always be Canadian in my eyes.

Carmello Anthony is the most overrated player in the NBA hands down. That guy hasn’t done ANYTHING worth praising during his NBA career. Yeah, he puts up great numbers for himself. Sick. The Denver Nuggets should have been a force this season. Instead they were great on nights when they decided to show up, absent on other nights and generally without a defense most of the time. It makes me so angry.

If Team USA does not easily win gold, they are a complete failure.

The NBA had an amazing 07-08 season. It deserves to be capped off by declaring itself King once again.

Weekend Wrap Up

So there were these Olympics things that started.

I did what any American would do and ordered Peking Ravioli and Crab Rangoons and enjoyed 5 hours of Olympic mastery.

A couple of notes:

1) The whole thing was surreal and sort of scary.

2) Bob Costas needs to stop talking about how great China is. I get it. It’s improving. China still isn’t a great place to be. They still have a lot of issues. These Olympics shouldn’t be treated as a victory lap. They should be treated more as the start of a long race. There is still a long way to go. To the point that a few times I thought to myself “I wonder if these dancers will get executed if they mess up….”

3) Yao Ming is tall.

4) I like fireworks.

5) I hate tape delay.

Of course the Olympics featured a murder/suicide on day 2.

Also unfortunate this weekend, Russia has become very aggresive in Georgia. This has prompted me to change the name of my Fantasy Football team which was “The USSR Hammer & Sickle” for 4 years running to a temporary replacement of “Free Matt Jones!!!”. I cannot support the actions of a government that murders innocent civilians with my fantasy football team name. I guess I need to put my CCCP shirt in the back of my closet for a while.

If anyone has any suggestions as to what I should rename my Fantasy Football team, please let me know.

I saw Have Heart, Shipwreck (featuring Bombs), Verse, Blacklisted and New Lows this weekend. Great show. Have Heart was astounding as usual. Blacklisted had a nice set. Shipwreck did not experience the “technical difficulties” that plagued them at Sound and Fury (“technical difficulties” is code for Bombs being black out drunk and unable to play guitar). New Lows were really solid. They impressed Blade.  A lot of fun. It takes going to hardcore shows to see who exactly is buying all of the stylish Boston Red Sox hats…

Brett Favre fumbled a snap and ran a lap at Jets training camp. He will most likely be doing this frequently during the regular season. Hopefully at least 7 times a game.

My hope here is that at some point this season, Eric Mangini thinks to himself “Shit! WE WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER OFF WITH PENNINGTON!!!”.

Chris Carpenter is hurt again!! OH my! That NEVER happens.The only person who seems to be hurt as consistently as him is Plaxico Burress. Fortunately Plaxico is healthy right now….wait a minute!

Sadly, Bernie Mac and Issac Hayes both passed away this weekend.

Oh, and Team USA is better than Team China at basketball. Who would have guessed?

Sammy Villegas, Former Toledo Rocket, Accused of Point Shaving in Basketball. Why This Will Continue to Happen.

It must be tough to be a Toledo Rockets fan right now. Apparently gambling has become an issue on campus. Last year in football, this year in basketball.

Just to be clear, by “has become an issue” I mean that people have been caught doing it.

As long as there are sports there will be gambling on sports. As long as there is gambling on sports there will be people who try to get an inside edge by getting people to point shave. It is essentially as simple as that.

The reason why I’m sure it is far more prevalent in the NCAA is that at that stage of your life, you’re young, you aren’t making any money and you honestly don’t know if you’ll make it or not.

Look at all the people who play D1 college football and basketball, how many of them actually go pro? 2-5%?

Imagine being 20 and being talented enough to play D1 basketball, you go to a decent school, it isn’t Kansas or Illinois or Duke or anything, but it is a competitive program, and you are the second string point guard.

So you spent your whole life playing basketball, you were the best player in your neighborhood growing up, the best player at Boys and Girls club, the best player on your high school team so you get to a D1 program and you are maybe the 7th best player on the team.

Maybe you’ll make it. Probably you won’t.

You don’t have any cash flow because you spend all your time playing basketball, traveling, practicing and, when you aren’t doing all of the above you still have to go to classes.

And remember, you are 18 or 19 or 20 and in college. It’s college.  You want to have fun.

Someone approaches you and says you can make an easy $2,000 by missing a couple free throws in one game. You say “why not?”, miss the shots, make some money. And from there they keep calling you and you get pulled in. You get paid to play for them. You sure as hell aren’t getting paid to play in college (not at Toledo anyway).

The next thing you know, you’re involved with “La Casa Nostra” (according to ESPN), you didn’t realize what you were doing was actually hurting anyone because the way you see it, you were probably going to miss some shots anyway and this might have been your only chance to get paid to play basketball.

And now you’re on trial for $250,000 or 5 years in prison? Really?

How much do you think Sammy Villegas even made by complying with these requests? Maybe $5,000. Maybe $10,000. Maybe $20,000? There’s no way for us to know. But the reason why I bring it up is, I sincerely doubt there is ANY way he made a quarter of a million dollars. Maybe he did. But if he didn’t, the punishment really doesn’t fit the crime.

I agree that point shaving is wrong.

I just don’t think we should rush to crucify the participants.

The system is flawed. If these kids were getting paid to play college sports we would hear far less about all the payment scandals and point shaving. And you can make the “Well they are getting an education worth $200,000″ argument all day long, but the bottom line is, most of the top tier kids who participate in D1 sports aren’t going on to Med School or Law School or Grad School or Business School.

Most of them own their campus, show up for class only when they feel like it and major in general studies. Look at the NBA draft this year, how many Freshmen were drafted? 18? That one year of ‘college’ isn’t exactly going to take them very far.

These top tier players are not being prepared for the real world by programs that don’t hold them academically accountable, so why pretend that the education is worth ANYTHING?

The system is flawed and until the NCAA decides to stop pretending that it isn’t, there will be point shaving scandals, payment scandals, academic scandals…etc.

Yes, the idea of college sports is great.

The execution is embarrassing.

LeBron James “Would Consider A $50 Million A Year Offer To Play In Europe”

This is bad news for the NBA.

According to Chris Broussard, LeBron has already heard several offers from European teams. He likes money a lot. He wants to be a global icon. Awesome.

The article goes on and on about how it is unreasonable that LeBron would be paid $50 million per season overseas due to the exchange rate and lack of salary cap there. Ok.

It also makes some comparison to the amount of money David Beckham is paid to play in the MLS. Right.

The thing is, if LeBron wants to be a global icon, he should start by WINNING AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP OR TWO!!!

Yes, I know he is an absolute beast, I know he accelerates like nobody’s business, I know he is young and has the Universe by the sack, but the thing is, the guy has done essentially nothing in the NBA worth having Global Icon status to this point.

You know who else was young and had the world by the sack and was a standout NBA player for a time? Stephon Marbury. Vince Carter. Chris Webber. Grant Hill. Should I keep going?

I’m not going to say that all of the above had the same amount of potential as LeBron, it wouldn’t even really be a fair comparison as they are different types of players and what not.

Still, shit happens. People come into the league with infinite potential and sometimes get hurt, or get stuck on shitty teams, or get paid so much that they cannot be surrounded by good players, or just generally start believing their own hype overdo things and end up train-wrecks. Shit happens.

The thing is, the NBA cannot afford to pay LeBron $50 million a season. The salary cap will not allow any palyer to be paid that much without being surrounded by maybe 1 other veteran and 10 rookies. That is the way the math would boil down.

And you know who some true American sports global icons are? Michael Jordan. Tiger Woods. Maybe Lance Armstrong.

You know why? Because THEY HAVE WON CHAMPIONSHIPS!

Win 3 or 4 NBA Titles LeBron. You will be a global icon. Don’t worry about it.

Regardless of if his plan is to play in Europe only for 1 or 2 seasons, make bank, come back to the NBA and take a pay cut and then try to win MVP awards and NBA Titles, it still doesn’t make sense. Not for a young athlete in his prime.

If LeBron decided this when he was 31, still had 6 or 7 seasons left in him, had won a couple titles in America, I would say, sure, go for it, awesome, makes sense.

But this is just silly at this point. Speculation or not.

David Stern should be shitting bricks.

Ron Artest Shipped To Houston. Rockets Add Offense, Defense and Insanity.

HAVE THE BALLS TO REMOVE SOME BALLS! YOU BASTARDS!!!

My buddy Blade sent me a text message last night around 1:00 a.m.: “Artest to Houston. Shit is so random.”

At that point I had already tagged out for the night. But this morning I was surprised when I checked all 79 of my messages and emails (I am VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT, afterall).

I didn’t figure Artest would go to Houston. Did you? Probably not.

I thought of the teams that had expressed interest in him (or were rumored to have done so) and they all made sense. The Lakers could use his defense, toughness, the Pistons (it seems) are likely to get rid of Rasheed so I thought it might make sense to add another big defensive guy (in spite of the melee at Auburn Hills, that is). But the Rockets? I hadn’t even thought about it to be honest.

And in a way it does make sense. Artest can score. He can play defense (on what is already a great defensive team) and Houston sort of already had 2 big ticket players, NBA cap rules and competition make it so that teams can have 3.

Featuring his hit single "Don't throw shit at me or I will FUCK YOU UP"

Artest can add another level of defense and get some baskets. And this Houston Rockets team is no joke (even if they do CONSTANTLY have injury problems).

Keep in mind this team was a runaway train last season when they won 20 however many games in a row (in the Western Conference mind you) until they matched up against the Champs (who pounded them en route to completing the coveted Texas Triangle. God do I love the 07-08 Celtics…just thinking about a long road trip makes me want to jump up and down).

Unlike some (mostly in the Houston area), I don’t think this move instantly makes the Rockets THE team to beat in the West. However, an already great defensive team adding ANOTHER really good defender and scorer will certainly help to re-distribute the weight on the team. If Yao and TMac and Artest all play 65 games next season, I do think Houston *should* be one of the top 4 seeds in the West (The Lakers and Hornets and Jazz rounding it out. The Spurs are getting old. The Mavs are uncertain as are the Suns. The Warriors are probably out of the picture. The Clippers might be in contention? The Nuggets clearly want nothing to do with winning. So who knows).

I like this move by the Rockets. Clearly they are trying to go for it this year. There were rumblings about TMac maybe being moved and the Rockets selling already. It wouldn’t make sense to do that though. This is a team with some fight left. But if this new version doesn’t get them to the Finals soon they will NEED to blow it up.

Drunk Ref In Belarus

This is why Americans aren’t as interested in futbol.

We like our refs to be gambling illegally and to be pushed around by the league’s front office to make questionable calls. Not renegade drunks. That’s just horrible.

Oh Dick FUCKING Bavetta. You will fall hard.

via Palmtross