Durant & Jeff Green pretty amazing so far

It's only taken 10 minutes, but Durant is already my favorite player to watch this season.

This guy can shoot from the outside. He can drive to the basket and dive toward the openings. He has an outstanding passing game. Oh my god.

In the first half, he has already dunked a couple of times, and led a couple of fastbreak points. The first one was a sweet layup. The second is what blew my mind. He drove, with a clear break to the hoop, when, in the last second, dropped a no look behind the back pass to the trailing Wilcox for a much easier dunk.

Kid has got great court vision.

And I haven't even started on the other big time Rookie, Jeff Green, coming off the bench. How many more games before he becomes a starter? Too bad Green can't play the point because otherwise, he may already be in the SL.

NBA DAY 1 Action

Blazers @ Spurs was a real bore. The only real excitement came in the 1st half, when they asked Eva Longoria (sp?) how her marriage was going. She paused, then gave a rehearsed response, ' (paraphrased) oh we're still in our honeymoon period'. ouch.

I think that means that it'll less than 3 years before they announce their divorce. Pure speculation on my part.

Actually, I was very excited about the Magic, Ernie, Kenny & Charles halftime broadcast.

I'm a big Magic fan and to hear him bash the Lakers management and Kobe was really priceless. Magic is firing off his mouth about everything. The Lakers management are in-fighting, too many voices. Plus, Kobe is the one that created this current mess when he said that he couldn't play with Shaq no more.

And then Kenny bashes the Lakers relentlessly, all the while talking directly to Magic. He kept on using the pronoun 'you' to mean the Lakers, but each time he said you, it was directly at Magic.

I'm sure Magic has killed Kenny in the off-the air moments, so it's a little payback time in the on the air moments.

You know, the real idiot in all this was Jerry Buss. Somehow, he got infatuated with Kobe, and wanted him above all else, rape charge and all. He should have given Kobe a take it or leave it offer. Take the max from the Lakers, with or without the promise of a future Shaq trade, or go ahead and sign with Chicago, Clippers, or whatever and see how hard it is to win on your own.

Rockets @ Lakers

A real bore but it sure got exciting at the very end. Lakers managed to tie it at 92 after a crazy 12 point comeback in the last 1:00++ minutes. But Shane Batteir spoiled the comeback with a wide opened 3 point look when the Lakers decided to triple team McGrady and leave everybody else wide open.

Real shocker? All the missed Kobe free throws. No doubt his wrist is hurting him worse than he's letting on. That white lower arm band is looking kinda wack. Trying to be all A.I.

Durant is going to sink or swim

I'm still not sure what to make of this guy. He's only 19 year old.

I gotta wait until he is at least 23 before I can give a good scouting report on him. What a cheat I am, though.

I saw him in the NCAA rounds 1 and 2, and I was left unimpressed. Oden struck me as more NBA ready, but he did seem kinda slow and clumsy to play great in the NBA.

But Durant? I really thought this kid was definitely not ready. During the Summer League, when he played games for the Supersonics, my thoughts started to change.

Durant looked more confident and stronger against the more experienced 2nd year NBA guys than he did against his peers.

Maybe Durant did get better in a matter of 2 months because you know what? He's only 19 friggin' years old.

Durant really needed Oden to stay in the NBA so at least half the spotlight could shine on him. If and when Durant sucks, and all Rookies, like 100 percent of them suck at some point in their first seasons. Go ask Bird, Jordan, & Magic.

But if Durant is great, forget about the old King James. It's going to be Durant Rules.

Blazers need to get a top 10 pick in 2008

If the Blazers miraculously make the NBA play-offs, it could be the very worse thing that could happen to them.

In 2008-09, they'll have to incorporate the fragile Oden back into the line up. The questions won't just be, how's your knee doing? It'll be, how's your wrist doing, tonsali-tus (sp) , and whatever other ailment you might get in the next 12 months.

What happens if Oden gets a fever? It's going to be endless speculations.

The Blazers need to draft a top 10 player that will be a major impact player, ala Dwight Howard. They need another guy that can really push them over the top.

And even if they don't get to draft that stud in the top 10 (let alone if they get to pick as high as 1 or 2 next year), they can always dangle that pick in front of Jim Buss and end up with Kobe Bryant. :( :)

Good move by Yanks

This was the latest Yankees news that dominated mlb headlines going into game 4 of the World Series.

A-Rod opts out of contract.

What a surprise.

In theory, A-Rod opted out months ago when he openly admitted that he would probably opt out at the end of the season.

But, A-Rod had to make a quick decision, because he needed to start negotiating as soon as possible.

Why wait until 10 days after the end of the World Series, when you get to smooze with the Angels, Cubs, Giants, and team blank for 300+++ million dollars.

The Yankees knows what A-Rod's real value is and simply don't want to pay him.

They totally pulled a Joe Torre "insult" offer for A-Rod. 5 years at or around 30 million per?

Are you kidding me?

It's going to take a mega 8+ year extension from the Yanks to keep him out of free agency.

If they really wanted him, they would have opened up their checkbook, and gave him 240/ 8 year to start, with 20 million more in bonuses.

It wouldn't really surprise me to see team blank give A-Rod 300 milllion/ 10 years. If there are 52 million on the table just to talk to Dice-K, then there's gotta be 300 million over the life of a 10 year contract.

We're talking about a guy that is projected to hit around 750 career homers if he stays healthy and plays another 1500 games over the next 10 years.

Ultimately, it was a great move by the Yankees.

Why give A-Rod 30 million per year, when he has brought a total of zero championships in his career? Look at Manny for example. His resume is awesome. 2 Championships, 4 WS appearances, and god knows how many more ALCS.

What about A-Rod? 0 WS, 3 ALCS.

In retrospect, both deals for A-Rod and Manny were ridiculous. 20 million per for Manny is pretty expensive. This guy is a nut job. Kinda like Dennis Rodman in his on the field antics, but at least Manny does not do the crazy stuff off the field. I like to believe Manny is not on the juice and is this super hitting machine. The best right hander hitter I've ever seen in my life. Juiced or no juice.

A-Rod? Pretty good hitter. He is not on the same level as Manny's, but A-Rod's defensive value is way way way higher. So does that justify the extra 5 milion per year for A-Rod? Not really.

Althugh speaking of value, what happens to the Red Sox when Manny's deal runs out after 2008? I say they do a 4 or 5 year extension, starting at 20 million per year.

Even though chances are Manny cannot continue to hit like he did in the post season, it's hard to not re-sign a guy that is simply irreplaceable. How many more bad J.D. Drew contract's can they add on?

People were celebrating when they called his game 6 grand slam, the 14 million grand slam. I looked at it like the 75 million grand slam because there's almost no way Drew is going to be any good during his next 4 years in Boston.

Flex schedule for MLB play-offs

There's been much debate about the new MLB Play-off format. Personally, I'm not a fan at all.

I think there were some good intentions. The day off b/w the 4th and 5th game was a pretty good idea. But I think they should use it with discretion. I mean, if it's Boston vs. Anaheim, I think having a day-off for travel is a pretty good idea. However, if it's Arizona/Chicago, I don't think the day off is necessary.

Pushing the World Series to avoid the dreaded Saturday night ratings was a really good idea. However, they didn't need to push it back to the following Wednesday. I would have pushed it back only one day, to Sunday, so that you have games 1 and 2 played on Sunday and Monday. Then you skip to Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for Games 3-5. And finally, have 6-7 on Sunday and Monday again.

Obviously, the day-off b/w 4 and 5 for the LCS is really a bad idea. It's a momentum stopper and completely unnatural having game 5 squeezed in b/w 2 off days.

What I would do is design a flex schedule. I would definitely keep the off day on the Monday after the regular season finale to deal with tiebreakers. If more tiebreakers are due on Tuesday, then hold off the other series until Wednesday.

And once the division series kick off, I would have at most 3 games per day. I would also speed up the start of LCS should both Division series end early with a sweep or in 4 games.

Same would go with the start of the World Series. If both LCS finish early, then move up the date for game 1 of WS, even if that means having to schedule two games on Saturday night.

Torre, the greedy Yankee

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/sports/baseball/25chass.html?ref=baseball

Apparently, Torre had rich incentives in his previous contracts, worth a total of around 1 million for wins, play-off appearances, and world series wins.

I think the Yankees ultimately screwed up by offering the weak 1 year term. They should have given him 2 years at 11 million. That way, if Torre rejected it, it wouldn't look so bad for the Yankees.

However, I don't think the Yankees really have a better candidate. Pena, Girardi, & Mattingly will probably do worse than Torre.

Most importantly, this tiresome manager search is diverting attention away from the Yankees most important free agent year in this decade. They have to decide how much to invest in A-Rod, Posada, and Rivera, which might total more than 450 million. On a lesser note, they also have to figure out what to do with Abreau (I think they let him go and move either Damon or Matsui to right).

A-Rod Extension

The Yanks have no choice but to make a legitimate 8 year extension on his current deal, making it 11 years total of guaranteed years.

I figure the numbers will be something like 34 X 8 = 275 million. I could even conceivably see it going as high as 306 for 9, just to make the numbers even.

And it's also possible to see A-Rod rejecting such a deal to hit the bonanza that is free agency.

Think about it. If they gave Soriano 100++, and Zito 100+++, I definitely see team X offering 300+++. The temptations are too high. Owners love to bid on these guys like A-Rod. Including George.

Over Logo -ing in NBA

It's a really slow Tuesday night in October. I mean, no MLB World Series games on TV.

Watching the Lakers/ Jazz pre-season game. First quarter, and it's already a complete blowout, Jazz 22, Lakers 4.

I was thinking about how it's so great that the NBA uniforms have avoided putting corporate logos, like Reebok or Nike, on their Jerseys. It's pretty fresh when you think about it, because the NBA logo looks so good on the jerseys because it's the only logo on the uniforms (outside of team, or special patches).

But, and there is a but... somebody decided to slip NBA logos on all team pants. They are all located on the upper right pant area.

Thankfully, they didn't put the second NBA logo on top of the butt area. That trend is really annoying. When you see a tiny Clippers logo right on the top of Elton Brand's butt, it's a little disconcerting, and very difficult to ignore.

NBAtv Training Camp series

So far, I've watched two episodes.

New Jersey Nets, 60 min.
Denver Nuggets, 150 min.

Lawrence Frank is the oddest looking NBA coach this side of Jeff Gundy. Frank is like 5 foot, 8 inches, 135 pounds, and he's standing next to these mega NBA players, 6++ foot tall, 200 pounds athletes.

Frank is very technical with his practices. All X's and O's. The look on the faces of Nets players is a mixture of boredom and confusion.

Frank barks out orders to his players to position themselves in an exact formation. He's trying to teach principles on defensive pressure, but it's not really getting through to the players. They obligingly go along with Frank, but they aren't really listening to him. He's a nice guy though, and he just goes along with the droning instructions.

Now to the Denver Nuggets practices, under George Karl.

Karl is way too fat. I mean, he's really over weight. He is a very jovial man, the Santa Claus of NBA coaches.

I hope Karl knows what he's doing and don't go too easy on his players. I got the feeling that the Nuggets were running the asylum and Karl is really there as a sort of chaperon for them. He's just there to be their friend and sometimes coach.

A.I. and Melo do not set very good examples. In the beginning of practice, A.I. and Melo are cracking jokes and having bigs smiles on their faces while going through their stretches.

As soon as Karl blows his whistle and start practice, A.I. & Melo immediately put on their bored to death look. They definitely were not listening to a word of what Karl was talking, which is kinda understandable. Karl started the session by moaning about the need to focus on Defense. As soon as his practice begins, it's clear that Karl is not too sure about how to teach defense.

He tries his best to teach his team how to defend pick and roll. He tells his 4 offensive players to set picks and basically run pick and rolls. Guess what happens? The offensive team can't even run one pick and roll play after a couple of tries.

Karl doesn't get angry or upset. He acts like he hasn't even noticed.

Karl gets creative and lets his guys play a little 5 on 4. At first, it sounds like a really fun idea, but neither team really plays with any real intensity. When your two biggest stars are Melo and A.I. , you don't want to look uncool by trying real hard.