Thursday, May 01, 2008

Squatting on Boston

This post serves two purposes: first, to empty out all the sports-related thoughts in my head at the moment and to signal my return to more regular blogging and second, to provide enough copy such that my shame will be pushed further down the page. As such, I’ve titled this post “Squatting on Boston” so that we can all just move past one of the worst experiences of my blogging life.

1) NBA Coaching Carousel. So far the body count includes Isiah Thomas (Knicks), Sam Vincent (Bobcats), Jim Boylan (Bulls; Boylan was the interim coach who replaced the fired Scott Skiles shortly before New Year’s), Larry Krystkowiak (Bucks; the Bucks hired Scott Skiles to replace him), Pat Riley (Heat), and Avery Johnson (Mavericks). Rumors are circulating that Mike D’Antoni (Suns) will join this list as well.

-I don’t know who the next Knicks coach should be and I’m not even sure that it matters. The franchise is in total disarray and I don’t know that any of the players on the team are even coachable anyway. Personally, as long as it’s not Avery Johnson or Kenny Smith from TNT, I’ll be perfectly ambivalent about any other choice. Avery Johnson needs to cool off for a year and Kenny Smith is a boob. As if simply being from Brooklyn and growing up a Knicks fan would qualify you? Kenny, you barely make sense on TV so I can’t imagine how bad you’d be when real decisions have to be made...

-The most interesting things here are the Larry Brown/ Pat Riley stories. Larry Brown is the biggest quitter in NBA coaching history. No man has bailed on more teams than Brown. And although I hate to rip on North Carolina – after all, any school that is the antithetical institution to Duke’s elitist cadre of date-rapists is good by me – the UNC boys club is an insidious force in the NBA. Larry Brown has allies in the NBA because he played for Dean Smith in the 1960’s? That’s a good enough reason to keep on hiring him? How many owners, general managers, players, and fans need to get the short end of the stick before we stop the madness? And not for nothing but anyone that wants to rip Isiah for the poor job he’s done should look no further than Larry Brown’s new boss: Michael Jeffrey Jordan. The Bobcats deserve all the misery that Larry Brown brings with him. I wish them nothing but the worst.

-Moving along to Pat Riley, here’s another quitting coward. Considering the fact that he’s the GM of the Heat and that everything that’s gone wrong in the two seasons since they won the NBA title would be his fault, it’s nauseating to see him crawl back upstairs to the comfort and security of the team president’s office. His replacement, Erik Spoelstra now has the “privilege” of inheriting a 15 win team with a marquee player (Dwayne Wade) whose body can no longer withstand the rigors of a full 82-game season. Should we place our bets on Riley stabbing Spoelstra in the back in about three seasons when the Heat are back in the playoff hunt?

2) NBA Playoffs. The Suns and Mavericks didn’t show up, the Nuggets did better than expected (they didn’t lose every game by 30), and the Magic rewarded my pre-season faith in their abilities. Gutsy, you won our bet but I nailed you on New Orleans and Orlando (Memphis and Milwaukee?!).

-What we have left is a plucky Philly team trying to stay alive (rooting against them) and an overmatched Hawks team that just closed their eyes and threw a wild punch in the dark but can’t believe that it actually connected. Both Detroit and Boston will move on but both should be ashamed that six games were required.

-That only leaves the Jazz/Rockets (snooze) and Cavs/Wiz. The Wizards were fun to watch a few seasons ago when Gilbert Arenas was at his crazy, high-flying, Agent Zero best. Now that team has morphed from run-n-gun into a wannabe set of Bad Boys all I can do is hope the Cavs end them for the third straight year. The problem with the Wiz? They stink. There’s far too much trash-talk coming from losers like DeShawn Stevenson and Brendan Heywood. I’m sure they’re big men among their entourage of ass-kissers but in the grand scheme of the NBA, they don’t belong on the court with Lebron James. The Wizards should go fuck off and die already.

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