Kobe Sucks

Here's the deal you either agree with the title of this or you disagree. So I'll explain why Michael Jordan is awesome and Kobe Bryant sucks. First, were the title to be Jordan Sucks, you would have to either disagree or be an idiot, whereas with Kobe you can agree. Okay, Kobe Bryant is good at basketball; he doesn't suck. However, I'll just provide a quick analogy why this championship does nothing to put Kobe Bryant on that all-time great level in my mind and shouldn't yours. Can we just imagine for a second, which players the Orlando Magic would have represented on a mid 90's Bulls team... Given how Dwight Howard basically only played defense this series... I don't think its to much of a stretch to compare his performance to Dennis Rodman. Here's an easy and offensive one...Turkoglu most reminded me of Toni Kukoc. Rashard Lewis played so poorly I'd have to relate him to Scottie Pippen with a bum ankle. You can basically amount the rest of the players to the likes of B.J. Armstrong, Steve Kerr, John Paxson, and Gortat will be played by Bill Wennington. Pietrus played well enough to account for Pippen's ankle. So we have as a starting five Pippen, Rodman, Kukoc, Kerr, and Armstrong. This is a par team and that's who Kobe beat. He wouldn't have and won't next year beat a healthy Celtics team (even though they won 2 in the regular season this year). In what universe would this Lakers team have beat Stockton and Malone even once. Here's the real reason Kobe Sucks... I was not entertained. I wanted to turn off my new Vizio tv when I saw that face in game 1. It said to me, "I'm a jerk who happens to be better than anyone currently on the court and I want to be remembered for something, so here's what I came up with." When kids stuck there tongue out in the 90's to be Like Mike everyone laughed. When kids put on their Kobe face out now, they're going to get slapped in it. When Jordan put his hands up it awe of himself it said to me, "I can't believe it either" and we were connected. Half of all the so-called haters like myself are going to jump ship now and talk about how awesome Kobe is. Its a sad day for me. Ironically though, I did imitate Kobe's game 1 face when I realized the Lakers had clinched.

"That's It" is retarded, and other musings

My compatriot recently predicted the fate of all 6 MLB Divisions, along with the Wild Cards, to come up with a prediction for this year's World Series. Thankfully, more time has passed, and I can officially declare the Cubs dead before dealing with the remaining teams. I had planned on writing a retort considerably sooner than this, but with work and all, writing took a back seat. Yet without further adieu, here goes: AL West Texas Rangers. I think the Angels are a better team, and they may very well win the thing, but their pitching staff took a huge hit when Adenhart was killed. And now that they're 4 1/2 games back, I don't know if they have enough to overtake Texas' firepower. It could happen -- like I said, I think they're the better team -- but I don't see it. AL East New York Yankees. With apologies to Boston, who seem to have lost David Ortiz to the H1N1 virus, and also can't seem to find a SS that knows what a baseball even is, the Yanks have the offensive firepower to get them into the postseason as the AL's #1 seed. Not to worry, however; their core is still averaging 35 years of age, so they won't do much once in the postseason. It isn't like C.C. knows how to pitch after August anyways. AL Central Can I go with "Who Cares?" No? Ok, then Detroit. I seem to remember that last year at some point in time, Detroit was supposed to score ~1000 runs, have starters with sub 3.00 ERA all across the board, and the Tigers were to run the table with their eyes closed. What happened to that squad? Other than losing limbs to their entire pitching staff and having every single one of their bats run cold for an entire season? My guess is a chemistry problem. Regardless, I don't see how Detroit can go from choking bitch to World Series threat in one year. Detroit is the pick here, but they lose to the Yanks in round 1. AL Wild Card Boston. Too much pitching, too much chemistry, just enough bats, and smart players throughout. They may pull it off to win the division, but even if they don't, they make the playoffs. NL West L.A. Dodgers. This may be the only team that could compete in the A.L. East and not lose 100 games -- but it's the only NL winner that has that right. The Dodgers have good, young pitching, and plenty of bats (especially when Manny comes back). NL East N.Y. Mets. If this team can stay near .500 while they figure out how to put their band-aid'd team back together, they have the chance to go on a run. Philly's ace is hurt, their 2nd best pitcher is gone for the season, and Ibanez can't possible continue to out-hit Ryan Howard. Point is, they can't maintain this, and the Mets can't continue to be this hurt. NL Central I'm picking the Cubs here. Granted, they are floundering right now, but D-Lee can't play this badly much longer, Soto can't play that badly much longer, Soriano is playing well (again), and Ramirez should be back any day. If Bradley ever bothers to shut up and hit the ball, this offense could be scary. I'll throw some kudos to the Cardinals for outplaying their ability for this long, but their charade must stop at some point, the Brewers don't have enough arms to make it serious, and the Reds are about a year away. So Cubs it is. NL Wild Card Philly. Everything I said above about the Mets could never happen, and those two teams could switch places. Either way, both teams are making the postseason. AL Winner Boston. This team has enough in its stable to make a big trade, and I see them buying another bat to put in their lineup, and that will be enough, along with their pitching, to put them back in the Series. NL Winner L.A. Dodgers. They have everything, and they should roll to a World Series bid. World Series Champ Boston. The Dodgers are good, and Manny will bat ~.600 for the series, but ultimately, they are just a half-step short of Boston in every category. They may make a series of it, but ultimately, Boston's talent level wins out.

There's an NBA game tonight

I love Lebron James. Its taken me a while to realize that he's not Michael Jordan, but he's still young and I really didn't watch the NBA until Jordan had been in the league 6 or 7 years. The Jordan-like quality he does hold is me. Yes he holds me. I actually enjoy watching the NBA when he's on the court. I give it the same respect I give the other 2 major sports and make sure my wife keeps her babies quite so I can concentrate. I'm extremely excited about an NBA game for the first time in a while (I was mildly excited last Finals w/ the LA-Boston matchup). Lebron has gotten better every year and now he has his back to the wall facing elimination from a lower seed and the NBA championship slipping away. I hear everyone saying that Lebron needs to follow Kobe's lead last night and shoot less.... there's one problem... Lebron's teammates really aren't any good. Other than Mo Williams and maybe Z, they would all be bench players on many teams around the league. I will cede that Lebron really isn't much more than an average shooter, and give Lebron the advice I'm sure he's waiting on-line to hear. Take the ball every single time, and without getting a charge, run straight down Dwight Howard's face. I wouldn't even try to score so much just concentrate on getting Dwight Howard off his feet... then do the same thing when Howard leaves the game or fouls out, but this time just dunk the ball on the far inferior defender. If Lebron doesn't have at least 30 free throw attempts tonight... I'll be disappointed. If he shoots 9 times and the team loses, I will not watch him for 1 solid year. But I'm going to pull a Mo Williams and guarantee the CAVS win by 10 tonight.

Fans of the World Unite!

I was almost done writing what I thought would be a somewhat irrelevant article about steroids when MannyGate started. I was going to write something about the idea that Aroid took steroids in high school and in New York. Then I was going to say who cares, then answer my own question as follows: I do and every fan and young aspiring MLB wannabe should. Saying steroids aren’t a big deal anymore, or something we should quit talking about them is like saying that gloves aren’t a big deal. Why are there so many people saying it’s a sad day for baseball that a cheater, Manny, got caught? I diagnosed his personal health issue too… it’s called old age. The only medical conditions they give you a drug that restarts testosterone production for is your body needing, or your ego wanting more testosterone. I just wish baseball would quit saying how unfortunate it is that this happened and instead say how unfortunate it is that this guy cheated. In 1919 baseball did the unthinkable, not in banning elite players for life, but for giving absolute power to a commissioner to rule and oversee baseball for the best interest of the game. So why, is the darkest issue of baseball from 2002 is the most darkening issue in baseball in 2009 and likely to be in 2015? Why isn’t this absolute power being used for the best interest of the game? We all know this one. It’s the same reason why your dad got laid off his factory job six weeks before retirement. It’s called greed. However, it’s only 80% about money. The other 31% is pride, power, and the greedy desire to be respected by the masses. If Bud Selig had any sort of plan at all, you would have seen it by now. Sure, the 50 game suspension for a first offense will go a long way to prevent future use, but what about the integrity of the game that has been lost as a result of all this. Do we not deserve a refund for every game we paid to watch the best talent in the world, but because of steroids the best talent was often times sitting on the bench while a 39 year old roid raging Rafael Palmeiro played instead? I guess I just feel like we are all being hoodwinked by the biggest collusion of the commissioners, players, and owners ever. The only hopes we really have are the clean players, maybe the sports writers, and ourselves. Personally, I don’t want any of these guys to make the hall of fame. I hope you don’t either. I think we should blackball all these guys. Don’t believe there lies, boo them at the games, and don’t buy there memorabilia. Maybe there should be a steroid factor in the record books instead of asterisks. If you used steroids and hit 500 homeruns, then you now have 375 career home runs (no asterisk). If they can’t prove it some will get lucky, but lets put this behind us for real. Make a decision in the best interest of the game, make it preserve baseball’s righteous numbers and actually move on instead of waiting for people to forget it happened. I just ask baseball to do something significant, even if it hurts the game temporarily. Manny did more to hurt baseball with this than Pete Rose ever did, and all that’s really happening to him is the loss of one vacation home and he’ll end up with the 6th most homeruns all-time instead of the 5th. Can't we tar and feather just one guy? How unfortunate.

2009 NFL First Round (Picks 1-10)

Here are my thoughts on the top 10 players taken, and brief look at the rest of the first round.

1. Lions - Matt Stafford (QB) - I'm not sure why he is so highly regarded. Even though he was surrounded by some very talented players at Georgia, he never did anything. A strong arm and good size will only get you so far, just ask Ryan Leaf and Josh Freeman after Tampa Bay discards him. I am quite sure he is no Matt Ryan, who was surrounded by marginal talent at BC.
2. St. Louis - Jason Smith (OT) - Over the past few years, I've watched quite a few B12 games, but I never noticed this kid. To be honest, I don't typically notice offensive lineman anyways. Because he used to play some tight end, I would expect him to be pretty athletic.
3. Kansas City - Tyson Jackson (DE) - In the 2001 draft, the Chiefs took Eric Browning (DT) with their first pick of the draft in the third round. In 2002, they took Ryan Sims (DT) with the #6 pick. In 2004, they took Junior Siavii (DT) with their first pick (#36 in the second round). In 2006, they took Tamba Hali (DE) with the 20th pick. In 2007, they took Turk McBride (DE - 2nd round, 54th overall) and DeMarcus Tyler (DT - 3rd round, 82nd overall). In 2008, they take Glenn Dorsey (DT) with the 5th pick. In 2009, you guessed it, they take Tyson Jackson (DE) with the third pick. Enough already with the defensive linemen. It's not working you lame dicks.
4. Seattle - Aaron Curry (LB) - They were probably thinking WTF?!? when this guy fell to them. I expect him to be solid but not spectacular. Maybe a few pro bowls and some all-pro teams.
5. NY Jets - Mark Sanchez (QB) - After giving up almost all of their picks for the next decade to move up, the Jets took Sanchez. The 2009 version of Matt Leinart.
6. Cincinatti - Andre Smith (OT) - This guys a schlub. He'll fit right in with the circus in Cincinatti. This pick guarantees that this will be Marvin Lewis' last year.
7. Oakland - Darrius Heyward-Bey (WR) - You think they might take Crabtree or Maclin? Nope. The circus continues.
8. Jacksonville - Eugene Monroe (OT) - Now, if they only had a QB for him to block for.
9. Green Bay - B.J. Raji (DT) - For some reason, I just don't see defensive linemen, and in particular defensive tackles, being the pillars of a defense. If I were a general manager, I would never take defensive lineman with a top-20 pick. See the Chiefs discussion above for a recent success story.
10. San Francisco - Michael Crabtree (WR) - He will take a few years to develop. Hopefully he doesn't sign a deal for more than 3 years. Without a decent QB to throw to him, he will become a malcontent.

None of these guys will be worth the money teams have to spend on them. An exception may be found in one or both of the OTs taken (Monroe & Smith). Apart from Crabtree, I doubt we'll be hearing much about any of the skill players taken in the top 10 three years from now. I liked Denver picking Moreno, but then I remembered Shanahan is gone. With Maclin, Philadelphia either got Rocket Ismail or Eric Metcalf. I liked Indy's CT pick. Overall, there seemed to be a lot of defensive players picked and way too many defensive linemen went in the first round. What is it about defensive linemen? I don't understand it. I think 5 years down the road Donald Brown could be seen as the best player that came out of the first round. But, I am probably completely wrong and Darrius Heyward-Bey will already be a first ballot hall of famer.

MLB Predictions

Although the NFL draft is great and all, the topic has recently been covered, albeit with a B10 focus. Of those mentioned in that post, I think Shonn Greene will provide the best value wherever he lands in terms of contract money and production. While I'm not suggesting he will turn out to be LT, I think he will be the most productive player coming out of the mid-to-late rounds. I envision him landing softly with a good team and getting some playing time. Furthermore, he doesn't strike me as someone who will have character or work ethic problems in the NFL even if some of those problems lurk in his past. I think he will have something to prove. I also thought about talking about the NBA playoffs. But is there really anything to say when it seems nearly every NBA team gets into the playoffs? Instead of March Madness, the NBA has April, May, and June Madness. Can you really consider it a good season when you have a losing record and still make it into the playoffs? I dunno, but Stern seems to be flushing this thing (league) down the toilet. But what do I know, I only watch the NBA on Thanksgiving and Christmas. The league does not otherwise exist for me. So, here are my MLB playoff predictions based on almost one month of play. AL East - BoSox AL Central - ChiSox (but who cares really, it's the AL Central) AL West - LAngels (if their injured pitchers return to form and Fuentes holds steady) Wildcard - Seattle NL East - Philadelphia (FL is first two letters in fluke) NL Central - Cards (sort of like the AL Central for me) NL West - Dodgers Wildcard - Cubs DP Winners - BoSox, LAngels, Cards, Dodgers CS Winners - BoSox, Dodgers WS Winners - Dodgers

NFL Draft

I love the Draft. Love it. If I could get away with it, I would sit and watch it for at least 4 hours each day it's televised. And when I was single, I did just that. Now with a wife and kid, however, I try to keep it on in another room and randomly sneak in there to catch a peek. As of right now, there are at least 20 mock drafts presented by either si.com or espn.com writers. Some of those 20 are merely alterations of preexisting mocks, but I'd say 10-15 are legit original mocks. Don Banks does one, Mel "Hair" Kiper, McShay, they all put one out. And because they're way more "in" than I am, I'll decline to guess on the 1st round myself. All it would be is a compilation of everybody else's hard work anyways, and I'm not into stealing unless it involves drugs and / or hookers. But I digress. Instead, I'm going to offer my list of top 5 underrated players and top 5 overrated players from the B10, each of whom figure to be a 1st-day draft selection. You'll see names like Beanie Wells, Brian Robiskie, Shonn Greene, and even a little Vontae Davis for good measure. So without further adieu, here we go: Overrated

1. James Laurinaitis. Seriously. How many times does a big-time OSU product have to come out into the NFL and suck absolute dick until we all figure out that OSU can't produce a pro product to save their soul. Quick, name an OSU linebacker who's worth a shit in the NFL. .....got any?.....A.J. Hawk? Really? Is that all you've got? Ok, he's decent, but he's nowhere near the hype he received. And I'm here to say that Laurinaitis won't be either. Nowhere near, actually. Besides, go ahead and refer to Andy Katzenmoyer if you need any true examples of all-time FAILS from OSU.
2. Javon Ringer. This is a bit of a stretch, because it's entirely likely that this jackass doesn't crack the top 3 rounds. That being said, however, watch for this guy to go all Ron Dayne on people and proceed to suck balls for the life of his career. Which, in my guess, should last about 3 seconds. He put up some decent numbers this past season, but when you run it 40 times a game, you're bound to get a few 100-yard games.
3. Aaron Maybin. Mr. Maybin, meet Vernon Gholston. Vernon, meet Aaron Maybin. The two of you are identical to one another, only people are sold on Mr. Maybin being disruptive in the right system. I see a speed rusher without any heart (no, not you, Vernon; I'm talking about Aaron right now, though I understand how you could be confused), and is too young and stupid to know any better. He may be decent in 3-4 years, but certainly not right now.
4. Malcom Jenkins. Sensing a pattern here? I hate tOSU, I think their defense is perennially overrated (they play a great system and are very smart, but can get burnt by equal athleticism, which few B10 teams possess), and Jenkins all but proved my theory with his 40 time approaching 5.2 seconds (not quite; it was closer to a 4.9, which is still a joke for a CB). Ultimately, Jenkins may get switched to FS or SS and excel, but I don't see him as a CB. Not even close.
5. Bradley Fletcher. Here is my non-homer pick of this post, because I absolutely adore Fletcher. He's a guy that came in, did everything asked of him, and generally made every play that was needed. Yet he never truly blew anybody away with his playmaking. He never had any "wow" defensive moments, and I never saw him dominate one side of the field like a true CB should be able to do. Granted, that could have been the system he's in, but I'm not sold. I see Fletcher as a situational CB at best, and a special teams flyer at worst.

Underrated

1. Shonn Greene. Homer pick here, being a Hawkeye, but I see Greene just blowing people up in the pros. He laid entirely too many defenders down with pure, brute force, and once he gets into permanent football shape, he won't need 5 games to warm up like he did for the Hawkeyes. He lacks pure top-end speed, sure, but he'll get you 5-6 yards per carry with his eyes closed. His vision for holes in the line is borderline unparalleled, and he refuses to go down after the first hit. He may never put up 2000 yards in a season, but he'll be a solid starter or a great 1-2 back in the thunder-lightning mold.
2. Brian Robiskie. Talk about a guy that runs crisp routes and catches everything in sight. Robiskie is similar to Greene in that he'll never light you up going deep, but if you need a 12-yard out pattern to get a first down, this guy will be open, guaranteed. All you need to do is have the ball with 5 yards of him, and it's his.
3. Travis Beckum. The poor man's Brandon Pettigrew, only a bit smaller. I (heart) this kid, and if he can find a team that doesn't need him to block all that much (see: Colts, Indianapolis), he's going to make a coach very, very happy. His routes are solid, his hands are like feather pillows, and he's a nimble little bugger for a tight end. I cheer for this kid despite the bloody W on his collegiate helmet.
4. Vontae Davis. I hate making this pick, because with the family heritage he's got (and requisite similarity to being a giant douche like his older brother), I'm terrified that he'll go all vagina in the NFL and proceed to suck. But with his skill, he has the ability to really produce. I don't see him being an All-Pro by any means, but he can be a legit starter for a playoff team for the next 10 years, if only he decides he wants it bad enough.
5. Derrick Williams. In order to attempt a fair and unbiased look at this, I'll throw Williams in there, because I see blazing speed, great hands, and a kid who started as a star and ended as a star. I don't necessarily think Mr. Williams will ever be a #1 WR, but he could be a very solid slot guy (a la Anthony Gonzalez from OSU), or a decent #2 WR.

So there you go. My B10 look at the first 3 rounds of the upcoming draft.