Bill Simmons on the Blazers

Sounds about right:

The best way to describe the crowd's support for Oden: It's like watching 15,000 parents rooting for their kid, only all 15,000 parents fathered the same kid. If he ever explodes for 30 points, 20 rebounds and eight blocks in a game, you'll have to carry each deliriously passed-out Portland fan out of the Rose Garden individually like they were victims of smoke inhalation in a burning house...I also was startled by Portland fans arguably ... liking Rudy Fernandez as much as, and maybe even a smidge more than, the great Brandon Roy.

Two other things shocked me. First, that's the whitest NBA experience you can have that doesn't involve the words "Salt," "Lake" and City." They didn't play hip-hop either before the game or during the game, each team seemed to have more African-Americans than the entire crowd and the pregame video right before the introduction of Portland's starting lineup was a local grunge band singing "Ballroom Blitz." And second, during a second-quarter timeout, my buddy House and I ran into the concourse to grab beers and noticed there was NOBODY else in line for anything. We felt like Will Smith in "I Am Legend." There was no sign of human life other than the workers. Everyone else stays in their seats. At halftime, those same people pour into the concourse like it's halftime of a football game. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know whether the Blazers have the most loyal, passionate, dutiful fans in the NBA, but at the very least, we can say nobody else tops them.

Here's what I took away from my Rose Garden experience: Portland loves the Blazers the same way a single mother would love her only child. The city's revulsion toward the "Jail Blazers" makes a lot more sense to me now. The team and the city are intertwined, and if one side isn't holding up that bargain, it's even more painful than usual. Anyway, I couldn't be happier that I got a taste of it. Great NBA city.

In TSG's defense, he doesn't know that hip hop is dead.

Best Athlete Ever

Sorry Dikembe, you're down to #2 after this.

How about John Hammond?

Fire Joe Dumars!

But the masses ask "Oh yeah smarty pants, who do they hire instead?"? mVs will attempt to answer that question one candidate at a time.

Candidate #1: John Hammond

The current GM of the Milwaukee Bucks was vice president of basketball operations for Joe Dumars for almost a decade. He handled player personnel decisions, scouting and has many years of coaching background. He’s been with the Pistons off and on (but mostly on) since 1994.

Organizational affiliation aside, he’s already done a fantastic job turning around and rebuilding the Bucks. To recap the Bucks offseason:

o Traded away Richard Jefferson
o Did not resign Charlie Villanueva or Ramon Sessions
o Drafted Brandon Jennings
o Brought Erysan Ilysova over from Europe
o Acquired Carlos Delfino and Hakim Warrik for cheap: 3.5 and 3M, respectively

Saddled with a 17M annual contract to a middling “franchise” SG, 14M for a meh SF, and Andrew Bogut getting 10M per, it was clear this team isn’t close to contention. So Hammond began moving people out with a rebuild job in mind. He dealt Richard Jefferson for cap relief. Also, in a move that would please Joe Dumars’ fans, he avoided overpaying to retain his own free agents, letting overrated guys like Ramon Sessions and Charlie Villanueva walk away. This puts the team into much stronger position. By 2011 they’ll have commitments to just 4 players (Bogut, Charlie Bell, Brandon Jennings, and Ersan Ilyasova). Only one of these contracts is bad (Bell expiring at 4M).

Besides shrewd long-term fiscal management, Hammonds deserves credit for drafting Jennings, who appears to be the steal of the 2009 draft and a potential franchise player. He also brought over Ersan Ilyasova, who looks like a promising forward. Now if he could just find someone to take Michael Redd and Dan Gadzuric off his hands the Bucks will really be in business.

Yeah, but rebuilding isn’t fun you say, and losing stinks. Yeah, it can, but a quick check of the standings shows the “conventionally rebuilding” Bucks at 8-4 despite their franchise SG and C being hurt. Meanwhile, the “rebuilding without losing” Pistons are 5-9. Yeah its early, but you can already see that this kind of rebuilding is superior to the Pistons efforts. The bucks signed bargain basement players at the end of the offseason and hope they keep the team from losing too badly, but don't commit to any bad contracts long-term. With one lottery pick the Bucks have a better core to build from than the Pistons. They have a potential franchise Center and Point Guard locked up while the Pistons sign scoring wing after scoring wing.

And as for past success in Detroit credited to Joe Dumars, one wonders how much of that should go to John Hammond. Given the divergent paths taken since Hammond left Detroit and Dumars was left to his own decision-making, it seems like the philosophy that brought success to Auburn Hills might have been mastermind by the man in Milwaukee.

Blazers New Big Man!

 

Scott Niedermayer!!!

On ice fights got nothing on fan fights

kill me now

well, thanks for the memories, guy. a long, cold winter to recount that time you threw four interceptions against polk high.

Juwan

Get on board Blazer fans. Your backup PF is one likeable dude:

Juwan Howard is playing in his sixteenth season in the NBA. Why has he lasted so long?

"If it wasn't for his mind, he wouldn't be here," Blazers coach Nate McMillan told The Columbian. "His IQ is very high."

"I'm a very prideful individual," Howard said. "I compete and I'm very competitive. And I have passion and a love for the game. So, you put all that together, and that's why I'm still in this league."

"He just loves basketball. He loves being around it," Brandon Roy said. "And that's something that, it's not in everybody. A lot of guys don't love the game. But he loves the game. He loves to travel, he loves to play. And that's something that I think is great, because it rubs off on guys. It makes guys want to go out there and perform every night."

Some Michigan FB Doesn't Suck, Fully

My high school is in the state semifinals. Mother'f'n whoot...I suppose. An article was written about them in the Detroit News. Apparently, every Detroit sports journalist, no matter what level they're covering, is required to write a narrative about tough economic times and "helping everyone forget for a couple hours."

Friday nights have helped alleviate some of the misery the difficult economic times have wrought on this city of 4,090 on the St. Clair River. Foreclosures and for-sale signs on cars and trucks line many of its streets. In nearby Port Huron, the unemployment rate is 20 percent. St. Clair County is suffering. Rumors abound about possibly merging schools and school systems.

Daryn Letson teaches at Marine City and has been a full-time varsity assistant since 2000. To help pay bills, he also runs a lawn service. The city contracts Letson to service and cut lawns of abandoned homes and businesses.

"We're swamped with work," said Letson, who lives in nearby East China. "We've done a ton of homes and businesses. I can't count them all. In one area, on Derguse Street, there are a number of industrial places. Two out of a dozen shops are open. We tell the players, for two hours you're the one reprieve for these people to forget about what's happening in this world."

I'm surprised: I thought Mitch Albom had copyrighted that particular angle. Maybe they should have mentioned the $800,000 they dropped a couple years ago on turf for the stadium.

Bynumite

Get rid of the helmet

So suggests the WSJ

What nobody knew at the time is that these small collisions may be just as damaging. The growing body of research on former football players suggests that brain damage isn't necessarily the result of any one trauma, but the accumulation of thousands of seemingly innocuous blows to the head.

Compared to footie/rugby:

there may be a greater prevalence of head injuries in the American game because the players hit each other with forces up to 100% greater. "If they didn't have helmets on, they wouldn't do that," he says. "They know they'd injure themselves."

Dhani Jones, a linebacker for the Cincinnati Bengals who has played rugby, too, says head injuries in that sport do happen, but they're mostly freak accidents. "In football, you're taught to hit with your face," he says. "You're always contacting with your 'hat,' which is your head."

But like most issues that involve a compromise, people will continue to look to technology for the answer, even if it creates a new set of problems.

"The NFL is currently conducting independent testing of helmets with a focus on "more accurate and comparative information about concussive forces," says neurologist Ira Casson, a co-chair of the NFL's Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee."

CFB hit of the week

Revolting

KG shows off what might have been his college choice if he wasn't such a pinhead.

Will Bynum

This guy sounds awesome. Too bad Joe Dumars has invested in a roster that makes him the 4th guard.

Fire Joe Dumars.

Envisioning a Congressman

According to this site he may be running in NJ.

Thoughts on his protege

[A'mare Stoudamire]'s not a fan of Boston C Kendrick Perkins and said he hasn't seen much maturity in the game of the volatile Celtic. "He keeps a lot of confrontation going," Stoudemire said. "We try to play smart basketball. From my standpoint, we try to stay out of the confrontation, really just go out and execute our plays offensively and defensively. But it seems sometimes, (Perkins) wants to keep it up. He's always mean. Always mad. He don't never have fun out there. He needs to learn how to have fun on the basketball court and just enjoy his life -- enjoy the game."

The Return of the Mark Whiten

Historic news out of Cuba.

Holy Lobo

The Dumb & The Restless

Joe Girardi is dense. For risking losing the World Series with the markedly better team. The problem: throwing starters without enough rest.

It was understandable in Game 4 to pitch Sabathia on only three days rest because his odds of winning go way up, if not matched against Philadelphia's Cliff Lee. Get the 3-1 series lead, put the Phillies on the ropes, and make Charlie Manuel have to pull out all the stops (like overworking middle relievers) in three straight games.

But why start Burnett on three days rest against Lee in Philadelphia? Why not figure you have a long shot to beat Lee, so throw Chamberlain; then have a well-rested Burnett on the mound at home in New York for Game 6.

But no. Girardi threw the tired Burnett, and now he has to maintain his sequence of weary starters and pitch the unrested Petitte.

Philadelphia's only advantage in this series is that they have four starters. It might be enough now that Girardi's impatience put Game 6 in danger trying to salvage a Game 5 that was probably lost from the get go.

Ultimately, I place the blame with Steinbrenner and his perennial problems picking managers. The Yankees would be going into New York for Game 6 (and 7) with a well-rested Burnett (and Petitte), if only Steinbrenner had given the job to Don Mattingly.

Aspiring to be Oregon

Moontramp, who (despite leaving the internet) still exists, told me to watch Oregon and help teach Michigan how to play football. And actually theres a good deal of truth to that.

From mgoblog.

Seems to me the Oregon team looks a lot like Michigan is supposed to. Chip Kelly, who studied under Rodriguez, isn't even in a full year and has a team that looks cohesive and fully engaged in the spread system. I know they were a spread team before, but it still doesn't make sense that there is no comparison between the two teams.

I guess my question is, hasn't Rodriguez had enough time to recruit those fast players, even if the team is not yet complete enough to win like Oregon? Michigan has all these smaller guys but still seems as slow as it ever has. Why the glaring differences?

Chip Kelly is in his third year at Oregon. Mike Bellotti brought him in as offensive coordinator before the 2007 season after Kelly's spread 'n' shred at New Hampshire tore up I-AA defenses. Bellotti had also been an offensive coordinator elevated to head coach when Rich Brooks left Oregon in 1994. Oregon set up a smooth coach-in-waiting transition and avoided any unusual attrition in the changeover.

As far as the offense: in 2005, Oregon moved from a traditional passing attack with Joey Harrington under center to a spread 'n' shred when Bellotti hired Gary Crowton. Only redshirt seniors were recruited with a different offense in mind..Oregon is in year five of a transition period that had its ugly moments, like a 38-8 loss to BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl, and never had the sort of black hole at quarterback Michigan did. Jeremiah Masoli was a third-string sophomore JUCO transfer; Michigan's third string quarterback is Nick Sheridan.

So, yes, Chip Kelly is a first-year head coach but this was essentially an internal transition for a team already set up to run a spread 'n' shred.