Dewayne Wise is NOT Derek Jeter

Last night, this atrocity happened. I refer to this play as atrocious not because of anything that Dewayne Wise or the Yankees did while trying to create a new version of this famous play, it's because of the umpire.

Dwight Howard to Follow in the Footsteps of Olajuwon?

I heard a couple days ago that the Houston Rockets were going to stockpile first round picks from other teams then use those picks to get Dwight Howard from the Magic. Well, it looks like this may be coming true. Today the Rockets were able to get the 18th pick in the 1st round from Minnesota in exchange for Chase Budinger and the draft rights to Lior Eliyahu. Being that the Rockets also own picks 14 and 16, they can most likely turn two of these teen picks into a top 10 pick. Once that happens, it's not impossible that Orlando would accept a top 10 pick, a mid first rounder and Luis Scola for Dwight Howard. 

Obviously, Dwight is not staying with the Magic for very long, so they really need to get him out and get something for him before he becomes a distraction for the team and also to avoid his trade value dropping due to injury. If they see something wrong with his back, they need to let him go before anyone sees him play with a bad back. 

The best part about all the wheeling and dealing that Houston is doing, is that they also plan to clear up enough room to join Howard and free agent point guard Deron Williams. Williams said that he only had two teams on his list: his home town Dallas Mavericks, and the Brooklyn Nets (WHY?); but he probably did not consider that he could play with Dwight in his home state. 

In my opinion, if the Houston Rockets can actually pull this off, they deserve a round of applause. If they already have a handshake deal in which Orlando agreed to give up Dwight if Houston somehow gets a high pick, then this will be a great deal for both sides. Giving up Dwight is never a great deal, but other than an aging Pau Gasol, there isn't much out there for the Magic. They can possibly grab a nice young player in the draft (Andre Drummond), maybe even a center to replace Howard (Andre Drummond). Maybe even a very unproven center with a lot of raw talent that can be a star if things fall into place for him (Andre Drummond). 

(Drummond isn't a sure thing, but he is the best prospect at the center position in this draft, and the Magic will definitely need one to replace that random Dwight Howard guy. I heard he was pretty good.)

For the Rockets, pulling off a near fire-sale to rebuild around Williams, Howard, and quite possibly (if they can keep him) Kevin Martin (who gets buckets. I mean BUCKETS), is a very good way to start. They were already in the playoff race pretty late in the year this year, so I expect at least a couple of first round wins from this team before they are able to grab some pieces around them. Once that happens, the Thunder won't be able to completely roll through the West as they would be doing otherwise for the next 10 years. 

From the side of the Timberwolves, they're still trying to figure it out, but with a healthy Ricky Rubio for this next year, they actually can sneak into the playoffs because Kevin Love is one of the best 5 players in this league. Essentially drafting a developing Budinger with an 18th pick is a good value for him. He's a good piece to have around for a young team on the rise and he's definitely getting better with more experience. 

So watch out Houston, you might need to clear out a space in your hearts for a new star center, Dwight Howard. 

You too Toronto, for this now means that you will get a washed up former MVP in about 10 years. 

Weekly Awards 6/25/12

Best Player in Baseball- Mike Trout is unbelievable.
Youk Award- Yewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwk is on his way out of Bahhston, much to the delight of Bobby Valentine. He's looked terrible this year, but I expect him to pick it up in Chicago. He was really unhappy with the BoSawx, so his performance should definitely improve.
Impressive Minor Leaguer of the Week- Anthony Rizzo because he's on his way up this week (to face the Mets, of course). He's hit 23 homers with an OPS of 1.110 down in AAA. One thousand one hundred and ten. I'm not kidding. He's also batting .345. His only stint in the majors last year didn't go too well, but this first baseman has potential. It's scary.
Amar'e Stoudemire/Javale McGee Stupid Act of the Week- Fire extinguisher-puncher guy is back at it. The NBA is reviewing a situation in which he used a homophobic slur in a direct message to a fan on twitter. The fan told him to step up his game in the upcoming season, and Stoudemire decided to get angry and type out a direct message including this word. The fan then posted this to his timeline for the world to see. Sometimes, people's judgement can just be so bad.
Fix Your Bullpen- New York Mets
Stop Putting so Much Effort into a Backup- New York Jets. Tim Tebow can't throw, so my Jets better stop with this train wreck.
Skip Bayless Annoying Analyst Award- It's Skip Bayless
Best Player in Basketball- Lebron James obviously.
Birthday of the Day- My boy! Carlos Delgado!
Mike Trout Award- He's Mike Trout, he deserves a separate award.

RA vs. CC

The matchup of the initials tonight on ESPN. While C.C. Sabathia is overrated (if you disagree, check this out) this will be a pretty good pitchers duel. Robert Allen Dickey is on a streak that has been touched by almost no one in MLB history, from Russ Ortiz to Sandy Koufax to Daniel Cabrera to Bob Gibson. Two straight one-hitters and every time he pitches, he seems to be setting a new record for insane dominance. As a Mets fan, it's so great to watch and it will be fun watching all the Yankee swings and misses tonight. I highly doubt he'll get to Orel Hershiser's scoreless inning streak of 59 (Dickey's at 42.2 now) but he might get close. The only thing that worries me is that the Yankees are a big home run hitting team, and one good swing could mean trouble for Dickey, but he's R.A. Dickey, he'll find a way around it.

Let's Go Mets.

How Jerome Holtzman Singlehandedly Ruined Baseball: The Art of Closers

It's the Bottom of the 6th inning in a 2-2 game, and Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Joel Peralta has just loaded the bases against the Washington Nationals. Prior to 1969, Joe Maddon would bring in his best relief pitcher, Fernando Rodney, but since this is the closer era, Peralta is left in the game. Danny Espinosa is the next batter up, and he smacks a 2-run double to right field, and the Nats take the 4-2 lead. The Rays go on to lose the game 5-2.

NBA Finals Chronicles, Friday June 22

Well the series is over. I did my live blog last night so I don't have much else to say but congratulations to the Miami Heat.

In terms of the blog, now that the NBA season is over, there will be a major shift towards more baseball content very soon.

NBA Finals Game 5 Live Blog

First time I'm doing this, going to talk about the game as it goes along. Refresh the page for updates.

1st Quarter

Only the pre-game intros and the Heat look focused and very psyched up. They are very excited to be in this position and they look ready. Time for the best game of LeBron's career!

How does the scoring in this game open up? LeBron James throwing down the hammer. Uh-oh, it looks like the Thunder are settling for jumpers early on, which is not what they should be doing.

Some really sloppy play so far, with a lot of turnovers from both sides and very inefficient execution in transition by both offenses.

A lot of fouls so far, and wow, Dwyane Wade now has two fouls, which usually means that he would take a seat, but Spoelstra sees his value and is keeping him on the floor. It's too early in the game to take him out, and it's very important for the Heat to get out to an early lead, and in order for that to happen, they need him instead of Mike Miller out on the floor.

Westbrook is really enjoying the pull-up jumper, and while that's alright with me, I'd rather see him attack and get to the rim more.

Here's James Harden. He misses the runner. What a surprise.

Now it really looks like the Thunder are trying the get inside the paint more, but I would like to see more inside passing to really get around the Heat defense.

Oh look, yet another reason why Kendrick Perkins shouldn't be in the starting lineup, he's getting killed by pump fakes, and when he is guarding Chris Bosh, he gets forced out onto the perimeter, where he is not comfortable at all. Hopefully after this timeout Brooks will sub in Nick Collison. Then promptly suspend Kendrick Perkins for being Kendrick Perkins. Maybe they should trade him to the Hornets, he and Rashard Lewis would make an amazing combo there, wouldn't you say?

Second time in this series that Russell Westbrook has gotten the ball stuck up in the rim, he's like the new Shaq, so many backboard issues.

James Harden scored!!!!!!!!

Two huge 3 pointers by Mike Miller, immediately followed by his eternally injured style of running. Then Norris Cole is picking up where he left off from the beginning of Game 4, which a 3 of his own.

Durant with a huge dunk to end the 1st quarter with the score: Heat 31, Thunder 26

2nd Quarter

Looks like Mike Miller is going to be the most prominent perimeter role player for Miami tonight.

Westbrook with a rare missed dunk, channeling his inner Game 4 Thabo Sefolosha.

Harden jacks up another 3, and it goes in and out. This guy's confidence must be non-existent at this point, he can't even hit good, wide open shots, he just got unlucky there.

Chris Bosh has stopped trying to be a jump shooter, and is playing like an actual big man right now. Basically, his mentality is, "I'm seven feet tall, stop me." So far, OKC has yet to accept that challenge.

Wade's third foul and he has to take a seat, but they lead by 12 do it isn't completely necessary for him to be on the floor.

Mike Miller is not 4 for 4 from downtown and all are very big buckets in this game. Great inside-outside play from LeBron, the Thunder have to spend some energy trying to take the inside away from him.

Well, Mike Miller picked up his third foul, and he wanted to stay in. Next possession, he got his fourth foul. See you late in the third Mike!

Shane Battier with a layup? WHAT?

The quarter ends with the Heat up 59-49, and while the Thunder are down by 10, they have shown the ability to make comebacks, so this should be a tight finish.

Only 15 points from LeBron so far, I see at least 20 more points in this game.

3rd Quarter

As soon as the second half starts, Durant knocks down a 3 to cut the lead to 7, they look serious and they want to cut into this lead.

Miami's 3 point shooters came out hot to start the half, with Chalmers and Battier hitting 3s to keep the momentum in the favor of their team.

Just so you know, Harden does have 8 points, but only 1 for 3 shooting, he's 6 for 6 on his free throws, so he's been much more aggressive.

Durant and Chalmers got into it a little before Papa Juwan Howard pulled Mario aside and gave him a stern talking to.

Battier for 3 again, plus falling down. Next possession by OKC, he picks up his fourth foul.

Four fouls on Kendrick Perkins and he is staying in the game, it seems that there is a reason why Brooks is leaving him in, he wants him to foul out so he won't complain about lack of playing time. As I was typing that, he got him fifth foul, but it would have been too obvious for Scott to keep him in, so he sat him down, he's probably going to stick him on LeBron so he gets kicked out. At least that's what he should be doing. Perk is so non-essential to this series.

They just called it a flagrant foul on Derek Fisher for trying to stop a layup by LeBron. That was a very bad call, there was nothing about that play that required a flagrant to be called. That was just stupid and Jeff Van Gundy agrees.

A bad possession by OKC cost them an opportunity to cut the lead, and they are now down by 19 with 3:54 left in the third. I don't care how good a team is at comebacks, this is impossible. This game is over.

LeBron seemed to call a huddle to gather the troops and keep them focused. James Harden looked up at the scoreboard with a very frustrated look on his face. The young guns of Oklahoma City see that the game is out of reach at this point, and hopefully they can use this experience in the future because everyone knows that they will be back in the finals.

Mike Miller is channeling his inner Reggie by hitting a 3 to put them up 25. LeBron is trying very hard to keep the rest of his team focused and not try to get too fancy with their game. He really is embracing the role of the leader on this team, and it's great to watch.

Miller just missed a 3! I don't understand, how did that happen, he's not 5 for 6 from behind the arc.

The Thunder's game seems to be: Bring ball upcourt, shoot 3, give up score, shoot contested 3, commit foul, shoot contested 3. That's not how they need to be doing it. What they should be doing is keep playing their game and hope that the Heat get too arrogant and somehow let this game slip away.

The third quarter ends with the remarkable score of 95-71 in favor of Miami. I can't even explain how that happened.

Just twelve minutes away from LeBron winning his first title and Finals MVP.

NBA Finals Chronicles, Thursday June 21

This could be it for these articles, but don't worry, I have a lot of exciting things planned for this blog.

What will happen tonight? It will be the end.

The Miami Heat will win the NBA championship on this the hottest day of the year so far (at least in New York). They will be partying all over the world after tonight.

I still feel that the Thunder have a better team than Miami, but OKC is inventing ways to lose. They outplay the Heat, make comebacks, and still, they are somehow down 1-3 in this series.

The Thunder only have 2 people that can consistently hit shots, in Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant. Their third option, James Harden has been up too late tending to the birds in his beard that he's been too tired to perform at all. Miami happens to have the Big 3, plus Mario Chalmers and Shane Battier along with them to put the ball in the basket. If Chalmers plays like he did in Game 4, then there is absolutely no way that the Heat lose. I do not expect anything from James Harden, but if he gets at least 20 points, I can see his team winning this game.

During this series, LeBron James has already proven that he is in fact the best player in the game of basketball. He does everything, and other than shooting jumpers, he does it better than Durant. Much like he did in Game 6 against the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, Lebron knows that he has to win this game, and will come out on fire. During that game, he was extremely focused and had a very scary look on his face that said, "I'm going to score on you, and I don't care what you have to say about it. I will also put you on lockdown, and you won't score any points. See that painted area over there, I own it." He will do that again tonight. He wants it too much, and so does the rest of his team. He will most likely spend a lot of the game in the post, which is a part of his game that he developed over the summer, and he has the ability and the strength to be completely unstoppable down low, and he realizes this and will use it to his advantage.

While I think that they will lose, if the Thunder in fact pull this off, they do have a legitimate chance of winning the series in 7 games back in OKC.

NBA Finals Chronicles, Wednesday June 20

That game was pretty amazing last night. It was the best basketball game that I have watched in a while. By the end of the game, the Heat are on the brink of the second championship in franchise history. Their 104-98 victory put them up 3-1 in the series. The Thunder really screwed themselves many times during the game and the way this game ended was bad.

OKC jumped out to a 17 point lead in the first quarter and they somehow gave most of it up my halftime. Russell Westbrook came out firing and was shooting aggressively and accurately. For the first time in this series, he stopped shooting mostly jumpers, he attacked the basket for the majority of his points. He still jacked up a couple of jump shots, but less than usual, and also, these shots actually went in this time.

Part of the reason why Miami was able to come back into the game was Norris Cole. Mr. Flat Top partied like it was 1999 at the end of the 1st and the beginning of the 2nd quarter when Erik Spoelstra decided that the deficit was so big that he was forced to bring Cole to jack up some 3-pointers. He scored 8 points int he 8 minutes that he was allowed on the floor, and when the Heat pulled it together with the help from his 2 3s, Spo pulled him right out of there. After the first, Miami was down 33-19 and was only down by 3 at the half.

Fast Forward to the end of the game. The game was very tight in the 4th quarter, and with 5:15 left, this happened. Lebron James got the largest recorded case of the cramps ever. He measured an 8.3 on the Cramp Richter Scale. He was out of the game until the 4:05 mark at which point he came back into the game.

With 2:50 left, he hit the biggest shot of his career. One-legged LeBron might just end up being his signature oment in his career. This is his flu game. All he needed was the wheelchair to go with it. He was limping when he came into the game, and with a minute left, he realized that it was stupid to keep playing. It was a 4-on-5 game with him dragging his leg all around the court.

Speaking of cramps, Russell Westbrook. I love him, and he played an amazing game last night. Had he not played the way that he did, this situation wouldn't have happened. With 17 seconds left, Miami had the ball with 1 second left on the shot clock when James Harden got tied up with Udonis Haslem and a jump ball was called. First of all, Harden should have left Haslem alone for a 24 second violation, but I can't blame him because he was just trying to make the best play. The NBA rule says that in a jump ball situation, if the offensive team retains possession, the shot clock continues or resets to 5 seconds, whichever is greater. Personally I think that this rule is stupid because it gives an extra 5 seconds to the offensive team after the defense had already shut them down for the 24 seconds. Miami won the tip and Russell Westbrook decided to foul Mario Chalmers when he got the ball. This is because he didn't see that the clock reset to 5, and his reaction at the 0:18 mark showed just how confused he was by this rule. According to ESPN's Ric Bucher, he heard Scott Brooks yell this rule out to his team, so it seems that Westbrook and Brooks just had a miscommunication. Westbrook had a historically great game, with 43 points on 20 of 32 shooting, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, but all of this may not be remembered because of 1 braincramp.

On a side note, this was the best part of the night.

Kevin Durant did not play a good game. He did in fact end with 28 points, but he needed to be more aggressive and more assertive. He did not act like the 3-time scoring champion. Russell Westbrook looked like the only guy on the team that wanted to win. I predicted that Durant would go off for 40 points because he knew the situation required for his team to come out with a win, and he is smart enough to know that he should be taking charge and doing most of the scoring. Well, I was wrong.

James Harden. That's all I'm going to say about him.

The Heat's Big 3 last night did not include Chris Bosh. For some reason, it was LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Mario Chalmers. It wasn't just 3 pointers, but he actually scored 25 points. He went 3 for 9 on 3s, and 9 for 15 overall. Yes, he scored 25 points and the only shots he missed were 3s. He actually attacked the basket and played like a slasher, just like Dwyane Wade. If he can play like this consistently, the Miami Heat are a very, very scary team.

I won't be surprised if the Oklahoma City Thunder win in Game 5, but I do think that the end is very near for them.

NBA Finals Chronicles, Tuesday June 19

This Game 4 will prove to be the most important game of this series, because if the Thunder win, they have a legitimate chance to win this series. If they Heat win, the series is over. There have been 13 cases in which one team has been up 3-1 in a series, and not only has the losing team never won, there has never even been a Game 7 between the two teams. History is not on the side of the Thunder, and while history doesn't mean everything, the Miami is too good to drop 3 games in a row to any team if they indeed win tonight's game.

I expect a lot of Kevin Durant in this game. In order to stay out of foul trouble, he will most likely not guard Lebron for all 4 quarters. He will have a lot more energy on the offensive end, and he knows and everyone else on his team knows that this game is a must-win. Though I am not saying that this is the only way that his team can win, but I do think that Kevin Durant will take over and score at least 40 points. He will put the team on his back and score effortlessly. He is shooting 57% this series, so he is already scoring efficiently, but he will probably shoot a lot more.

Due to the fact the Durant will not guard LeBron during the whole game, Sefolosha will most likely be on James during the first 3 quarters before Durant takes over for him in the 4th. This forces Durant onto Wade, but the issue with that is that KD's length actually works against him in that situation. Wade is a tiny bit quicker than him, and that matchup won't work well. This means that the player that Durant will most likely guard is Chris Bosh. In this situation, Kevin would be playing the 4, meaning that OKC will be going small. Bad news for Kendrick Perkins, because he is already non-essential to this series, and in a small lineup, Ibaka will get the majority of the minutes.