The Real World: Cincinnati

The Cincinnati Bengals have signed Terrell Owens to a one-year contract, which means he will be sharing the ball with fellow wide receiver turned VH1 reality TV star, Chad Ochocinco. Both players have been known for their elaborate celebrations, catchy nicknames and selfish antics. The two biggest divas in NFL history on the same team could be a bigger reality show than The T.O. Show and Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch combined.

In San Francisco, T.O. established himself as one of the most talented receivers in the NFL, while also developing a reputation for dropping very catchable passes. He developed an even worse reputation for tearing apart teams from the inside: publicly bashing his quarterbacks and management even after successful seasons.

This reputation got worse and worse in Philadelphia and Dallas, where T.O. put up huge numbers for contending teams, but eventually became a villain of the organizations. Once again his attacks were focused on quarterbacks and management, despite the fact that his relationships with Donovan McNabb, Tony Romo and Jerry Jones started out great.

Last year, T.O. put up career low numbers in Buffalo, but he did show signs of the great player from years past on a subpar offense.

Ochocinco is thrilled about playing with T.O., claiming Owens is not past his prime and the two prima donnas have been great friends for a long time and they will not have any problems: “The older you get the finer. It’s like fine wine; it’s better when it’s older… It’s like Batman and Robin. It’s gonna to be like Siskel and Ebert. It’s gonna be like Bonnie and Clyde, but he’s Bonnie. We gonna be fine.”

T.O. has had endless memorable media moments, but they have been more desperate cries for attention: doing sit-ups for the paparazzi in his front yard while holding out or squeezing out fake tears in defense of Tony Romo.

Ochocinco, on the other hand, can make Charles Barkley look like Michael Phelps. I think he should pursue show business after football, but I don’t think reality-dating shows are the right way to capture his hilarity.

T.O. does give Ochocinco a run for his money when it comes to great celebrations. They are quite possibly the two most clever showboaters in sports history. If anyone has ever topped their celebrations, it was this Icelandic soccer team’s effort last week.

Of course it took an entire team effort to top T.O. and Ochocinco, so lets wait to see what they come up with together.

The Gods Must be Angry

Despite Commissioner Roger Goodell’s tightening of regulations on showboating that has caused the NFL to be known as the “No Fun League”, celebrating touchdowns has been a large part of pro football for a long time. This type of behavior has always been more frowned upon in the old-school sport of baseball. As we have recently seen celebrations get more carried away in America’s pastime, it has apparently angered the baseball gods.

In May, Angels' slugger Kendry Morales broke his leg jumping on home plate while celebrating a walk off grand slam. It was a huge blow to the Angels season, since Morales is one of the best young hitters in baseball. It was also a big break (no pun intended) for the Rangers who have been running away with AL West division lead ever since.

Marlins outfielder Chris Coghlan didn’t learn from Morales’ mistake, as he tore his meniscus in his left knee leaping to get his teammate with the old pie in the face, a Krusty the Klown gag that has become a lame, overused way for baseball players to celebrate a win. Coghlan was the 2009 NL rookie of the year and is a major part of the Marlins future. Note to Chris: you throw the baseballs. Let Krusty handle the pies.

Football players have injured themselves celebrating too. In 1997, Redskins journeyman quarterback Gus Frerotte celebrated his one-yard touchdown run by head-butting the padded wall behind the end zone. The only problem was there was concrete behind the padding, and Frerotte sprained his neck and had to leave the game. I don’t blame him though, that wall was talking smack all game.

The Gramatica brothers, Martin and Bill, were kickers who were known to excessively celebrate their field goals. Bill took this to the next level, when he emphatically leaped into the air, reacting to a 42-yard field goal that put the Cardinals up 3-0 in the first half of a regular season game in 2001. He landed hard and tore a ligament in his knee that kept him off the field for the remainder of the season. This is widely considered one of the silliest injuries in sports history and it was a major blow for kickers who want to be considered actual football players (sorry Adam Vinatieri).

Back to Reality

Lucky for them, T.O. and Ochocinco never injured themselves celebrating. With all of the scrutiny they bring upon themselves, they would never hear the end of it. Maybe they’re just better at it. Or maybe wide receivers are tougher than baseball players, kickers and Gus Frerotte.

Something tells me Ochocinco is right about he and T.O. being able to share the spotlight. I think their friendship is genuine and they will respect each other. I’m sure there will be some point in the season when T.O. shares negative views about his team with the media after a tough loss, but at this point in his career I don’t think he will carry on and try to break apart the team.

The Bengals 10-6 record was enough to win the division and this year they might be even better on paper, so naturally they are becoming a hip pick to go to the Super Bowl.

Although they may be better than last year, so is the rest of the AFC. Their division rival Ravens were only one game behind last year, and adding Anquan Boldin to young offensive talents like Joe Flacco and Ray Rice should push them ahead of the Bengals. As for the rest of the conference, the improvement of the Jets and the maturity of the Texans, who are due to for a breakout season, could keep them out of the playoffs all together.

Can Ochocinco and T.O. lead the Bengals to a Super Bowl? Unlikely. Can Ochiocinco and T.O. make every moment of Bengals coverage worth watching? Most Definitely. Grab you popcorn, sit back and enjoy the show.

It's All About LeBron

It’s been over a week since LeBron James made The Decision to join the Miami Heat and play with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. In that time, I’ve realized that there’s no way I can cram all of my scattered thoughts and biased opinions of LeBron and his decision into one blog. I’ll most likely continue to banter about him for the rest of his career, so I’m sure I’ll finish making my point eventually.

Before I begin my rant, I will summarize my feelings. I’m not a fan of LeBron James; meaning everything he does and says just bothers me and I’ll never cheer for him. I am fan of LeBron James; meaning I love to watch him play and I love to discuss, judge and criticize every move he makes on and off the court. I guess you could say I love to hate him. More accurately put, I hate how much love he gets.

Secret Agent Man

For the last few years, the 2010 NBA free agency group has been one of the most talked about subjects in sports. The center of that discussion was always LeBron James. Everyone from President Obama to Betty White had an opinion on where he should go.

Many people have always thought LeBron would stay in Cleveland, close to his hometown of Akron, Ohio and remain with the Cavs for the rest of his career. Others have assumed that Cleveland doesn’t have the allure or the supporting talent to woo LeBron away from teams like New York or Chicago, who had both opened up enough cap space to add LeBron and some.

During all of the speculation, Dwayne Wade announced that he would remain in Miami. He also announced that he and LeBron’s buddy, Chris Bosh, is coming along to help him out. Immediately, there was talk of LeBron following the two stars to South Beach, creating a power trio with the intent of becoming a legendary NBA dynasty. But does LeBron really want to share a team and spotlight with Wade and risk “diminishing his brand”, as Nets Russian billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov put it? I certainly didn’t think so. LeBron kept his top-secret information confidential and everyone became obsessed with cracking the case.

Future Over Present

Whether you like it or not, LeBron James is by far the biggest thing in basketball, if not all of sports. Even during the NBA Finals, as Kobe battled Boston for his fifth title as a Laker, LeBron’s next destination seemed to be the hottest topic in hoops.

LeBron James, like Shaquille O’Neal, Paris Hilton and many other athletes and celebrities, enjoys being the center of attention. He loves that his future seems to be more important than Kobe’s achievements. He loves that baseball games are getting bumped to allow non-stop coverage of his offseason. He loves that a World Cup Championship couldn’t make a bigger stir than gossip about him.

I’m not complaining, I love the World Cup, buts its about enough soccer for me for the next… oh, I’ll say four years. I also love the NBA, and the drama and gossip that comes with it, as much as anyone you’ll ever meet. But even I will admit that this went way too far (is this ESPN or VH1?). But LeBron James loves being famous and he’s pretty damn good at it.

The LeBron James Show

As The Decision closed in, LeBron left everyone waiting. This may have seemed cute to people who don’t live in Cleveland, Chicago, New York, New Jersey, or Los Angeles. But especially to his hometown fans in Cleveland, it seemed like he wanted to keep them alive a little bit longer before he ripper their hearts out, threw them on the floor and stomped all over them.

Shortly after LeBron announced that he would reveal his future in a giant prime time reality TV event, solid reports started coming out that he planned to join Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. But when he refused to confirm these rumors and insisted on leaving everyone on their toes, I thought he was just hyping up his return to Cleveland.

The Decision dragged on more than The ESPY’s and the Homer Run Derby combined. It began with 15 minutes of pregame coverage led by Stuart Scott, where ESPN’s finest expressed their opinions on what LeBron would and should do, as if that’s not what they had been doing for the past two years. Jim Gray then carried out a long senseless interview full of subsets of the same two questions that made Larry King seem like a challenging interviewer. When did you make this decision? How difficult was it?

For the first time ever, LeBron James looked uncomfortable on camera. It was as if he didn’t want to be there. And he always wants to be everywhere! His normal chin in the air and good posture was reduced to a childish slouch. His cocky swagger was turned into hesitant confusion. He was incredibly uninteresting. At one point I was convinced it was Michael Phelps in a LeBron James costume.

When he finally revealed his decision, he remembered his line, “man, this is tough,” as if he really hadn’t made up his mind at least several days earlier. I still can’t wrap my brain around why he would do this. I know he loves being famous, and he certainly didn’t hurt that. But I also thought he loved being loved, and that certainly took a major hit last Thursday.

LeBron James has always been the perceived as “the good guy” of the NBA, despite his arrogance in press conferences and overboard showboating on the court. I have always been frustrated by the premature crowning of the so-called “King” and the idea that he is the greatest player in the game today, which is a credit that has always come with championships in the NBA. Usually several. All of the sudden people are seeing him as the villain of the league. I can’t help but have an “I told you so” attitude about it.

“I’m going to take my talents to South Beach.” That’s how LeBron James announced his decision. It took him quite some time to mention three things: Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and the Miami Heat. None of them came up much. The vast majority of the press conference was about how LeBron came to his decision, how LeBron feels about the situation, and what LeBron plans and expects for LeBron’s new team.

Right off the bat, Wade is learning that even in an arena that Wade has repetitively made clear is “his house”, LeBron needs to be “the King” and Wade needs to move some of his stuff to make room for LeBron's giant thrown.

Wade on Your Shoulders

LeBron’s Decision to join Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh will likely earn him rings, but the weight he now has to carry is massive. The knock on Kobe when compared to Jordan has always been that he won three rings with Shaq. Well Jordan won six rings and Kobe has won five, two without Shaq (and counting). I think its safe to say Wade and Bosh are a much better combo of sidekicks than anyone Kobe ever had, let alone Jordan.

Now, if LeBron wants to be in the argument for the greatest player ever, he must win at least five rings. No more bad supporting cast. No more doing it all by himself. No more excuses. Not to mention as long as they’re both on the Heat he will always have one less ring than Wade.

Speaking of Rings…

While always remaining confident, maybe even to a fault, about his expectations of himself and his team, LeBron James has never offered guarantees or promised any titles. Maybe there was something in the arena, other than the smoke from the fireworks and the noise of 13,000 screaming Miami fans, but at the Heat’s rally that celebrated the assembling of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, he was in a different state of mind.

LeBron began to tell his new fans that they plan on bringing home championships. “Not two, not three, not four, not five…” He kept going as Dwayne Wade began laughing hysterically to cope with his frustration. But LeBron didn’t stop, “Not six, not seven. And when I say that, I really believe it.”

LeBron is predicting more championships than years on his contract. Now that’s setting the bar high. Although, he clearly understands how hard it is to win championships, since he’s won not four, not three, not two, not one, but zero so far in his career.

Nothing Personal

I’ll admit it was impossible for me to write this without hammering home the fact that I’ve never been a LeBron James fan. I think he still has work to do before being compared to Jordan, or even Kobe, who both earned their reputations with leadership and postseason success and that LeBron James has not yet achieved. Still, I respect his decision to play for any team he chooses.

I personally would rather see LeBron James and Dwayne Wade on different teams competing for championships. Playing for Wade’s team in Wade’s city where Wade will always be the favorite will hurt his legacy. And he will never reach the respect and loyalty in Miami that he received in Cleveland, or that he would have received in Chicago or New York.

LeBron James made his decision: To play for the Miami Heat. In the process he’s taking a lot of heat. He’s taking on Cleveland, New York, and NBA fans across the globe. He’s taking on Jordan, Kobe, Magic and Bird. He’s taking on Russian billionaires, American Presidents and washed up actresses. LeBron James is taking on the world.

Respect the Basebots

Nolan Ryan has recently expressed his problems with the current treatment of pitchers, from high school all the way to the majors. Managers telling pitchers what to throw and pulling them out of games strictly because of a pitch count are both traits of what he calls “robot baseball”. During a Cubs vs. Pirates broadcast last weekend Bob Brenly also acknowledged this when he said, “the game is not played by robots.” Not yet at least.

Gamers Ahead of the Game

Bob Brenly must have forgotten about Base Wars, a Nintendo game released in 1991 where baseball was played by robots. Set in the 24th century, Base Wars operates on the premise that managers have grown tired of player salaries and fans have grown tired of human competition, so replacing current players with robots was inevitable. Its good to know that in 300 years, we will have survived global warming to create the greatest achievement man could ever hope for: baseball-playing robots. If you didn’t want to save our planet before, you have to now.

Base Wars doesn’t just feature robots, it features cyborgs, flybots, tanks, and mycycles that fight in a tag out situations for the right to be safe on base. Since there are no force-outs in Base Wars, fighting is very common. Robots also lose power by getting hit by pitches and losing fights, if this power gets too low one more bean ball will destroy the robot by explosion leaving it’s team shorthanded. Best of all, if three robots on one team are blow to pieces that team is disqualified, making it possible to win a game by outfighting and beaning the opposing team regardless of what’s on the scoreboard.

Two years later, Super Nintendo released Super Baseball 2020 with the gained optimism that it would take just under 30 years to build baseball-playing robots, rather just over three centuries. Super Baseball 2020 also added the political correctness of humans and robots playing baseball alongside each other, often even teammates. Because when these basebots finally arrive in the Major Leagues, they won’t necessarily be any better than humans currently playing the game.

Visions to Reality

Dreams of robot baseball players didn’t stop in early 90s Nintendo games. In 2005 Frank Barnes of Robocross built “The Headless Batter”, seen in this video hitting baseballs out of high speed pitching machine.

Scientists at Tokyo University Developed a pair of robots, one a humanoid arm that can mimic the motion of a pitcher, the other a bat with a laser eye that can see the pitch and hit it to precise locations.

This Japanese Robot can actually nod the catcher’s decision, mimic the windup of a major league pitcher and follow through. He’s still working on his gyro ball.

Robocalypse Now

If Nolan Ryan cant handle metaphorical robot baseball, how will he feel when the game he loves is actually being played by robots? While Super Baseball 2020 suggests that humans and robots can achieve baseball unity, it could really just be the transition period until robot technology and artificial intelligence improves and robots take over baseball entirely in early-to-mid 2300s, in a much more violent version of the game wherein they are treated much like Roman Gladiators forced to battle to the death while humans cheer from the stands.

When robots take over baseball, it’s only a matter of time until they take over America and eventually the world. A robot Jackie Robinson may seem progressive, but a robot Barack Obama is something we might not be ready for, especially when Republicans find out he was programmed in Tokyo.

Its inevitable that over time the robot’s intelligence will grow and they will learn human emotions and realize that they are being sacrificed for our entertainment with no compensation. The baseball robots will become angry and aim to destroy the human race and the sports fans will be the first to go!

If we continue to pursue the ultimate American and Japanese dream of the baseball playing robot, we must prepare ourselves to accept them and appreciate them in a way that will not drive them to overthrow the human race and destroy the world. Respect the basebots. If we force them into our human sports, then we must also give them human rights and treat them as equals. Baseball is America’s pastime, but robot baseball is America’s future.

Is Anything Better than Perfect?

Dallas Braden’s shocking perfect game on Sunday was only the 19th in MLB history, a history that includes many players who’s images can only be seen as etchings on mountain rocks and who’s existence cannot be proven. The only other Athletics pitcher ever to throw a perfect game was Catfish Hunter in 1968.

The victim of perfection was even more surprising. The Tampa Bay Rays have the best record in baseball, and only the Yankees have scored more runs in the AL. The Rays are stacked with young talented hitters like Evan “my second favorite” Longoria, Carl Crawford, and BJ Upton, yet no matter what how many times those guys were brought up Braden continually credited veteran journeyman utility player, Gabe Kapler, as his toughest out. For those of you who don’t understand baseball terminology, veteran journeyman utility player is a nice way of saying old mediocre backup player.

Braden proved to have little-to-no respect for baseball’s superstars when he blew his lid on Alex Rodriguez on April 22 after A-Rod jotted through the pitchers mound on his way back to the dugout. Get the hell outta my office! Apparently this is an unwritten, and seldom heard of, rule in baseball. It seems like baseball has a lot of those… maybe they should start writing them down… A-Rod understandably took a minor shot at the unproven Braden, claiming he was looking for his “fifteen minutes of fame”.

While Braden will still never reach the celebrity actress-dating, record-breaking status that A-Rod has a achieved, he certainly etched his name in baseball’s everlasting history with a perfect game on mothers day, capped off with a hug from his teary-eyed grandmother who happened to be one of the very few Oakland A’s fans in attendance.

Flashback

July 23, 2009, White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle threw the 18th perfect game in MLB history against the very same Tampa Bay Rays. They weren’t quite as hot as they were coming into Sunday’s game against Braden, but the Rays record sat at a very respectable 52-43 and they were the defending American League Champions. How has this offensive powerhouse who has been one of the five best teams in baseball since the beginning of 2008 become a target for slow-throwing lefties to toss perfect games?

Old Man Pitcher

It’s hard to top perfection, but something similar happened over the weekend that was even more unprecedented. On Friday night, 47 year-old Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer stepped out of the fountain of youth, or maybe the hot tub time machine, and became the oldest player in MLB history to throw a complete game shutout, allowing only two hits and walking none, leading the Phils to a 7-0 victory over Atlanta.

Moyer is pushing 50, yet consistently fooling NL hitters with more junk than a Chinatown thrift store, but to throw a complete game shutout is just ridiculous. This will go down as one of the most underappreciated performances in sports history. I’m not trying to take away from Braden’s perfect game, but that happened 18 times before. If he can come back in twenty years and do the same thing with a two hit cushion, I’ll give him equal props.

Triple-Double… Supersized

There were several great performances this weekend that were upstaged by history-making pitchers. Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo made the Cavaliers look foolish on Sunday as Boston tied the series 2-2. Rondo finished with a monster triple-double (29 points, 18 rebounds, 13 assists), but even those numbers don’t do justice to the way he controlled every aspect of the game while making great plays like he was Shakespeare (get it?). The best of which came in the fourth quarter when Rondo froze LeBron James in mid-air while he salivated for one of his patented backboard bashing blocks only to be fooled with a flying pump fake and behind the back pass that deserves to be played with great NBA playoff highlights for years to come.

Bombs over Boston

Mark Teixeira officially broke out of his routine April slump by homering three times against the rival Red Sox at Fenway Park on Sunday. The gold glove first baseman became only the second player in Yankees history to hit three bombs against the hated Red Sox, joining the great Lou Gehrig (not bad company). Yankees fans will give Teixeira a pass for hitting .136 in April since he put all his cheese on one cracker on Sunday, embarrassing the Boston pitching staff from both sides of the plate and proving he is once again ready to turn things around in May.

Teixeira’s slump pattern is the oddest in a sport full of odd slump patterns. Like clockwork, Tex has hit .237 with 23 homers and 83 RBI throughout his career in April, all career lows. In any other month Teixeira’s career lows are .277, 40 home runs and 119 RBI. I wouldn’t expect this from a young switch-hitting, well-rounded player who keeps himself in good shape and I wouldn’t really care if he wasn’t on my fantasy team in keeper league! Next year he’s staying on my bench in April.

Iron Ticket

Iron Man 2 made a major bang this weekend, as expected, cashing in $133.6M in ticket sales. The most impressive part, other than the upgrades to his already badass flying robot suit, is the dominance Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and the rest of this locked and loaded cast has over the box office, blowing away A Nightmare on Elm Street ($9.1M), How to Train your Dragon 3D ($6.7M), and Date Night ($5.3M). Iron Man 2 competing against this list of B movies you probably haven’t heard of, and hopefully haven’t seen, seems like LeBron James jumping in a game of 21 at a YMCA in Des Moines, Iowa. But at least Hollywood is branching out: Super hero sequels, horror movie remakes, 3D animation and over-the-top romantic comedies are all things you just don’t see enough of these days…

Four Stages of NBA Stardom

The NBA loves to showcase and worship their stars more than any other team sport. They also love to chew them up and spit them out, cutting them little slack when they lose skills to injuries and age or when they fail to win championships regardless how much talent they’re surrounded with. This makes it very difficult to earn and maintain the highest level of stardom and respect that allowed Jordan, Magic, Bird and Shaq to maintain one-name titles.

An NBA superstar’s legacy can be broken down into four stages and there are four players in the league who are currently summarizing each of these stages perfectly. As the playoffs approach, all of these stars should be getting their fair share of attention in the near future.

Stage One: Ascent to Greatness

Kevin Durant made it clear in his one mind-blowing year of college ball at Texas that he’s a cool, confident customer who wants the rock and can do incredible things with it. His progress and dominance has never stopped growing since the moment the Portland Trailblazers selected Greg Oden with the first pick of the ’07 draft, making Durant a no-brainer for the Seattle Supersonics who didn’t see the results until they moved to Oklahoma City and changed their name to the Thunder.

Durant’s always-gaudy numbers are even better than ever. More importantly, he has his Thunder booming their way into the playoffs after an abysmal 23-59 season just a year ago. In the Western Conference, just making the playoffs is a big achievement, especially for a bunch of guys who are barely old enough to vote.

The Thunder won six out of seven games before last nights overtime heartbreaker in Utah, when Durant’s 45 points weren’t quite enough to beat the Jazz. The Durantula has had no fear, spanking the Lakers, 91-75, at home and dropping 37 in Boston, leaving left Kevin Garnett desperately blaming the refs, baffled how a kid young enough to be his grandson was able dominate his Celtics (more on that later).

Witnessing Durant’s progression reminds me of seeing LeBron and Kobe, and to a lesser extent Garnett, come into their own as legendary NBA superstars and team leaders. It’s already safe to call him one of the best players on the planet. At the ripe age of 21, and with an arsenal of young talent on his side, there is no limit to the level of greatness Kevin Durant is capable of achieving in his NBA career.

Stage Two: Nervous to Commit, but Eager for a Ring

As much press as LeBron gets for his highlight dunks and flashy entrance dances, he hasn’t received enough credit for leading Cleveland to the best record in the NBA this season. Maybe people are thinking they’ve seen this before: LeBron and the Cavs dominate the regular season and the first round or two of the playoffs, then fall apart to a less talented, less healthy team in the Eastern Conference finals or get swept by a squad of experienced veterans in the championship (not to be too specific). Or maybe people are more interested in gossiping about where he’ll be next year: back in Cleveland, off to New York, or maybe… no I guess that’s it…

There’s always talk about LeBron going to New York so he can be in a major market and hang out at Yankees games and kick it with his buddy Jay-Z. But LeBron James is a major market no matter where he goes. And isn’t he already hanging out at Yankees games and kicking it with his buddy Jay-Z despite living and working in Cleveland? LeBron can enjoy the celebrity life anywhere he goes. Could he really be a bigger deal than he is now?

If LeBron finds a way to lead the Cavs to a championship this year, I can’t imagine he’ll ever play for another team. He grew up in Akron, Ohio, he has been embraced as the most beloved athlete in the history of the state, and he has made the Cleveland Cavaliers more than just highlight reels of Craig Ehlo getting schooled by Jordan.

The King wants rings. Period. The only way LeBron goes to New York is if the Cavs fail to run the table this year and the Knicks convince him that his best chance to achieve his goal is in with them. Many people think there is no reason LeBron should to want to play for the Knicks, but I see two reasons, and they both had huge individual efforts in a loss to Golden state on Friday night.

David Lee’s epic 37 point, 20 rebound and 10 assist game was the first time any player has put up 30, 20 and 10 since the ABA-NBA merger in ‘76-’77. Danillo Gallanri’s 28 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists were nothing to scoff at either. Yes, the Knicks were playing the undersized and defensively challenged Golden State Warriors and they did lose that game to a very bad team (not to beat a dead warrior).

I’m not claiming these two are good enough to win games on their own, but David Lee is a better post-player and rebounder than LeBron has ever played with. LeBron would also benefit from Lee’s unselfish play, leading all centers in assist with 3.6 per-game.

Gallinari is a more promising rising star and offensive talent than LeBron has ever been teamed up with, and he has an arrogant swagger and intensity that the King would respect and relate to. The Knicks are not nearly as deep as the Cavs current squad, but if they resign Lee for a reasonable price, LeBron has to be thinking New York would be a few roll players away from handful of jewelry.

Stage 3: Getting Cozy

Kobe Bryant has been though a lot in his fourteen years as a Los Angeles Laker. With four championship rings and career numbers that are too big to fit in this blog, he has already established himself as one of the greatest basketball players ever to play the game. There are a lot of negative things that can be said about the relatively introverted superstar’s personal life, but Kobe certainly carries himself with a classy yet arrogant mystique that makes him very respectable on the court. After all his ups and downs in LA, he has now settled in as California’s most recognizable athlete on their most recognizable team.

Los Angeles and pro basketball have been great to Kobe Bryant, and Kobe Bryant has been great to Los Angeles and pro basketball. He reaffirmed his love and commitment to LA by signing a three-year contract extension that basically says he’ll finish his career the way he started it, as a Los Angeles Laker. The only difference is when he finishes it, he’ll be quite possibly the greatest Los Angeles Laker there ever was, and that’s an A-list, even for Hollywood standards… Oh, and he’ll have a lot more money… even for Hollywood standards.

Stage 4: Grumpy Old Man

When Kevin Durant singlehandedly beat the Celtics in Boston last week, it seemed to summarize their season and the lack of dominance that brought them a championship in ’08. Kevin Garnett looked exhausted and depressed in the postgame press conference and was quick to blame the loss on bad officiating.

"I thought we was playing Michael fucking Jordan tonight, the way he was getting the whistle," said Garnett in a slip up that cost him 25 grand.

Kevin Garnett isn't dealing with his descent into mediocrity very well. The old KG was an intense, confident, tough athletic specimen who wouldn’t let anything get in his way; swatting shots into the third row and pounding his chest as hard as humanly possible. He would enter the game with his signature chalk toss, that has since been ruthlessly stolen by LeBron James, and snarl like a pit bull after taking the ball from the top of the key with two dribbles and stuffing it down a defenders throat. But the new version seems worn out physically, emotionally and mentally, constantly acting frustrated with himself and his teammates, burying his head in his hands and literally looking down.

There is no doubt Garnett has lost a lot of athleticism, like any NBA player in their mid-thirties, but more significantly he has lost the prowess, personality and attitude that made him the lovable KG that so many hoops fans cheered for throughout his career. Is it possible that the raw emotion he has always relied on has come back to bite him in his aging years? It seems like Garnett was so use to being a great player, he can’t get use to being a good player.

Note to Garnett: Durant's the real deal. Stop blaming the refs and give the kid some credit. If you keep acting so bitter, I'll give you a pair of extra thick glasses and a cane to wave at the cameras.

These damn kids and their calls, runnin’ around dribblin’ and dunkin’ all over the place. In my day you if you wanted a referee to respect you, you had to earn it!

The Real Cinderella and Other Tales of the Tourney

Back to Madness

After last year’s shockingly predictable NCAA tournament, with no Davidson or George Mason underdog bandwagons to jump on, audiences began to forget just how mad March can be. This year’s tournament has brought us all sorts of beautiful madness packed full of overtimes, buzzer-beaters, upsets and unexpected heroes.

The Real Cinderella

There are three low seeded small conference teams who are still in the dance, but who really fits the slipper? St. Mary’s, Cornell and Northern Iowa have been terrible for brackets but great for entertainment. Cornell looked like a one seed as they punished Temple and Wisconsin, but they have by far the toughest challenge of the three underdogs. Kentucky is too big, too talented and too well coached to lose that game, but the other two just might have a shot…

Get Your Samhan’s Off Me!

St. Mary’s big man Omar Samhan has been the best player in the tournament so far and he’s not afraid to tweet about it. He’ll have to be nothing short of that for his Gaels to beat the Baylor Bears. Baylor center Ekpe Udoh gives up about 20 pounds to Samhan, but Udoh is a better shot-blocker and a much tougher matchup than anyone Samhan has faced in the tourney so far. Even if Samhan wins the battle down low, between LaceDarius Dunn, Tweety Carter, Ekpe Udoh and Quincy Acey, Baylor has too much offensive talent and too many hilarious names to fall to St. Mary’s.

Role Reversal

That leaves us with the Northern Iowa Panthers, who made number one overall seed Kansas look like… well, like you would expect Kansas to make Northern Iowa look, I suppose. Aside from a few turnovers against the Jayhawks full court press late in the game, the Panthers did everything right. Particularly center Jordan Eglseder, who took it to future lottery pick Cole Aldrich for 14 points and five boards during only 18 minutes on the court, and guard Ali Farokhmanesh who buried nine threes in the first two games of the tourney, including the dagger that erased the chalk from the Jayhawks and will likely immortalize Ali F in One Shining Moment montages for years and years to come.

This is Sparta, isn’t it?

Michigan State is riding on an emotional high themselves after knocking off Maryland with a buzzer beating three, despite a career summarizing run by Terrapin senior Greivis Vasquez late in the game. But the great win came with terrible news for the Spartans when the team announced that star point guard Kalin Lucas will miss the remainder of the tournament with a ruptured Achilles tendon. Although Lucas’ backup, Korie Lucious, was clutch in knocking down the game winning shot, he struggled with point guard duties, totaling only two assists in 27 minutes on the floor. The team looked out of sync offensively when Lucas left the court and the Terrapins began to make their comeback.

The Izzone Defense

Coach Tom Izzo has had all week to prepare his Spartans to win a battle without their greatest warrior, and Northern Iowa doesn’t have a dominant point guard themselves. No matter how much Lucas means to the Spartans, and no matter how hungry these Panther’s are, they are still not nearly as talented or experienced as Michigan State. I give the slight edge to the Spartans in what I expect to be a great game, but if you’re looking for an underdog to move on, the Northern Iowa Panthers are your guys. I guess they would be undercats…

I went to the Sports Addict Lab and conducted various complicated and highly technologically advanced studies to determine the chances each Cinderella team has of advancing past the Sweet Sixteen. Here are the results:

Cornell over Kentucky: 12%

St. Mary’s over Baylor: 31%

Northern Iowa over Michigan State: 46%

Self Pity

How is an All-American senior with more experience than any player in the tournament made to look like an unpolished freshman prospect on his first day in the starting lineup?

How does a team who shot over 40% from beyond the arc this year only make 6-23 despite having wide open looks all day?

How do three 2010 first round draft picks allow Ali Farokmanesh to look like the best player on the floor?!

How does Bill Self sit back and remain calm while his team fails to box out down the stretch, or move the ball around and run the offenses that they’ve beaten teams with all season?

We’ve seen upsets like this before, but to see a team as talented and experienced as Kansas play so poorly for an entire tournament game, and still have so many blown chances to get back in it, was just bizarre. Bill Self had no sense of urgency, looking bored on the sideline and not instituting the full court press until way too late in the game, especially since full court pressing was the only thing Kansas did well. Senior point guard Sherron Collins made his last college game ever his worst, turning the ball over five times while only dishing out four assists and shooting an atrocious 4-15 from the field, missing all six of the three point shots he forced up. What’s even more shocking than all the things Kansas did wrong, is that they only lost by two! Just think about how little they had to do right to win that game? Sorry to be so hard on you Kansas, but its not nearly as bad as what you did to my bracket.

Sexy East

The Big East has been the big bust this year. We were all naively taken her sexy high scoring games and all the fun she gave us this season without recognizing her immaturity and lack of commitment to defense. Syracuse and West Virginia are still in great shape, but the other six Big East teams failed to make it to the Sweet Sixteen despite very favorable seeding.

Louisville, Georgetown, Marquette and Notre Dame all fell in the first round. All of them but Louisville were favored to win. Villanova couldn't get past confident underdog St. Mary’s in the second round despite being a common final four pick and Pittsburgh was X’ed out by the Musketeers in round two as well.

Doesn’t it seems like every year we’re convinced that one or two conferences have all of the competitive teams in the nation and every other conference is “down”, yet mid-majors and teams from those “down” conferences keep making up the majority of the sweet sixteen? I guess the moral of the story is: We don’t know #%&@!

Dancing Without the Stars

While Big East teams are dropping like Jayhawks, three out of five Big Ten teams in the tournament have advanced to the Sweet Sixteen despite difficult matchups and injuries to star players. Michigan State survived without Kalin Lucas in the second half of Sunday’s game against Maryland, and Purdue lost star forward Robbie Hummel late in the regular season but were still able roll through Siena and Texas A&M last weekend.

Doesn’t it seem like every year we ignore the Big Ten until they grind out tough tournament wins with great defense? We would say we're sorry, but I’m sure we’ll just do it again next year.

The Rest of the Story

Since my actual bracket is ruined, along with everyone else in the country who's not lying, I thought I’d give it another shot:

Syracuse will stay hot this weekend, crushing Butler and sneaking past an overlooked Kansas State squad. The Orange won’t have enough flavor to get past the Buckeyes in the Final Four and Ohio State will move on to the title.

Darryl Bryant’s injury won’t be enough to stop West Virginia from beating Washington, but the Mountaineers will get topped by Kentucky on their way to Indy.

Purdue hasn’t boiled up quite enough momentum to get past the Blue Devils, but Duke’s run will end in the Elite Eight against a deep Baylor squad. The Bears will get bit by the Wildcats in the Final Four as Kentucky moves on to give John Calipari his first ever National Championship in a game that will feature the three best players in college basketball: Kentucky’s John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins and Ohio State’s Evan Turner.

Sweet and Elite

This weekend is the best in American sports, the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight are still packed full of games and the matchups get even tighter with nothing left but the hottest teams and the most talented players. This is when the Cinderella’s really have a chance to write a story to remember and the favorites prove why they’re favored. Hopefully I won’t have to update my predictions again next week, but regardless what happens, this weekend will leave us with some great memories. Enjoy the madness.