Cheech Tremendous

Not to skew this off onto an A-Rod tangent (again), but it's really unforutnate that he is now having to apologize for his play. It's bullshit that he is being ripped for hitting that late inning homer last night. Dumbass Steve Phillips suggested that A-Rod should have just grounded out. Are you f'n kidding me? He should start dogging it and packing in games? It's time A-Rod stopped being a pussy, went all Barry Bonds on us and just stopped giving a shit about what anyone says about him. Just go out there, hit your 40 homers, collect a paycheck and blow everyone else off.

Sorry Cena, you know I like to burn you once in a while about Isiah. It keeps things interesting.

EFA What does that mean? It means Redick is going to be a bust and whatever GM was stupid enough to reach for him in the first round is likely booking a trip to the unemployment line. See, outside of Knick land, in the real NBA, GMs get fired for overt incompetence.

Reddick probably won't slip past Utah. Their management is reportedly into him big time. Luke Jackson was an awesome player at Oregon, but probably not the shooter that JJ is. I don't see why Reddick can't have a Kerr-like career (obviously not the same ability, but able to add a spark and some outside shooting from the bench).

I'm not high on Reddick. In fact, I doubt he's going to be much of a player in this league. But this current Cleveland team would be an excellent fit for him since he would get a lot of open looks. The Cavs are dying for a player that can make some open shots... it will take a lot of pressure of the other positions and keep teams from cheating to the middle.

But the Phoenix Suns play lousy defense and they are going against a team with a lot of scoring threats. Dirk Nowitzki, Devin Harris, Jason Terry, etc. are going to have a field day out there.

Dallas destroyed Memphis in the first round, and despite going 7 games, had a good handle on San Antonio. Phoenix got pushed to the limit against the Lakers (!) and the Clippers. The talent gap here is a lot larger than most people think. Dallas should sweep this thing. They won't because they lack that killer instinct, but they should.

How much would it cost to keep Sam? Even at 36 years old, he has shown himself to be the difference maker between a borderline playoff team and legit title contender two of the past three seasons. He's going to be looking for at least a 2 year deal for $5-6 million per. It would just hold Livingston back too much to keep him in Cassell's shadow that much longer. If he really has the All-Star potential that everyone says he has, give him the keys now. There are other PGs out there that can be had to give you 15-20 mins a night.

Detroit in 7. Detroit is a much better team than Miami, but there are two things that have scared me watching this team in the playoffs: 1. the team's focus and 2. Flip Saunders. If Cleveland can push it to 7 games, Miami will to but in the end the better team always wins out. Dallas in 6. This one shouldn't go past five, but I could see Phoenix' offense pushing them through a couple of times. Tha gap in talent here is a lot bigger than most people realize and Dallas really stepped it up in the San Antonio series.

Last summer I said that the signings of Z, Marshall, Damon Jones and Larry Hughes would make Cleveland a top 4 team in the east. Little did I know they'd become one in spite of those players instead of because of them. Go figure.

Poor Bruiser. I suggest you remove all the sharp objects from your home.

The Wolves asked for Carter, Krstic and two first round picks for Garnett. That's a steep asking price but it may just be an opening for negotiations to take place. Cavs need a shooter and an athletic PF. I'm not sure there is anyone out there. Their best bet is hoping that Reddick falls to them in the draft. San Antonio just needs a healthly year from their big 3. It wouldn't hurt to add some athleticism to their bench, but they don't need any big moves this summer to assure their place at the top of the conference.

Again, your playing a Yankee team thats basically 5 MLB players + a bunch of AAAers. Nothing to be proud of. Liking this team is based on what I've seen for 40+ games, not a meaningless May thrashing of the Yankees. And seeing that the 5 MLB players left are still HOF caliber players you Yankee fans can quit making excuses.

I swear this will haunt me the rest of my life until they actually win a championship.

I am loving this year's Red Sox team. Good defense, nice starting pitching, great bullpen (for once) - I'm not ready to declare the division theirs, but I am very optimistic about their upside.

Maybe, maybe not. I know that those Bad Boys teams were really good, but it's hard to compare across eras. The game has just evolved too much since then. The Bad Boys were considered to be great defensively, but gave up almost 20 PPG more thant this current incarnation. Their bench was considerably better, though. I'll give you that. These Pistons beat a good Lakers team, and nearly beat a really good Spurs team. If they win another title this year, I'm willing to put them up there as one of those all-time great teams.

Oh yeah, then Bayless went on to say that the reason the rest of the Cavs sucked in Game 7 was because they look up to Lebron and take his lead or some shit. So these millionaire, best in the world basketball players can't suck it up and play a decent game because their best player is having an off night? How about his supporting cast sucks, you f'in idiot!

I guess that doing research before appearing on tv is out as prerequisite for being an ESPN analyst. Skip Bayless said on Cold Pizza today that Lebron hasn't made the leap because he can't get it done in close games or clutch situations. Uh, the Cavs won like 19 out of their last 21 games that were decided by four points or less.

It'd be nice to just see Pujols get to 60, as he, presumably, would be the first clean person to do it since Maris.

Wow, Felonies with the quintuple post. Nicely done.

Don't worry Man in Blak, I sort of sensed the sarcasm. It's just that Yankees fans make those sort of assumptions every day. My post was more of an addendum, not a rebuttal.

The Rangers sucked because they put all of their resources into A-Rod. He is grossly overpaid, but that's not his fault. Tom Hicks thought that A-Rod was worth that sort of money and that paying him would bring people to the ballpark and revitalize the local economy where he had heavy investments. How much can you blame him for putting up MVP numbers? The Yankees haven't won a title since 2000. Rodriguez has only been there the past two seasons, and both times they came up short because they have lousy pitching and defense, not because they've spiraled downward by playing him at 3B. Jeter hits directly in front of A-Rod. The fact that he can't get on base directly limits the number of RBI opportunities that he has. That's is why RBIs are a team metric, and are not indicative of individual performance. The Yankees collapse was due to an abysmal performance by the entire team, not a failure on the behalf of A-Rod.

Double post

Actually, you can refer to Mind Game by the Baseball Prospectus guys for more on this topic. They broke down what would have happened to the two teams had the original trade gone down (and suffice it to say that it didn't turn out well for the Yanks). Where exactly is your proof for this? A-Rod had 16 games where he got the hit that gave his team the lead in an eventual win. Super clutch David Ortiz only had 17. Just because A-Rod doesn't have that memorable clutch moment doesn't mean he lacks any meaningful hits. His playoff numbers are on par with what he has done in the regular season. There doesn't seem to be any meaningful data to show that A-Rod beefs up on lesser teams in blowout games other than Yankees fans and stupid media types who say so. Well that's just stupid and short-sighted, and a main reason why I hate Yankees fans. Forget the fact that you wouldn't have made the playoffs without him, but crucify him because he didn't hit 1.000 in the ALCS. That makes a lot of sense.

A-Rod also had 37 win shares last year (a metric that factors in a players true contribution, with added emphasis for CLUTCH HITTING). This was second in all of baseball behind Albert Pujols. Aaron Boone had a whopping 9. The Yankees would have missed the playoffs. If the Yankees didn't acquire A-Rod the Red Sox would have. The Yankees would have been looking up in the standings each of the past two seasons and probably would be for the next five seasons or so. I love how Yankees fans bitch about having an MVP on their team like it's some sort of bad thing. Next time you feel like bashing A-Rod provide some support for your argument.