Basketball

* You have to be excited about the Artest signing if you are a Warriors fan. The Lakers were set to have a 4 year run where everyone knew their role and they were just going to get better. Now it is only a matter of time until Artest spits in Phil's face and demands he gets 25 shots a game. I still think the Lakers are the team to beat but I fail to see how the Artest move is worth the risk.

* I didn't even know what Cohan looked like until I read this article.

* How stupid do the Mavs look right now!?

Baseball

* While chemistry in baseball is not as important as it is in other team sports, it still does matter and the Giants are proving it this year.

* If I could be anyone on earth, I would be Tim Wakefield.

* You really have to like the idea of trading Alderson or Baumgartner for Halladay. The guy dominates the AL East and he doesn't play for the Yankees or Red Sox. Can you imagine what he would do to the Padres and D'backs!!

Football

* The answer to this question is H*** F***ING YES!!!

Soccer

* After Roddick's performance at Wimbledon, Landon Donovan moves up to #1 in the rankings of America's least popular talented athletes. Congratulations!

Continue Reading

Basketball

"See what you get Warriors? See what you get when..." you suck for more than a decade? We are subjected to articles about how the Lakers can maintain their roster for another C-h-a-m-p-i-o-n-s-h-i-p run. I hate the Lakers.

In actual Warriors news, MTII promotes the idea of drafting Stephen Curry and if not, at least make the Knicks pay to get him. I'll say this about that. Even if Stephen Curry's basketball IQ is the complete opposite of Mikael Pietrus' Bball IQ, he's too small to match with Monta. Just for fun, let's look at how a Monta/Curry starting lineup would matchup against the World Champion Lakers.

PG Curry 6'3 180 v. Derek Fisher/Jordan Farmar 6'1 210/6'2 180
SG Ellis 6'3 180 v. Kobe 6'6 205
SF Jackson 6'8 215 v. Ariza 6'8 210
PF Randolph 6'10 210 v. Gasol 7'0 250
C Biedrins 6'11 240 v. Bynum 7'0 285

This is from Friday, but apparently it doesn't matter if Janny Hu is on vacation or not, you won't get a lot of substance from the Warriors writers.

It would probably be something like: the rights to Hill and Corey Maggette for the rights to Williams, an easily bought-out contract from Jerry Stackhouse and a future first-round pick.
You still in?

Are you kidding me? Of course I'm in! By all accounts this is not a great draft after the first two picks. Isn't it a no-brainer to make that trade if it means moving Corey Maggette and his $40MM over the next four years for one year and $7.5MM of Jerry Stackhouse?

Bruce Jenkins points out that all of Kobe's rings have come against sucky Eastern teams: Old Pacers, AI and the Sixers, JKidd and the Nets and the Magic.

Baseball

Nate Shierholtz hit an inside the park HR and had a nice assist from right field and he's from Danville. Giants fans, get your hopes up!! This guy must be the real deal.

RIP Eric Chavez' baseball career.

Continue Reading

!*#@ the Lakers!
by Koski

After a brief, two season sojourn, Warriors’ fans find themselves in familiar territory: rooting for a team out of the playoff hunt before the All Star break. What will Warriors’ fans do with themselves come Tax day in mid-April when the regular season ends? Like any respectable Bay Area sports fan they will do what is in their blood, root against the Lakers. Never fear Warriors fans and other Lakers haters, even though they may have the best record in the NBA as I type this article the Lakers will NOT win the NBA title this season. In classic, lazy writing style, I will use RT’s (self proclaimed “Warriors fan”) column against him.

Reason #1: Chemistry

Gasol and Kobe can memorize the entire periodic table of elements and they still will not have as much chemistry as their main rivals in Boston, Cleveland, San Antonio and even Denver. Boston’s core is unchanged and despite the recent overtime home loss to the Lakers, they’ve proven they can beat this Lakers team already. Mo Williams scored 44 points against the Suns this week which is bad news for the rest of the NBA. LeBron James now has the wingman he was missing when he single-handedly brought the Cavs to the brink of a title.

Speaking of chemistry, is there a team in the NBA over the last decade that has defined team chemistry more than the San Antonio Spurs? In case you haven’t looked at the standings lately, the Denver Nuggets have the second best record in the West right now. Moving AI in itself is chemistry addition by subtraction, but replacing AI with Chauncey Billups is like trading Dan Marino for Ben Rorthlisberger. One guy is a sure fire hall of famer and the other guy is a winner who is at his best in the clutch. I seem to remember a certain Detroit team lead by Billups beating a certain Lakers team lead by Kobe a few years ago?

Reason #2: Defense

The Lakers are a good defensive team, I’ll give them that, but the four teams I mentioned above are all better defensively than the Lakers according to John Hollinger’s Def Eff. This system measures the number of points allowed per 100 possessions which is important because the NBA post season is a different animal than the regular season. Defense becomes important and offensive pace is slowed down immensely. There will be no 144-129 shoot-outs like the Knicks-Warriors Tuesday night in the post season. Let’s not go crazy talking defense because you still have to score more points than your opponents to win and even I can admit, begrudgingly, that the Lakers are good at scoring points. However, I’ll let Hollinger explain why the Lakers will have a tough time winning the title even if they can sneak past Denver or San Antonio,
“The most important reason is that the NBA Power Rankings use point differential rather than win-loss record. There's a good reason for this: point differential is a better predictor of future success, and thus a more reliable barometer of a team's quality. The Lakers have the league's best record, but rank third in point differential -- Boston and Cleveland are ahead, and Orlando is just a 10th of a point behind in fourth.”

Reason #3: MVP!

Kobe may be one of the best players in the league, but the key to the Lakers winning the championship will be once again sitting on the bench. Andrew Bynum was the X-factor the Lakers were missing last year and it looks like there is a good chance they will be without him this year. Kobe is the super star and the go-to-guy for the Lake Show, but he’s not their most “valuable” player. Andrew Bynum’s presence offensively opens up the game for Gasol and Kobe and unlike Pau, Bynum can actually play defense means that he is the MVP of the Lakers. When Bynum is in the game, teams can’t double Gasol or Kobe and Pau and Bynum are a tough burden to guard down low for any roster. Defensively, the Lakers lose even more with Bynum out of the lineup. The Warriors stole unsung defensive hero Turiaf from the Lakers in the off-season because LA decided to keep Sash Vujacic instead. Turiaf and Bynum were the main low post defenders for the Lakers, who are now vulnerable to low post players like Duncan and NeNe as well as drivers like LeBron, Paul Pierce and Carmelo. Without Bynum, the Lakers are still capable of great things, just not taking home the title.

Although it’s been a disappointing season for the Oracle faithful, rest assured the next parade in LA won’t be until next January’s Parade of Roses.

Continue Reading

I love LA!?
by RT

I am a die-hard Warriors fan and I think the Lakers are going to win the NBA championship. It has taken hours of therapy to get to this point, but I am finally secure enough to say it. (I guess I was secure enough to say it at the start of season when I predicted it). There are three primary reasons I like the Lakers to win the NBA championship and none of them have to do with their recent undefeated road trip.

Reason #1: Chemistry

In this age of “we need immediate returns”, many analysts and experts have forgotten that basketball is still a team game. David Stern has done his best to make it about individuals, but the fact of the matter is individuals win MVPs and teams win championships. When the Lakers acquired Gasol in the middle of the season last year, everyone (including me) thought that Lakers team was destined to hold the trophy in June. They almost did, but an amazing comeback by the Celtics in game 4 took the wind out of their sails and – at least in my opinion – they did not know how to react to the adversity as a team.

(Don’t give me the Lakers won game 5 BS. The Celtics mailed that because a) Stern told them too and B) they knew the Lakers had ZERO chance of taking two from them in Boston)
The circumstances are different this time around. Gasol and the gang have now been together for a full year which has given them the time to gel. As anyone who has played basketball knows, if you cannot rely on your teammates to help on defense or knockdown an open shot, you have no chance of winning. The trust is there for the Lakers and the results will speak for themselves.

Reason #2: Defense

To keep it simple, the Lakers are a very good defensive team. Even without Bynum, they present tough matchups all over the court for most teams. Over the last couple of years, Kobe has turned into more of a defensive stopper than most predicted. The Lakers are one of the few teams that have the benefit of having two seven-footers (Gasol and Odom) down low and an athletic wingman (Ariza) that can cover almost any perimeter player in the league. (Not to mention, Ariza faces the best offensive player in the league every day in practice). Fisher and Farmar are adequate defensive point guards but are aided in the fact that they know the rim is sufficiently guarded by the big men so they can crowd guards beyond the arc. As long as Josh Powell can be relied on for 15 minutes of bend – don’t break – defense in the playoffs, the Lakers will be a tough team to score on when the pressure is at its highest.

Reason #3: “MVP! MVP!”

Kobe Bryant has been the best player in the NBA for a number of years now. While he has been surrounded by varying degrees of talent, there has been little doubt about his ability to score. However, he has been – in my mind – fairly criticized for not being the leader that many of the NBA greats that preceded him were. Furthermore, it even seemed like he was ok with losing badly as long as everyone thought he was not to blame. To keep it simple, he was (is) one of the best scorers this game has ever seen that was selfish and immature.
I am saying right now … those days are over.

Through the combination of an embarrassing loss in game 6, a gold medal Olympic games and a 30th birthday, I believe Kobe has finally come to grips with the fact that he needs to be that leader many thought he would become. He also understands that he is surrounded by the most talent he has played with on the Lakers since Shaq left and he still has one of the best coaches in NBA history on the bench. The time for Kobe to release himself from the stigma of “never will win a championship without Shaq” has finally arrived.

(Wait … what am I saying?! I hate Kobe Bryant! He is a selfish prick that allowed his team to lose to the Warriors by 50 a couple years ago. He will never win a championship without Shaq. The day he wins a championship without Shaq is the day Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers no longer exist, A-rod admits to using steroids and the Warriors decide to sign Corey Maggette instead of Baron Davis. It will never happen!)

Continue Reading