Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Quick Sports

Lets start with the obvious: Shaquille O'Neal is amazing.

DeAndre Jordan.

Never has more been written about a marginal basketball than has about this man. I guess that's the genius of the new NBA collective bargaining agreement, where Free-For-All Agency keeps us discussing the NBA for a solid 2 months after the season ends.

Jordan signed his deal when, 2 weeks ago? And we're still talking about this guy? Impressive.

I read on Twitter this morning DeAndre went to sleep one night after agreeing to a deal with the Mavericks, but woke up having some reservations.

If ever there was something I needed to know today, it was this.

Get back to me when the Clippers aren't winning titles and DeAndre is riding the pine for much of the 4th quarter.

And btw, if my parents has named me DaVid, would that equate to the method of spelling used by DeAndre's parents? What is that?

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We're in the "stretch four" era. How bummed out do you think Robert Horry was when he turned on his television two weeks ago, and the scrolling ticker across his screen read: Thunder to match Blazers offer of $70 Million to C/PF Enes Kanter...?

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Yesterday I went from not caring much about Zach Johnson to now becoming a big fan.

Rick Reilly commented in 2007, shortly after Johnson mopped up Tiger Woods, et al, at Augusta "I think Zach Johnson, in 10 years, has a real chance to be your server at Olive Garden."

At the time I thought it was obnoxious, but I laughed. One of those "heh" moments. For me, Johnson's constant mentions and allusions to "Jesus" after winning the Masters were a bit of a turn off. Never been one who's into the constant expression of Gods after a victory, and he was one of the worst. More to the point, I never like it when people can't credit themselves with greatness, but to each their own. I got over it, but still wasn't rooting for the guy. Yesterday I had an ABJohnson mentality, and that went for Dustin too.

Then all of a sudden I was won over by the way Johnson handled himself yesterday. You can now consider me one of his biggest fans going forward. Gracious, humble, caring, competitive, everything you could want to see in a champion, living in a "me first world."

This guy can openly become a devil worshiper and I wouldn't care at this point. Actually, that'd be pretty amazing.

His whole life, Johnson has been the underdog, and now he's on the path toward golf immortality. Love it.

Tell you one thing, him working at Olive Garden is about the only thing that would get me into that place. I'm Italian. It's sacrilegious; even more than Satan himself.

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Twitter is ablaze with "Jordan Spieth isn't the next Tiger Woods."

No shit.

Amazing, the things I don't learn on Twitter. Ever.

But if Spieth keeps playing golf like this, he'll be every bit as good as Tiger on the course, which is all I care about.

Lets put aside the obvious: Tiger is a once in a lifetime athlete, who came along at the right time, changed not only the game of golf but the culture as well. It's debatable he has done as much for golf as any athlete has ever done for their respective sport.

With that said, Spieth may end up being better at golf than Woods. No shit.

Now the likelihood is he won't be, and it's easy to get caught up in superlatives after 2 majors, but lets consider some of the details:

Tiger Woods propelled so many people into the game, and now we're seeing the fruits of this. All of these younger players we're seeing on the course today were motivated by Woods, and now they're competing against each other. Mickelson, Furyk, Harrington and a few others can keep up with these younger players, but Tiger can't. Yet Spieth looks to be the dominant player at a time when the sport has NEVER been more competitive.

Tiger was a physical prodigy, an athlete the tour had not yet witnessed. He forced other players to put down the cigars and pick up the curling irons. He also happened to be beating up on a tour of rather pedestrian golfers for a long time. It wasn't much different for Hogan, Nicklaus Player and Palmer who largely beat each other week in, week out. After all, WHO WAS EVEN PLAYING GOLF when those guys were winning?

Point is, Tiger's majors are more impressive than Jack's, in my opinion. And if Spieth can get to over half of Tiger's majors it would seem to me equally as impressive. The competition is as stiff as it has ever been, and Spieth looks like the type of person who can conquer it. Each week he's taking on someone's best, and that best is more difficult than what Woods faced 15 years ago. That's just a fact.

White, yellow, black, blue, orange, red, green, I don't care what anyone looks like - I care about watching greatness. If Spieth is the real deal, and I'm guessing he will be, it will be amazing to witness.

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I've never been a huge fan of the baseball wildcard, but have come to accept it. For if there was no wildcard national league fans in cities like San Francisco, New York and Chicago would be slowly moving toward the exits. That's a major issue right there. But I still have a few issues with it.

6 Wildcard teams have won the World Series since 1994, and last year both the Royals and Giants were the Wildcard teams. In 2008 the Cubs were swept by the Wildcard Dodgers in the opening round. All of these events confirmed my belief the Wildcard teams are fighting for their lives well before the playoffs begin, and that's an advantage to them. It's a mindset. The Cubs had the best record in baseball in '08, and coasted into the playoffs. They had already squeezed a few rounds of golf in before the Dodgers sent them back onto the course. Joe Torre's Dodgers were locked in, while Pinella's Cubs were busy laughing it up. Until game 1 was over, which is also when the series ended. Again, the mindset of being in the playoffs begins much earlier for the Wildcard team.

Adding the play-in game was a good addition by MLB, giving a real advantage to divisions winners. The Royals were a 1/2 inning away from being knocked out by the Oakland A's, but survived all the way to the last out of the World Series. They at least had to earn it.

Taking it further though, I'd like to see the #1 seed get 4 home games, with Wildcard team getting 1. That's stiff, but I'd like to see the regular season rewarded a bit more than it currently is.

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Football can't come fast enough. I'm looking forward to the Raiders rise coupled with the Niners slide, and then the Raiders moving. Should be a fun season.

How is it possible the Raiders can't get a new stadium in the Bay Area, one of America's wealthiest regions as members of the incredibly wealthy NFL? Someone explain that to me.

If the Raiders cannot get their own facility at this point in time, with all the money that flows to the NFL, then they shouldn't be here. It's really that simple.

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Also looking forward to Tom Brady not missing any games, which I standby, he shouldn't.

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