Landis' Doping Allegations: Nothing Has Been Proven Yet
I'll cop to being one of the millions of bandwagon cycling fans who was enchanted by the Lance Armstrong cancer survival story. I'm guilty. Accost me if you wish.
But then again don't.
I was watching Armstrong compete the first year he won the Tour de France, not the fourth or fifth. One come from behind victory by the Texan was all it took to convince me that cycling is an intense, enthralling and seldom predictable endurance sport.
When I'm dedicated to my weight loss regimen, which albeit is hardly ever, I enjoy riding six miles on my bike in the morning. It hardly compares to what cyclist turned OLN commentator Al Trautwig accomplished with his pedals. But going up to 25 miles an hour around my neighborhood, you have to admit that it is a start.
I only present my shoddy and disgraceful qualifications to discuss cycling so as to separate myself from the herd of uninformed journalists milking the Floyd Landis scandal for all it's worth.
When the word scandal comes into play, the cows in question usually grow more flexible breasts. This helps so-called journalists "dig up" half-truths or embellish on a singular fact that we've heard millions of times already.
And if the American media wasn't so viscious when it comes to the scandal, that 'millions' number might be hyperbole.
Recall the Lewinsky scandal and tell me I'm being melodramatic.
As I have hopefully explained below, I despise the use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes. Those who stoop low enough to cheat deserve tarnished careers, shame and high public scrutiny.
If Floyd Landis is indeed proven a cheater and his second 'B' urine sample shows the same or similar results in testosterone levels, I will rectract most of this post and admit that I was wrong.
I will also condemn Landis and his stupefying judgement.
Unfortunately for the French who hate to see Americans win
their cycling event, I don't think I'll be making that retraction. Mostly for the same reason I wouldn't have had to do it for Armstong but also for other reasons.
It's been tough luck for french riders even garnering a podium spot after the Prologue, so to have a testicular cancer survivor take the Tour seven times in a row and then have another American needing an immediate hip replacement win is reason enough for resentment on the part of French doctors and coaches who are rapidly firing these doping charges.
The doping allegations have swatted Armstrong more times than Naomi Campbell has hit her nanny and that's saying a lot.
The difference is Armstrong never tested positive and Landis has. After winning a stage in the Tour, the rider has 30 minutes to give a urine sample. This is part of cycling's crackdown on juicing.
Landis won Stage 17 of the Tour by an astonishing 6 minutes after falling 10 minutes behind the leader Oscar Pereiro in the previous day's grueling mountain climbing. He broke into shards and then miraculously dusted off the new breed of fighter inside him. Like a raging drunk in a barfight, he pedaled ferociously all the way to the podium in Paris.
It took the Star Spangled Banner blaring over the loud speakers for Landis to recapture his calm.
High anxiety and anguish are proven tell-tale signs of high testoterone levels. Landis maintains that the levels in his body that day were not abnormal. He blames his Adrenal Gland among other body parts.
And though his careful explanation could be an honest truth, the answer may lie in simpler analysis.
Last August, after a routine physical, my general practitioner noted in my blood work that I had alarmingly high liver enzymes. These are the kind of test results a person should freak out over.
I had more extensive testing done to see if my doctor's worries had merit. The follow-up tests showed my liver enzymes were normal.
I don't spill out this anecdote to champion my personal health problems, but merely to remind savvy readers that one test result doesn't always tell the right story. The probability of a false positive test in any medical condition is large enough that a second test is always given.
HIV, pregnancy, illegal drug testing, alcohol levels, Herpes. You know the drill.
We know what Landis's first test shows, but we have no idea about that all-important second result.
If the 'B' sample shows testoterone levels were not pushed to a level only attainable through drug use, then it's safe to say the American is home free.
If however there is a second positive reading, then the champion bike rider might want to start crafting a confession and an apology.
I'm not steroid expert, but I've done a fair amount of reading on their uses, availability of different grades and how they work inside the human body.
It took Barry Bonds an entire baseball offseason to build his linebacker-esque body.
If the
Game of Shadows book has the Bonds situation pinned entirely accurately then the star slugger had to undertake months of intense weight training and injections before the results were apparent.
Bonds hasn't been using the baby stuff. He's been juicing some of the nastiest shit you can find on the black market. Some of the drugs claimed to have been found in his body would make the Andro discovered in Mark McGwire's locker appear like an ordinary Vitamin C pill.
I realize that a professional cyclist and a professional baseball player have different goals when it comes to utilizing body parts, but all steroids aim to do the same thing. Even the testoterone Landis is accussed of using.
Using performance-enhancing dope reconstructs a human's natural endurance. If Landis were doping that would be his goal as it has been for Barry Bonds.
I find it hard to believe that Landis could have taken an enhancement drug the night before his dramatic stage win and seen immediate results. Steroids work like any other medicine. Your immune system has to build a tolerance before the drug really starts working.
There's a reason a doctor gives you 10 doses of antibiotics when you have the flu. It takes that many doses for the stuff to run its course and perform its job. Same with any run-of-the-mill steroid.
Earlier blood and urine tests showed Landis had no elevated testosterone levels, so why then would he binge dope?
He certainly wasn't doping on or before Stage 16 when he gloriously collapsed under the pressure of no teamates and a steadfast pelloton.
I reiterate that I will retract the above statements if Landis is proven a cheater. I want the real truth here even if it means disowning a respectable and usually kind-hearted athlete.
One 'B' test separates two clashing sides from being able to declare who gets to yell, "I told you so."
An Over-priced Steak Dinner for the Astros
July's end is nearing and the Astros are still searching for that magic bacon-wrapped filet that sent them to the NLCS in 2004 and the World Series in 2005. The menu is looking increasingly more like a run-down Chili's than Ruth's Chris.
As the Stros' each cut into their steaks, the centers are ice cold, the blood is still fresh and the only warm spots exist on the edges of the meat.
But Brad Lidge is having the most trouble of all. His meat slab is crooked and mishappen. There are bright spots in the flavor, but when his fork reaches center where the temperature matters most, he finds freezer burn and the work of a rookie-chef.
The Astros haven't found the right restaraunt yet. They're ordering all the wrong menu items. It's lucky none of them have fallen victim to food poisoning.
While nobody in the Astros clubhouse or dugout, including Tim Purpura, has probably had to stomach the meal described above, it's clear that nobody on this sagging and lukewarm team deserves Ruth's Chris. Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt have consistently been the exceptions to the rule. Recently, Roger Clemens, Mike Lamb and Andy Pettite have turned themselves around.
But even the veteran Pettite still finds trouble disciplining his arm on the mound.
The glaring elephant in the room is telling this ballclub the obvious through its overbearing trunk--that the essence of offense is a bat making contact with a baseball. Save Lance, every other Astro seems to have forgotten this fundamental concept.
Until Aubrey Huff was hauled in, the highest batting average of .287 belonged to Lance Berkman. Nobody else was hitting above .250. Jason Lane, who was thrown back to the minors as punishment, was hitting a despicable .194.
Even with the pitching pitfalls that have unpredictably plagued the bullpen and the starting rotation, the ball club's combined ERA is in at a more than respectable number.
Taylor Bucholz may have blown the big gasket giving up 6 earned runs in two innings the other night against Cincinati and Brad Lidge added insult to injury by increasing a 2 run gap to 4 in the bottom of the 9th with a ghastly, low-slider.
These humiliating losses will happen and the nervous pitchers will get their just dessert--a degrading loss worthy of 'boos.' Our offense decided to hop in for a few minutes in the eighth inning of that game to narrow a 6-1 lead by 3 runs.
Where are our bats in the 4-2 losses or more importantly, the 1-0's?
They must be off shooting commericials for Coors Light because they are ice cold.
Eric Munson singles, Roy Oswalt smacks a rare double, Biggio sends two runners home, Preston Wilson flys out to deep center and just when you think the offense has snapped together, it comes unglued.
Ausmus strikes out, Biggio strikes out with loaded bases and Preston Wilson's bat couldn't be farther from contact.
B+ to A- pitching from the starting four pitchers Oswalt, Clemens, Pettite and Backe and Lance Berkman's rifling bat will need a lot more help if another deep playoff berth is to be more than the fantasy of frustrated Houston sports writers.
The proposed Tejada trade and the addition of Huff (who's only in the .280's since joining the Stros') are terrific moves on a crowded dance floor. The Astros will have to mow down Cincinati, Arizona and all of the other wild-card chasing national league teams if they hope to tango their way back to the world series.
They're lucky to be only 6 games back from the wild card race. With less than 60 games left to play in the season, that doesn't seem insurmountable.
But try eating a steak that's six minutes undercooked and your tastebuds will be right where this team is.
The Astros need to reach the center of a well-cooked filet in an alarmingly short period. They can't even get their forks past the frozen bacon.
A Proper Swan Song for Sports Doping
It's time athletes and their doping excursions had a chit-chat--manu a manu, gloves off, a full-contact bloody brawl. Not the kind of the fist-fights these sports sluggers get into after furiously finding out their magic dope causes some nasty side-effects--neck warts and crusty rashes to be exact.
Who wants to take a million-dollar photo of a soupy-rash? Right. I'll have the Associated Press photogs over in an hour.
The use of performance-enhancing drugs has rocked more than just Barry Bonds and the sacred game of baseball. The made-for-the-history-books Tour de France victory by Floyd Landis this year could become nothing more than a shameful overuse of illegal medicine if he has a second positive test for high levels of testerone.
As spectators of the games that enthrall, we want to believe that our beloved athletes are innocent until proven guilty. But when Jose Conseco and even aging veteran slugger Sammy Sosa say publically, "oh yeah, I did that doping shit. It was fucking great," what are we to do?
It's time for Congress and the game-viewing public to quit quibbling over the issue and for these overpaid, arrogant athletes to accept a shred of personal responsibility.
Terrell Owens already needs more than $100, 000, 000 to "feed his family." Is it too much to ask for these irresponsible sports stars to own up to their athletic shortcomings?
Rome wasn't built in a day, but you'd have to wonder how much quicker the ancient city would have risen if all of the builders had been given Andro. Maybe if Victor Conte and his imploding company BALCO were around during the Roman Empire, they could have shown some charity and given these hard-working men that extra push.
But unlike Spinal Tap, maybe these amps shouldn't be going to 11. Maybe they should stay at 10, the way God intended it to be.
And before the big man gets dragged into this ridiculous conversation, let's remember The Bambino, Ozzie Virgil, Joe DiMaggio, Michael Jordan, Jerry Rice, even Pele--all athletes who accomplished beyond human feats without the aid of non-human chemicals.
The human body doesn't make Andro or the Kilo Steroid. We don't have a body organ that's designed to break these substances down like the Kreb Cycle in an Anabolic Reaction decomposes Amino Acids.
Why then is injecting your blood-stream with these muscle-jerking toxins suddenly more of a cultural phenomenon than plucking the white trash walls of the Britney/K-Fed disaster marriage?
Neither is looked upon with approval by the general public. Sports especially.
Even with an onslaught of public criticism about athletes' drug problems, somehow the Bonds's of the sports world believe that low-stooping, body-enhancement is A-OK as long as they're winning.
That is, after all, what has driven baseball fans back to ballparks in droves since the strike in the mid-90's. Drugged or not, fans want to see home runs. We'd rather see the ball fly out of the park by the hands of a cheater than an RBI chopped by an honest hitter. We're driven by the razzle-dazzle of scoring in all sports. The rocket-fast pedaling in cycling, the touchdown in football, a Dr. J-esque slam dunk, or a soccer ball kicked through the goalie's legs and into the net.
We feed on this fattening, superficial showboating and it's time we said--ENOUGHHHHHHH!
As if Athletes didn't already have enough reasons to keep themselves clean, maybe some extra pressure from spectactors will send the resounding message that winning at all costs, especially with a $1,000 drug injection is not only undesirable, it's petty and pitiful.
Now that sports commissioners, including the fabulously tepid Bud Selig have decided that doping is important enough to suspend superstar players for, athletics can begin to get back on the right track.
Now all we need is for Barry Bonds to peer out of his San Francisco apartment window and realize what a hypocritical, screw-up he is. That's the hard part.
It may seem like a daunting task to get million-dollar athletes to admit fraud and failure lies within them.
However, if they can knock a baseball 425 feet, they ought to be man enough to succumb to their doping wounds.
It's time for the guilty athletes to have that bloody fight. Only the true men will emerge victorious.
Audioslave finished?
From the NBA to modern rock we go...
I have it on decent authority (not just some Texas DJ--Don Jantzen to be exact) that Audioslave might be through as this millenium's premiere supergroup.
With Chris Cornell pining for his solo album release, it would seem obvious to point the finger at him, but a few sources (including mine) are saying that issues exist between all the members.
Don't take this at face value as 1) I certainly hope these guys aren't done playing music together
2) The person I am calling a source might have some fishy information.
Tom Morello is in Australia right now promoting the group's hot off the press single "Original Fire."
Morello has a much lower-profile solo offering pending and the band was rather hasty in dropping a third album.
I'm also sure Cornell has exchanged some words with his bandmates about their newfound politicism. He said he wanted to play with the former Rage nucleus under the condition that they wouldn't make political statements.
He had to have offered enough consent to write lyrics for the upcoming album "revelations"'s few anti-war, political numbers.
No tour dates are on the docket and remember that Morello is going solo promoting the BAND'S single.
Could all of these miniscule issues piled on one another spell the end for Audioslave?
We the fans hope not. Sources including a booking agent close to the band are sure that our hopes will be slashed.
As Cornell sings on the groups' hit ballad
I am the Highway, "I am not your rolling wheels, I am the skyway."
Maybe Cornell's luggage and band-fronting faculties are leaving on a different flight.
Only the air traffic control center can tell us the real truth.
NBA Basketball Preview
Pat Riley's Miami Heat clinched professional basketball's most-coveted title just two weeks ago, dismantling and shattering a 60-win season by the favored Dallas Mavericks.
But Avery Johnson and Pat Riley are now being assured with one of the most active NBA drafts and free agent signing periods in the history of the sport, that a return trip to the NBA Finals is all but guaranteed.
The Portland Trail Blazers oozed and stomped its fingerprints all over draft night, promising that a quicker, more athletic squad is in store for the other 29 teams. But as a product of basketball's resurgence, few teams remain in the 'cross-off and slaughter' category.
The days of middle-rung teams counting on even worse teams like the Trail Blazers and the Charlotte Bobcats to get a few victories are over (namely the Houston Rockets).
The talent pool is vast and endless. David Stern's ego and pocketbook are smiling. The quality of playoff basketball has never been higher. Fans may have been treated to the greatest playoffs in sports history. Ever.
Basketball aficionados hoping to spot the next MJ are being treated to a new era where it's hard to find a team with a player that isn't all-star quality.
Where a single man once led an elite pack of superstars, the NBA's roster is a suffocating mush of high scorers and shot-blockers all hoping to be better than every other player. No one has managed to decisively reach the top of the heap. To understate the talent surplus--it's anybody's game.
Even second-rate stars like Emeka Okafor and Andre Kirlinko are better than the supporting casts that led teams to victories and the Larry O' Brien trophy in the 1990's.
With Ben Wallace, Bobby Jackson, Peja Stojakovic, Shane Battier, Speedy Claxton, Matt Bonner, Nazr Mohammed and Rasho Nesterovic already shipped off or headed to other teams, the shuffle button has been pressed and is operating at ludicrous speed. Will Minnesota wise up and shop around Kevin Garnett? Will the Sixers find a high-dollar suitor for veteran guard Allen Iverson?
It's an unscripted action movie that will bring some teams happy endings and others nasty blow-up scenes.
Here is the comprehensive prediction for next season. It's only July, I know. But when an NBA fan is about ready to pee himself, there's no time like the present to let it all out.
PHILADELPHIA 76ers
Overall assessment: The sixers are an imploding franchise. Iverson has flown the team as far a distance as it will ever go with him on it. Steven Jackson has run amuck in a mess of trades. Chris Webber just ain't playin' like Chris Webber anymore. With the starting lineup already a pipping hot question mark, that leaves the bench somewhere between hell and Shangri-La.
Solution: The first order of business is junking the aging Iverson. At just over 30, the shooting guard isn't that old numerically but his playing is beginning to show more than a few wrinkles. His shot is amiss, his defensive play is suffering and he's becoming more of a salary burden than a championship caliber asset. On another team (emphasis on the word 'another'), Iverson still has the court versatility to lead a team to the playoffs. Wherever he roams, the team better have some good backup reserves. This puppy is beginning to lose his bladder control.
Rodney Carney will add some much needed youth to the franchise, but this team has derailed indefinitely.
Season prediction: Playoffs? Not a chance. With or without Iverson, this team is as sure-fire no playoffs as your satellite cable is to go out when it's barely drizzling.
CHARLOTTE BOBCATSOverall assessment: With Air Jordan at the helm, this expansion team (albeit a pointless one) is being run by one of basketball's smartest minds. However, picking up the pieces after a 26 win season will be cumbersome.
Missing pieces: The Bobcats have a ridiculous amount of room in their salary cap and should pursue free agents Jerry Stackhouse, Keith Van Horn or if they become available Iverson and Garnett. They have the money. Now they have to use to show they want a winning season.
Season prediction: Even without an expensive free agent, the Cats' made out wonderfully in this year's draft with the nation's leading collegiate scorer Adam Morrison. And unlike most draft teams, Charlotte is actually keeping the player they selected. Expect somewhere around a 32-34 win season.
MILWAKEE BUCKS
Overall assessment: T.J. Ford has not exactly shown he was top 10 material in the 2003 draft. In a year that gave us Dwyane, Carmelo, LeBron, Darko and so many others, T.J. has been a basketcase. He has the ability to fill up a game, but not the propensity. As a team, Milwakee is still the bottom of the pile. They'll be glad 2nd round pick, ACC All-Defensive Team Honoree David Noel, is in the mix. The trade for forward Charlie Villaneuva and cash with Toronto will juice this teams ability to contest shots at the hoop and drive the ball in at the other end.
Missing pieces: The Bucks would now have two outstanding young forwards to compliment the dinosaur Toni Kukoc (who once played alongside Michael Jordan). Assuming that Jamaal Magloire is headed for another team, that leaves Andrew Bogut as the team's premiere center. Every guard, save 6-year-old Michael Redd, needs massive improvement.
Season prediction: A playoff bid could be possible, but a tougher Eastern Conference will make it more difficult for the Bucks to be one of the eight teams that gets there. They can only go up from a 40-42 regular season record.
CHICAGO BULLSOverall assessment: While Portland is receiving tremendous camera time for turning the draft into a revolving-door, trade-a-thon, it's the Chicago Bulls who may well be getting the best revamping of the offseason.
Mediocre center Tyson Chandler is off to New Orleans, while Hornets J.R. Smith and 36-year-old PJ Brown will be running with the Bulls. And I do mean running.
The Bulls traded with the Blazers to secure the ferociously athletic Tyrus Thomas from LSU.
They also just agreed to a top-dollar, $60 million plus deal with some guy named Ben Wallace.
With forward Luol Deng already emerging as a young shepard for the adolescent Bulls, the outift's four newest additions will make it that much harder for teams to knock them off in the playoffs.
Missing Pieces: The Bull's will have a dexterous front-court next year. This team has some guys who can really pound the ball in the paint and on the other end of the court keep opponents from doing just that. However, with all of Wallace's defensive faculties, he's still an offensive slug. At times, you'd rather have an overweight Star Jones drive to the basket than trust this 7-footer with racking up your points. The lack of depth in the reserves department will hinder this team from ever scraping past The Spurs, Suns, Mavericks or Heat.
Season prediction: Obvious playoffs candidate. This team can win more than 45 games and easily win a first-round playoff matchup. The Bulls are a few years off from going the full distance, but they'll get some good gas mileage along the way.
CLEVELAND CAVALIERS
Overall assessment: More aptly titled the Cleveland LeBrons. James has tentatively lost the battle of the 2003 draft stars to Dwyane Wade, but his team owes him a thank you card for last season's playoff berth. He shouldered the scoring burden in the 2nd round Pistons series and nearly led them to a 4-2 series victory. James has become dangerous from every inch of the court--perimeter, the paint, the wings and especially with that floater he drops so viciously. Starting forward Anderson Varejao is one of the league's three best defenders as evidenced by his "defensive player of the year" nod. Having the coot-ish Eric Snow as a third scoring option is a significant worry.Missing pieces: Ilgauskas is one of the taller centers in the league and in the top-half, but he doesn't hammer the ball in the hoop like Yao or Shaq. The Cavs need better scoring options. As LeBron refines his inside game and becomes an even more confident shooter, his team will pick up momentum.Season prediction: Playoffs for any team with LeBron James is almost just a matter of getting there, but as this team learns from last year's playoff run, they'll be twice as scary next season. The Wallace-less Pistons might not squeak by the Cavs this year. These guys are not quite a chamionship team, but they are strikingly close.BOSTON CELTICS
LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS
MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES
ATLANTA HAWKS
MIAMI HEAT
NEW ORLEANS HORNETS
UTAH JAZZ
SACRAMENTO KINGS
NEW YORK KNICKS
LOS ANGELES LAKERS
ORLANDO MAGIC
DALLAS MAVERICKSOverall assessment: Say your worst about Marc Cuban and his unrelenting, foul and savage mouth. Go ahead and just let it all out. The Riverwalk is not an "ugly-ass muddy watered thing" and Bruce Bowen certainly does not deserve to have a certain three word phrase yelled at him after the Spurs convincingly win a playoff game in Dallas. But with his public image skating in the unpopular zone, Cuban has done a 180 with the Mavericks. Where Dallas fans once cheered for the Mavs not to finish in last place, they now deservedly get to dream of a championship. And though some Dallasites might chastize Cuban for letting two-time MVP Steve Nash slip away, he has constructed a deep, athletic and physical team that will be winning clutch games for years to come. The Mavericks roster is one that will perform exceptionally for more than just a season. It's a guarantee that San Antonio will be scrambling to keep up as long as this fiery and fierce roster is composed.
Missing pieces: The Mavs, particularly scoring ace Josh Howard and sharp-shooter Jason "the jet" terry, lack any court vision whatsoever. They are atrociously bad at finding the open man and failed in the recent playoffs to dish the ball out to Dirk when he was blatantly begging for the ball.
When Adrian Griffin drives to the basket amid a double team not even eyeing the waving arms of Jerry Stackhouse whose ready from downtown, you have a serious problem. As Avery Johnson continues his expansion as one of the NBA's finest coaches, he will need to improve passing across the board. Silly turnovers, horrendous shots and clogged passing lanes plagued the Mavs throughout the playoffs. Perhaps Cuban might be willing to spend some dough on a team optometrist. Their glasses are a bit foggy.
And for Mavericks fans who hate the Spurs or have assured themselves that there is now the only one great team in Texas perhaps Avery's background should be recalled.
Don Nelson coached much like Mike D'antoni of the Suns and it's why Dallas never cracked the Spurs defensive shell. They were an offensive team hellbent on outrunning and outscoring every opponent.
It took a former Spur for the Mavs to morter enough mental-toughness and defense to beat the Spurs.
Every Dallas fan owes San Antonio a thank you card for the gift of Avery. They can start writing it now.
Season prediction: A return finals appearance is highly likely but hardly a given.
NEW JERSEY NETS
DENVER NUGGETS
INDIANA PACERS
DETROIT PISTONS
TORONTO RAPTORS
HOUSTON ROCKETSOverall assessment: The Rockets are a disheveled wreck to say the least. But then again, a 34 win season is to be expected when your two superstar leaders play only 30 games together out of 82. When Yao and T-Mac were healthy and feeding the rock to one another on the court, the Rockets were winning more than 80 percent of their games. The obvious key is securing the health of one professional basketball's most dynamic duos. Last season, they were dynamic for all the wrong reasons--missed games, strained play, traps and double teams with no way out. The team traveled with the play of these two; it was a melancholy symphony that was as jarring as it was atonal and anticlimactic.
Solution: The signs all point uphill as the Rockets will fight to squeeze the pinnacle of milk from this misfit crop of players. The draft day trade for Memphis's Shane Battier will add Spur-like defensive talents to a team who allowed a lot of painfully easy buckets last year. With backcourt improvements pending, the front-court which includes the quick-stepping Rafer Alston began gel-ing at season's end. Luther Head is showing he will likely develop to the same prestigious level as Josh Howard, eventually becoming a full-time starting option. He can land you 20 points in a game, get you some key rebounds on the offensive glass and pass the ball around for the open man. What to do with point guard Bob Sura, who will be entering his 12th NBA season this year, is a mystery. He sat the entire season out on the injured list and has never molded into the smart, assist-man ballhandler the Rockets were hoping he would be.
The Rockets would do well to chase Phoenix's lightning fast point guard Leandro Barbosa. He's not a free agent this year, but like all players, he may have a price. His perimeter shooting and Tony Parker-esque quickness would add some depth and rejuvination to the sagging bench.
And where is David Wesely? The guard's shot is way down in Kokomo, probably being eaten alive by the island's critters. Something that might help Mr. Wesely immensely: a clue.
Season prediction: You never know with a Houston team whether full pontential will be seized or murdered in a dark alley. It's easy for Houston fans to long for a return of the winning Hakeem days, but even that era had its troubles. It took 9 seasons of Olajuwon's development before the Rockets could nab a championship. The Rockets also won in a two-year window when a certain #23 was off embarrasing himself as a wanna-be baseball player.
The Rockets have the stuff to sputter to the Finals, but the engine keeps dying intermittently.
You'd think after a 40 point knockdown by the Mavs in the 2005 playoffs that the Rockets would have mustered the circumstantial fuel, the drive and the poise to be 10 paces better. Houston fans were wrong. Again.
If the Rockets decide they want to taste victory as badly as Dwyane Wade did with his Miami Heat, they are a title contender. This time the Rockets need to actually put that Van Gundy pep talk into action
SEATTLE SONICS
SAN ANTONIO SPURS
Overall assessment: The Spurs have eclipsed themselves into dire straits. The loss of young center Nazr Mohammed will sting the boys in silver and black in the worst way. With Rasho Nesterovic gone to Toronto, the Spurs now lack a true center. Expect Tim Duncan to play some starting minutes at the position, but in a league where every team that has clinched a title in the last 20 years has had a 7-foot center, that won't cut the mustard. The letting-go of Nazr was a short-sighted blunder that should be both loathed and grieved. He performed poorly in the playoffs, but the Spurs didn't get past the second round. The last year he played well, THEY WON A CHAMPIONSHIP. Detroit offered the better, more lucrative contract, but the blame's solely on San Antonio for not at least matching the offer. Detroit will be thrilled to have Mohammed who will quickly fill Ben Wallace's gi-normous shoes. Greg Poppovich remains among the best of winningest coaches in the NBA, but he has to rely on an injury prone three-man core that has shown it can falter greatly.
Missing pieces: That the Spurs lack athleticism is a ridiculous argument only being made by haughty Dallas fans too full of themselves to understand the bold truth in front of them. The Spurs nearly robbed the Mavs of their commanding 3-1 series lead, but fell short in the heart-stopping, ulcer-inducing game 7 in round 2. Even without Mohammed, the Spurs still have one of the elite rosters and one that could still take out Dallas in a conference finals series.
Duncan finished the playoffs playing the best basketball of his life, averaging over 30 points a game in the Dallas series. His 69 percent free-throw shooting also went bye-bye temporarily. He had the will to just knock them down. Such is the case for all of the fighting Spurs who ranked 28 out of 30 in free throw shooting. Tony Parker is only 25-years-old, his best game lies ahead and he's a few years off from MVP material. He had the highest field goal pecentage of any point guard in the league last year. Manu Ginobili has the heart and the strength to overtake a fledging game.
However, with the plus side looking mighty attractive, there is an equally repulsive back side.
As evidenced by the foolish foul on Dirk Nowitzki in the final seconds of regulation in game 7, Ginobili also has the naive-ness to blow an all-important three point lead. As a foreign player, his eagerness to overachieve is a damaging Achilles' Heel.
Duncan has four years left on his contract and also likely, only four more years of being one of the most dominant forwards in the game.
The Spurs need to groom a replacement for defensive powerhouse Bruce Bowen in the next two years. At 35, he won't be able to hold the fort down much longer. He is a gigantic part of the Spurs' last two championships. Bowen is one of the few players skilled enough to tactfully guard the Lebrons, Dirks and Dwyanes of the league.
Pops might as well buy a row of walkers for the elderly men creaking off his bench. Robert Horry admitted that he "feels like a dinosaur" and Michael Finley is nearing the end of the line, too.
San Antonio will still own Texas basketball for the next four years, but the roster needs some serious trimming and juicing if they hope to stay that way.
Season prediction: Another 60-plus win season is in store. Time will tell if the Spurs can drive further into the playoffs than the second round. After all, they like winning in odd-numbered years.
PHOENIX SUNS
PORTLAND TRAIL BLAZERS
MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES
GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS
WASHINGTON WIZARDS
MORE TO COME TOMORROW...
What to expect from this blog...
Creating a secular blog was unappealing to me mostly because I will touch on a cadre of topics.
While NBA basketball and Astros baseball will certainly crowd the playing field, expect many last words to come on Rockstar: Supernova, American Idol, TV's fall lineup, immigration reform, anecdotal postings and much more.
With this blog sprouting from a free site used by hordes of other writers, I know that the sky is not the limit. It's probably not even the ceiling that I currently live under.
However, with time I hope to entice more readers to peruse my opinions, facilitate healthy online discussions and garner some recognition.
This blog will not dig up all the muck that's fit to rake, but I can promise you that there will be some meat in the shovel.
