The Daily Sport-February 23rd

Ahhh, its Daytona 500 Sunday; I know a lot of you laugh at the thought of calling NASCAR a sport, but bear with me through today’s post (or at least just come back and read tomorrow’s hopefully more relevant to you post). 

 

First of all, I despise the people that say driving a car at the speeds current drivers race around tracks is a feat anyone can do. That is ridiculous on so many levels that I won’t even bother spending time refuting it.  The split-second decision-making, reflex actions, and strategies involved in driving and racing at these speeds are truly incredible. I’m sure those guys over at ESPN’s SportsScience can do a little piece on it (or may have already done one) but like anything else they’ve done, I’d suggest avoiding it. 

I’m not saying NASCAR is worth devoting three-to-four hours of your non-football season Sundays to watching the races; I’m saying sit down for ten to twenty minutes and give it a chance (preferably towards the end of a race).  The potential for drama, excitement, and to be honest, laughter, is around every corner of every race. 

 

I truly believe you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Darryl Waltrip yell out “Boogity Boogity Boogity! Let’s go racin’ boys!” to start a race. It is honestly one of life’s most hilarious, unique, ridiculous aspects only brought to us by sports. Please, do me a favor, have a few drinks (of course, I’m only speaking to those of you of legal-drinking age) and then watch this video withOUT laughing: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8by2zu8PgQ

For me, NASCAR is sentimental. My Dad (and his fairly Redneck, but amazing) side of the family taught me among many things this special appreciation of NASCAR. And I honestly mean no negativity through my use of the term “Redneck”; I simply am referring to a lifestyle and culture that I too am a (hopefully fairly small) part of. 

I can remember my Dad planted firmly into his driver’s seat (the reclining couch) watching every NASCAR race in the living room with me in front. I would line up all of the model cars I had of every driver (yes I collected them and my Dad and his die of the family were kind enough to support this and many more of my ridiculous collection habits-remember Pokemon cards-yeah no one could touch my Charizard). They would be ordered along the edges of the coffee table (the same amazing coffee-table that withstood eight college years and many more noon-Tallahassee years of usage and now sits in Jess and I’s home upon which I’m writing this blog) as they were ordered in the race. I loved every minute of it as many a father and son have enjoyed races together.

So do me a favor, pick a random driver or car based on any given criteria whether it be your favorite number, favorite driver, favorite sponsor, or the first one that comes up on Google-just do it, and follow it. Every time you see the bottom-line scroll by on SportsCenter look and see if your driver’s name is listed among the top ten they usually show.  

My personal opinion: How more American can a sport get? I mean come on, how obnoxious do you think it looks to European countries to see the American flags waving, the obsessive beer-drinking, and blatant patriotism only NASCAR could offer? So anything pro-American, sports-related, and loved in the South is obviously going to be found atop my approval board. 

Today will be better than yesterday.

The Daily Sport-February 22nd

Today will be better than yesterday.

The Daily Sport-February 21st

Yesterday saw one of my favorite days in sports (although, granted, calling a day one of my favorites isn’t saying a lot because of how many “favorites” I actually have). However, we’ll still call it a favorite. The day: NBA Trade Deadline day. Every year, mid to late-February the NBA sets the final day of the season where teams can trade amongst themselves players, picks, and assets until the season concludes. 

You may have seen my post entitled, “5 NBA Trades that Make so much sense they probably Won’t Happen” and if so, hey-lookie there, I’m doing something right. Also, if you did read it, you would have noticed that these trades actually did indeed make far too much sense for current NBA general managers to make work. I somehow talk the deadline up to myself every year and believe all of the “talk” and rumors around the league from various “sources” that swear THIS is the year that the big deadline deal goes down.

But, to my dismay and sustained deadline day disappointment (That’s some serious alliteration for you right there Gontarsky-my sophomore year Editing professor), the biggest pieces to move were an overrated aging “allstar” and an underperforming player beaming with “potential”. As such, I was clearly unimpressed by the efforts of many GM’s to be bold and help their teams take the next step into becoming a true championship contender. 

But I’ll stick to the four most-significant trades that did actually go through and grade each one for the teams involved for this post: 

Sacramento Kings Receive:  

SG Jason Terry (two years, $11.5 million)

 PF Reggie Evans (two years, $3.5 million).

Grade: Inc

If the Kings agree to a buyout with Terry, the financial savings stemming from this deal are massive. As such, I would reward the Kings with an A- for swapping an underperforming, overpaid Thornton for financial savings coming off Terry’s deal in addition to the heart and hustle effort and character traits Evans brings to the floor every night.

Brooklyn Nets Receive:  

SG Marcus Thornton (two years, $16.6 million).

Grade: B+

Prokorov yet again proves that he is willing to pay whatever it costs to have a minute chance of even competing in the playoffs. Although the salaries are very close in amounts, the harsh luxury-tax implications of this deal are more severe. Prokorov’s tax bill now will total over $88 million for this season alone. Personnel-wise, this is a challenge trade in which two similarly paid guards that are massively underperforming are swapped in the hopes that they will benefit from a change of scenery. The B+ is for taking on the younger, more talented Thornton who offers no defensive value, but can become a high-volume capable scorer anytime now.

Golden State Warriors Receive:

 PG Steve Blake (one year, $4 million)

Grade: A+

The Warriors were one of the only major contenders (other than the Pacers) to make a meaningful deal. They had a real and major need for a backup point guard and capable ball-handler to share the burden that the Splash Brothers currently carry alone as of now. Dealing the younger Bazemore and Brooks away to obtain Blake takes little away from what will be the Warriors’ playoff rotation and Blake more than makes up for their losses with what he will bring.  

Los Angeles Lakers Receive:  

SF MarShon Brooks (one year, $1.2 million)

 SG Kent Bazemore (one year, $788,872)

Grade: B-

Wow, look at all these good grades going around for deadline deals. Usually I’m much more pessimistic than this, but this deal does just make sense for both sides. Swapping the more talented Blake for the younger players of Bazemore and Brooks only offers the Lakers the opportunity to find a hidden gem in these two. It also increases the ping-pong balls in this summer’s NBA draft as the Lakers surely get worse with this deal. The only reason the grade stands as an A- is because it pissed off Kobe. And no matter how much of a good thing the Lakers do, anything the Lakers do to piss off Kobe can never truly be a good thing.

http://msn.foxsports.com/buzzer/story/kobe-bryant-tweets-displeasure-with-steve-blake-trade-022014

Cleveland Cavaliers Receive: 

 C Spencer Hawes (one year, $6.6 million)

Grade: B+

How much of a difference will the lanky, sweet-shooting big man make for the Cavaliers as they reach for one of the final playoff spots in the soft Eastern conference? That is the question that will swing the dynamics of this trade. Giving up two second-round picks is fairly light compensation to ably escape the mistake of the two-year deal given to Clark. But, it’s the Cavs and I had a hard time giving anything they do an A.

Philadelphia 76ers Receive: 

 SF Earl Clark (two years, $8.25) 

2014 2nd-round pick (via Memphis)

2014 2nd-round pick (via Cleveland)

Grade: C+

Earl Clark is the perfect roster-filler the 76ers need at this time. Someone they can buyout to let younger player take the playing time and develop but keep the contract on the cooks to meet the salary floor. Philadelphia GM Sam Hinkie has certainly been reading up on the Gilbert Arenas, Rashard Lewis, Paul Millsap, Dennis Rodman, and Manu Ginobli second-round pick stories as he now has collected six, yes SIX (6?!) of them. Who knows, maybe they’ll hit one. The grade is lowered because I believe Hawes carried more value than the return they received. 

 

 

Indiana Pacers Receive:  

SF Evan Turner (one year, $6.7 million)

PF Lavoy Allen (one year, $3 million)

Grade: A+

The Pacers turned an expiring contract of a former All-star who hasn’t “fit” on this team since the emergence of budding young stars Lance Stephenson and Paul George into the promising Turner who is also on an expiring deal and the talented and productive Lavoy Allen. Each of the two players the Pacers acquired have consistently played well against Miami in past appearances and that’s what the hope here is for the Pacers. The Eastern Conference Championship series is truly the NBA Finals in my eyes as both the Heat and Pacers are built to beat the Thunder. This move greatly increases Indiana’s hopes at this.

Philadelphia 76ers Receive:

 SF Danny Granger (one year, $14 million) 

 Future 2nd-round pick

Grade: D-

What in the f%$@ is that evil “genius” Hinkie doing? He was involved in what-five-total deals on deadline day in his effort to, what in my best assumption is, hoard second round draft picks and make his team as bad as he can for the rest of this season and then next, in an effort to make his team great the following years. He’s either going to come out roses or promptly be fires upon, pelted with Cheesesteaks, and become the next former GM of this sad, sad, franchise (yes that’s me laughing out loud writing this).   

Today will be better than yesterday.

The Daily Sport-February 20th

Tonight’s edition will be shorter than the usual posts. For starters, I have to finish this and get off the computer so I can go watch the very subject I’ll be discussing tonight. Also, it’s because I’ve been working on a different longer post that should go up sometime later this weekend which is my first version of an NFL Mock Draft. 

But that’s just excuses which I’m sure none of you want to hear so I’ll get back on topic (and at least remotely try to stay there). And that topic is: rivalries; specifically, the rivalry I’m looking most forward to tonight, Duke vs North Carolina in Men’s basketball.

Rivalries in professional sports can be great; Yankees-Red Sox, Cowboys-[insert every NFC East team here] and Bruins-Canadiens all offer exciting, intense moments but I firmly believe nothing beats college rivalries. The first thoughts of college rivalries often lead directly to those centered in the college football landscape. Florida-Florida State, Alabama-Auburn, Michigan-Ohio State are just a few of the many great college football rivalries as heated as ever in the sport.

But with March Madness right around the corner and college football players running rampant around their various college towns causing God-knows what kind of trouble and havoc on campuses these days, I figured we would focus on the hardwood. Now, don’t get me wrong, college basketball offers just as many, if not more, intense rivalry match-ups as football, but none can compare to the almighty: Duke vs North Carolina.

No one can truly say what makes this rivalry great by summing it up into one characteristic. Whether you cite the list of immensely-talented players to come through the programs, the seemingly endless list of historic, close games, or the sustained level of dominance each has maintained, this rivalry embodies what makes college basketball great.

I did say I would keep it short so I’ll leave you with a few parting thoughts and stats to wrap up this post.

Just a list of some of the players to play for the two programs:

Duke	UNC
Grant Hill Christian Laettner Kyrie Irving Luol Deng JJ Redick Corey Maggette Elton Brand Carlos Boozer Danny Ferry Shane Battier Bobby Hurley	Sam Perkins Larry Brown Vince Carter Tyler Hansborough Hubert Davis Raymond Felton Ty Lawson Rasheed Wallace Antawn Jamison And of course… Michael Jordan

   

And a few quick stats courtesy of SportsNation:

In the past 85 meetings the two teams have played coming into tonight’s game:

UNC leads the series winning 43 to Duke’s 42

However…Duke leads in total points 6,566 to UNC’s 6,564 (Yes that’s 2 total points separating the teams combined totals over the past eighty-five games)

Today will be better than yesterday.

The Daily Sport-February 19th

I’ll start with saying, boo-yeah, I was right (so far) and that for those of you that skipped over my Daily Sport edition from last week on February 11^th where I predicted the outcome of the Men’s hockey semifinals of the Olympics, I was spot on going into the semifinals. 

But okay, back to ranting. Tonight will hopefully be a hodgepodge of some of the more interesting “nuggets” (a word that isn’t the easiest to use when currently wedding dieting but hey-it fits, right) I’ve come across in the past week or so. This edition of the Daily Sport should be interesting, among many other adjectives, as it will be comprised of all kinds of topics and “fun facts” that I’ve read or heard lately.

 

First, does it get any more ridiculous than this? The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) declared three Oklahoma University football players ineligible for the season until each pays back his own share of the impermissible benefits they recently received at a school banquet-style function. Banning a student-athlete for receiving and accepting impermissible benefits is a common occurrence; the outrageous fact here: the “benefits” the three OU athletes received happened to be pasta…yes of the angel hair variety. The f’ing NCAA was actually bold/dumb/bored enough to spend their time, efforts, and money on investigating, and subsequently ruling, that the three young gentlemen were ineligible to participate in NCAA-sanctioned events until they each paid back $3.83. Instead of focusing on issues such as: financial compensation for student-athletes, safety protocols for players, and medical marijuana to treat limit pain derived from injuries, the NCAA is plate-counting at the buffet line of a Sooner banquet-party. I could go on and on about the NCAA and its abuses of power, greed, and student-athletes for a while so I’ll just leave you all to stew on the current atrocities of the NCAA.

Link to Story: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10484741/oklahoma-sooners-penalized-three-student-athletes-eating-too-much-pasta

Second, you know how those ridiculous-looking NASCAR jackets look that some “fans” of the sport wear around showing the 36 or so different sponsors of their favorite racer? Don’t worry, other sports are starting to match. This “nugget” actually came up in my office today as I spoke with a coworker about some of the funnier and more bizarre oddities in the sporting industry. Soccer, which happens to be my favorite sport and something I shamefully have not written on thus far, has taken the practice of sporting sponsors on team jerseys to another level entirely. Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually fully support the use of sponsorship and their placement/prominence on soccer jerseys across the sport, however, this is taking it too far. Barcelona, one of the sport’s most popular teams, has now come to an agreement with partner Intel to place the company’s logo on the inside stomach of player jerseys. Yes, that’s right-the INSIDE! The thought behind the deal is that when Barca players score goals, in celebration, they will then lift their shirts overhead clearly displaying the logo and advertisement. Not a bad idea really, definitely revolutionary, but a wise investment? I think not. Especially at the current cost, Intel has agreed to play Barcelona FC $25 million over the next five years to display the company logo. Now, Im not sure about all of you but really Intel, you couldn’t think of anything better to do with that money than your investment of the stomach-placed inseam on player jerseys? 

Link to Story: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-12/intel-puts-logo-inside-of-barcelona-shirt-to-be-seen-after-goals.html

Third and finally, we’ll deal with another soccer story (I know right, I’m probably the only one actually excited by that fact but hey, whatever, I’m the one writing and you’re the one foolish enough to still be reading). Okay, so this is me kind of cheating in that it is basically a collection of stories all centered on a soccer star that oh…99% (at least) of Americans have never even heard of. His name: Mario Balotelli. He’s an Italian-born striker (or “the ones that play offense and score goals” for those of the soccer-challenged variety) who now plays for AC Milan’s club soccer team and is known for his off-field antics and on-field outbursts as much as his on-field skills (which truly are sublime). I’ll let you look up some of the stories on your own but I’ll at least give you Google fodder as I like to call it, to search on your own accord. In the recent years “Super Mario” as he is affectionately known, has been linked with stories including:

-Playing with, and then starting a seriously legitimate, structural downtown-building fire in his London apartment

-Claiming to be allergic to grass, the surface he spends 70 hours a week on and around to train and play his sport for money

-Numerous training “fights/altercations/”scuffles” with both fellow players, trainers, staff, and even coaches

-Sobbing on the bench during a game

-My personal fave: Teaming with Nike to create boots (cleats) that are decorated solely with newspaper headlines involving himself and some of his crazier antics off the field.

And as always, 

Today will be better than yesterday.