Kid from Queensbridge

The NBA finals ended last week, but I didn't have the time to blog about it until now. Plus, the Lakers won. So I thought what's the hurry! The most interesting part of that game 7 might have been Ron Artest's post-game interview. The dude from Queensbridge went crazy in his post-game presser. The guy is genuine and all real. He may be crazy, but what you see is what you get with him. It was classic when he said "the zen master was in my ears saying don't shoot and I was like whatever and shot the ball". Funny! He also spoke about how he feels like he let down his Indiana teammates back in the day when they were good before he jumped into the crowd in Detroit. He had 20-5-1-5 in game 7 and those 5 steals were critical. He finally came through for the Lakers after a spotty season and an even worse playoffs. Every team in the playoffs left him open as they had to double and triple Kobe. They wanted him to shoot and he often obliged and clanked the ball off the rim. But in game 7, he made a lot of those shots. I am happy for him. He seems like a good guy, though I wouldn't accuse him of being smart or intelligent.

As for the game itself, it went exactly like I expected - hard-fought, defensive struggle with a lot of missed shots with the home team eventually winning the contest. The pressure is so high, very few guys hit open shots in such game 7 contests. Even Kobe couldn't make his shots and Gasol and him combined to shoot 12/40. But the Celtics were not able to take advantage. Things looked too good to be true when they went up by 13 in the second half. Unfortunately for a Laker hater like me, it was. Celtics blew it all as they couldn't hit timely shots late in the third and all of the fourth quarter. Nobody except Garnett shot a decent percentage and Allen and Pierce couldn't hit anything late in the game. The final score of 83-79 meant we got a good game, but also a disappointing result. If Kobe has lost this one, he would never be compared to Jordan. He would have been 4-3 in the finals and thats barely batting .500 in finals. While making it to 7 finals is awesome, America loves winners and MJ's 6-0 would have been untouchable. Even now his Airness is untouchable, but if Kobe is 5-2 in finals. One more ring, he has just as many as MJ and 2 more, he has more than his Airness! Then the media might start MJ-V-Kobe discussion all over again.

I feel like MJ's legacy is a little threatened, though Kobe has to win 2 more before we entertain that argument. Right now, the argument is about his place in the Lakers history. Some people say he is the best Lakers ever and some don't agree. The argument against is Magic, Jerry West and even Kareem. I don't care either way, but I think he is close to being the best Laker ever. Kobe also made it a point to mention he has 1 more ring than Shaq. Shaq is all nice now after rapping about "Kobe can't do it without me" in 2008. Kobe has finally done it without Shaq and done it twice and done it back to back. May be Pau should now rap"Kobe can't do it without me". Kobe has a lot of talent around him, but he still deserves a lot of credit obviously. He plays hard, helps defensively and he badly wants to win. Thats a coach's dream. His game is still at peak or near peak. He is going to decline soon because of all the mileage, but he probably has one or max 2 more years at this level. I hope LeBron overtakes Kobe and takes the baton soon. But looking at the King's behavior, he may not get the job done this year or next. I am very curious to see how long Kobe stretches his effectiveness at this age.

The King's Court

While Kobe is busy setting himself up for a 5-Th ring and potential parity with his Airness MJ, King James is having an interesting month or two to say the least. He first lost some goodwill with that horrible game 5 against the Celtics and the loss in the Eastern semis - couple of rounds before his projected exit. Then there was the ugly rumor about an affair between Delonte West and his mom. He then started his free agency period. He has always enjoyed the chase and all the attention, but he has done some weird things this spring. While Kobe is still hitting fade-away jumpers, the King is sitting by a pool and chatting with the other king - Larry King. I don't think anybody should be on Larry King's show except 50 year-old cougars. He did say Cleveland has an edge in that interview, but why is he even talking to Larry King during the NBA finals?

Then there is the supposed stupid free agent summit involving him, Joe Johnson, Wade, Bosh and may be Nowitzki. Of course Amare wants to join that too. But what are these guys going to decide? All of these guys want max contracts and no team has the money to pay 2 of these guys. Nets and Knicks theoretically have it, but it's really not practical. If you pay 2 max contracts, you got no money for good role players and no flexibility for trades for years. While a team with LeBron and Wade or Wade and Bosh sounds great, you need more than that to win. Look at the Lakers and the Celtics. Both teams have 4 or 5 guys making decent salary with a max or 2 thrown in. So getting 2 max contracts off the street is not a viable strategy. Extending one of your own and picking one off the street is more viable. Secondly, the way NBA salaries are structured, these guys will be giving up about 30 million dollars over 6 years if they choose to sign with another team and not their own. And nobody is going to do that. So I am pretty sure Bosh, LeBron and Wade are going to sign with their own team. The only question is, are they going to play there next year or force a sign and trade to another team. If it's sign and trade, then the Knicjs and Nets don't have the pieces for one, let alone 2.

So the summit is pretty stupid and useless. The only thing it achieves is for these guys to structure their contracts very similarly. Specifically, they can talk about when is their next opt-out. That way they can create another "biggest summer of NBA free agency ever" again in 3 or 4 years like they did this year. These guys coordinated their opt-outs the last time they signed their contract. Thats why Carmelo Anthony is not in the field this year. He signed the same contract the same year, but he didn't put in the opt-out like LeBron or D-Wade. They can do it again and enjoy the attention, but other than that this summit is worthless. Bron and Wade can never be in the same team. The only option is for one of the bigs - Amare, Bosh, Nowitzki or Boozer to team up with either Bron or Wade. This can still happen, but this summit won't make it happen. It is going to take some create deal-making by a GM or 3 to make it happen.

Then there are the wholesale changes in the Cleveland management. Coach Brown is fired, GM Ferry is gone. They are now talking to Tom Izzo after the John Calipari rumors died down. Seems like Tom Izzo is even considering taking the job. The most interesting part of this is, I have no idea why Izzo would want this job if there is no guarantee LeBron will be back. I would assume LeBron will stay in Cleveland if Izzo signs on the dotted line. Either way, I never understand this infatuation with top college coaches. It's really a different game and success in college rarely translates to success in the NBA. I would rather go with known big names among the ex-NBA coaches who are unemployed right now. But the point is, the Cavs owner Dan Gilbert is doing all this to please the King. Of course he is saying thats not the case, but the King is right now getting whatever he wants from Gilbert and understandably so. Gil is desperate and is letting the inmates - actually one inmate, run the asylum. All of this is adding to some bad press for the King. He should just lie low and wait for July 1-St. He needs to manage this better. We all like to be pursued and courted, but the King might just be taking this too far.

Bynum is the news

The NBA finals is tied at 2-2. I am on track with my prediction that the Lakers will take it in 7. Boston did great stealing game 2 in LA, but gave the advantage right back to LA in game 3. As the team without home court, Boston should be looking at this as a 6 game series. They just cannot win game 7 on the road in the Finals. This means the Boston should have seriously tried to make Truth's prediction come true. Paul Pierce predicted at the end of game 2 that the series ain't coming back to LA - meaning Boston will win the middle 3 games and win the series 4-1. But Boston lost game 3 and now they are coming back to LA. Boston better win game 5 this weekend and win game 6 in LA if they want their second ring. They need to play the next 8 quarters like there is no tomorrow. Game 7 just does not exist as far as the Celtics are concerned. Boston won game 4 behind some strong bench play. They were also helped by the injury to Andrew Bynum and that could be a "gift" that keeps on giving to Boston. I don't think he can really be very effective in this series given the state of his knee. Game 5 might depend on how well this dude plays.

The NBA finals is the top news this time of the year, but Stephen Strasburg and the conference alignment in college football has been challenging the NBA pretty good this week. More on the realignment later, but this dude Strasburg took Washington DC by storm. Every now and then a pitcher's debut causes a lot of excitement, but I can't remember anybody generating as much excitement as this dude. DC and the entire ESPN nation was hyping this start for a couple of days and the dude outperforms even the massive hype. LeBron's debut came to my mind as the closest parallel though nobody will ever have to deal with LeBron's level of hype ever. Strasburg struck out 14 batters and walked none in seven innings. Nationals' won 5-2 over the Pittsburgh Pirates and gave the kid a W. All in all a great day for the sold-out Nationals fan base. His 14 strikeouts were the third-most by any pitcher in history in a big league debut -- behind only J.R. Richard (15) in 1971 and Karl Spooner (15) in 1954. Great start, but a pitcher's career is a marathon, not a sprint.

Lakers in 7

It took me a while to recover from the Suns elimination. We all saw it coming, but it's disappointing for a true fan if and when it happens. This series was especially topsy-turvy. It started with the Lakers looking like gang-busters. Then the Suns achieved some parity at home. At 2-2, my expectations went up. Plus the game 5 in LA was a barn-burner and the Suns almost stole it. At that point, it looked like a 7-game series all the way. But then the Lakers were back to being the Lakers of game 1 and 2, that too on the road in game 6 and the Suns fell short. The Suns zone was just not the same in game 6 and neither was Ron Artest. He killed the Suns and so did Kobe with 37 points. It was one of those days when Kobe looked unstoppable. He made sure the Suns needed a comeback again in the fourth quarter, but he also made sure the comeback didn't get the Suns all the way back.

Now, the Lakers and Celtics are in the finals and the NBA and the TV channels are happy. This is probably the second best thing to Kobe-V-Bron if not better. I pick the Lakers to win it in 7 only because they have the home-court. I would totally pick the Celtics if they had the home-court. We all saw what the Celts did to the Fakers in 2008. Granted, the Lakers are better now and the Celtics are a little older, but still I would have picked them in 7 if they had 4 home games. But the Lakers do have home-court and I think they are going to need it, It's gonna be a tough, close, hard-fought series. The Celtics are no joke as Cleveland and Orlando figured out. They will scratch and claw and harass the Laker bigs and thats probably where the series will be decided. Lets get the series started.

In MLB, there was a near perfect game today. But the first base umpire screwed up the call in the ninth inning with 2 outs. It was kinda tragic, but what happened later was interesting. Armando Galarraga, the pitcher saw the safe call and flashed a great smile! It was refreshing to see a pitcher react like that. Most pitchers conduct themselves like they are the biggest a-holes. It was interesting to see this guy react in such a normal way at such a interesting point in the game. The umpire later profusely apologized and genuinely felt bad for screwing up history. He also apologized to Galarraga. In the post-game presser, Galarraga was once again graceful and decent. He pretty much pardoned the umpire saying everybody makes mistakes and nobody is perfect. This dude is a class act! Nobody would have blamed him if he was resentful and most pitchers would have been. This could have been true history in a sport where most historic occasions these days are tainted by steroids. But the umpire stole it from Galarraga. It's time for instant replay in MLB.