Cruisin' and Cookin'

Warriors are 52-5 and are 4-1 in this road trip, a trip that was supposed to be the toughest challenge remaining for them this regular season. The trip started ominously as they were blown out at Portland by Damian Lillard and his wrath at his all-star snub. But the dubs straightened the ship the very next day at the Clippers, a game that was expected by some to be the first loss of this road trip. They are back to cruising now and Curry is hot and steaming. He had a back-to-back 42 and 51 point games at Miami and Orlando with the Miami game also featuring a couple of clutch shots at the end. Media is running out of superlatives to describe Curry and this Warriors team. He won the MVP last year and it wouldn't be hyperbole to say he deserves to win both the MVP and the most improved player awards this season. The guy is 27 and is already widely recognized as the best shooter in the history of the game and rightfully so. There was a sequence in the game tonight when he pulled up in the middle of the shot clock to take a 3 pointer 3 feet behind the arc. A horrible shot for anybody else, but Warriors announcer on TV Bob Fitzgerald was actually shocked he missed an "open look!" Thats all you need to know about the shooting prowess of Curry. There are no bad shots, period.

All this leads to the prime time game this weekend to wrap up the roadie. Dubs are playing the Thunder this Saturday night. Since the dubs are 4-1 in this trip already, this game may or may not impact their historic chase of 72 wins, but this will be a fun game nonetheless. Thunder has been in a bit of a funk with home losses to the Pacers, Cavs, and a loss tonight at the Pelicans. But what better way to right the ship than to beat the the league leading defending champs?  Plus Durant always has monster games against the dubs. Speaking of Durant, the Bay Area sports radio and media doesn't have a lot of burning issues these days when it comes to Warrior talk. So the major topic of discussion is whether or not to sign Kevin Durant in the off-season when he becomes a free agent. Supposedly, Durant is interested in the Warriors and the question is, whether the Warriors should want him or not. Life should be real good if you are seriously considering saying "no" to a top-5 NBA player in his prime! Life is good if he even wants to come to your team because, these days, super-stars like Durant only go to good teams they hand-pick. But how many teams can even consider saying "no" to him? The Warriors are winning 70+ games without Durant, so there is a legitimate reason to wonder if they should stay away from him and focus on chemistry and continuity instead. Nice to have such "first world problems." 

My message to the Warrior fans is that they shouldn't even sweat this Durant thing. The dubs ownership and front office know exactly what they are doing and will make the right call. Whether it is firing coach Jackson, or hiring coach Kerr, or refusing to trade Klay for KLove, they are batting .1000 for a couple of years straight. My early gut feel on this, I think they are going to get Durant. This ownership group is super-aggressive and they won't stop short. Secondly, Harrison Barnes is demanding a lot of money anyways and you might as well invest just a little more and get a Durant if you can. Durant's game and personality is not a bad fit for this team or for any team for that matter. There is only one ball to share, but these guys can figure it out. It will be an amazing roster, though it's hard to even imagine how much better a 72-10 (or better) team can get! This reminds me of the Lakers team with Shaq, Kobe, Malone, and Payton at the end of Malone and Payton's careers, except Steph, Klay, Draymond, and Durant will be way better because all 4 will be barely entering their primes this summer. One strong reason to do this if you are dubs front office - we always talk about team's windows closing. Actually, more times than not, other teams pass you before your window closes. Not that the dubs are in danger of their window closing anytime soon, but signing Durant extends it indefinitely. More importantly, it keeps him away from their competition, whether it is OKC or the Clippers or some other team, and prevents those teams from passing the Warriors.

Will the 20-year old record survive the next 30 games?

The most amazing and crazy thing about the Bulls all-time record of 72-10 that MJ and the boys engineered back in 1995-1996 is that a team like this year's Warriors could be at a ridiculous 48-4 and we still can't be 100% sure that they will break the Bulls' record. That's how special that season was. It is probably one of the most underrated record in all of sports. Playing .878 ball over a 82 game season is near impossible. The Warriors are currently ahead of that pace and are winning at a blistering .923 pace. They have to go 25-5 rest of the way to break the record or 24-6 to tie it. It would have to be a robust .833 or .800 ball respectively in case you are scoring at home. Thats what it's going to take even after playing .923 ball for the first 50+ games. These are just ungodly numbers. Will the Warriors break the record this season? I think they will and it's a tribute to how good this team is that it doesn't even sound like I am going out on a limb to say this. Some folks may actually be surprised if they don't make it happen because, suddenly, the Bulls record doesn't even sound that difficult to these fans given the dubs impressive run so far.

But there are a couple of potential roadblocks for the dubs. Key injures are of course the obvious one. Also, their schedule has some tough stretches like the 6 game roadie they are starting this week post all-star break. Nothing fazes this team, but @Clippers, @Hawks, @Heat, and @Thunder can be a challenging stretch even for them. Their schedule is back-loaded and more than half of their remaining games are against the 7 teams right behind them in the brutal Western conference playoffs standings today. Of course more than half of those teams are no match for the dubs, but they also play the Thunder and Spurs 5 times rest of the way. You can't put anything past a team that's 48-4 and they are definitely not scared of anybody. With all that said, nobody will be shocked if they miss the 72-10 mark. It's easier to win a championship than going 72-10. That was definitely true at the beginning of the season and even today, I will still give the record a slight edge over winning the championship on the difficulty scale.

This Warriors chase will actually keep us entertained and carry the second half of the season. It is a big deal. We will hear about it a lot and rightfully so. Some people have blamed the Warriors' excellence for taking some of the drama out of this NBA season. That may be true in some NBA towns, but the chasing of the record will put the Warriors and the NBA increasingly under the spotlight come March 10th or so. Should be a fun second half after a great All-star weekend. I meant All-star Saturday because the actual game on Sunday was garbage. Something has to be done to make the All-star game watchable.  As stupid as the MLB's idea to award home field in the World Series to the winning side of the All-star game was, it is looking better and better with every inane Pro Bowl and All-star game in other leagues. The 3-point contest and the dunk contest on Saturday night were both great. Thanks to the star power of the splash brothers, the 3-point contest seemed like the headliner the last couple of years. But Aaron Gordon and Zach LaVine walked in right after and put on a dunk show for the ages. They brought back the dunk contest to relevancy. It was real fun and good luck to those 2 youngsters in their careers.

Suns' own Devin Booker made it to the final round of the 3-point contest with the splash brothers. This kid is special and hope he keeps getting better and saves the franchise. Protect the shield, Devin!

Denver 24 - Carolina 10

It does feel good when you are right. Especially when you pick the underdog to win the Super Bowl and it happens. Denver took care of the Panthers like I had predicted behind the stellar defense. That defense was the only reason I had picked them. I did not intend any disrespect for the Panthers nor any respect for Peyton Manning. I was really impressed with that defense against the Pats in the AFC championship game. It's not that the Pats never lost this season. In fact, they lost quite a few games late in the season and traditionally, Peyton Manning led teams have had great success against these Pats in the AFC championship games. But it was the way Denver beat the Pats that was impressive. They throttled Brady and the offense and won with very little help from their offense. That has not happened all season especially when Brady had both Edelman and Gronk at his disposal. I knew Cam Newton was in trouble. He is good, but he is no Tom Brady.

It's hard to believe that a Peyton Manning led team won with him throwing just 23 times for a mere 141 yards on a paltry 13 completions. Thats a game manager if you ever need one. Peyton Manning is a completely different QB than he was 10 years back, or even 3 years back. It' is tough to see his wobbly passes. Most of his passes looked like a pick-6 the moment it left his hand. Von Miller and the Denver defense literally carried their legendary QB to his second Super Bowl win cementing his legacy. Nobody has won 2 Super Bowls with 2 different teams. Speaking of legacy, how about his boss John Elway? Not that he needed any more validation after his 2 rings as a player to be considered Denver's most important civic treasure, but this championship absolutely elevates him to an entirely different planet. It's not that easy to win the Super Bowl both as a player and an executive. On top of that, he didn't just happen to be at the wheel driving this thing, he made some tough and hard turns.

Elway's decision to break the bank and get Peyton to Denver despite his health concerns was a brilliant move. He let go of Tim Tebow at the height of his popularity and also let go of coach John Fox before this season. Poor John Fox. He has coached both these Super Bowl teams at different times and doesn't get any credit for either. Elway's decisions have been money and he got 4 playoffs, 2 Super Bowls, and one championship out of Peyton Manning. Thats the best he could have hoped for when he brought him to Denver. Now, nobody can touch Elway for another 15 years. Winning a Super Bowl is a life changer and a big deal. It usually gets 5 years of job security in this rough NFL for a head coach and 8 to 10 years for an executive. But given Elway's special place in Denver, he doesn't have to worry for another 15 years. Sun Devil's own Brock Osweiler doesn't look half bad and he might lead the Denver to several more playoffs as a QB. Drafting him was not a bad call either by Elway.

On the flip side, losing a Super Bowl should be a big disappointment. Making it to the game is a big achievement indeed, but it doesn't come with the same perks and job security as winning does. Losing coaches don't get a whole lot of job security because the expectation is that they have to get back and win the big one soon. Just look at the job security Mike McCarthy or John Harbaugh have as opposed to Jim Caldwell in Indy. As for the QB, Cam Newton won a well-deserved MVP, but had no shot against this Denver defense. There is also a lot of criticism of his behavior and attitude towards the media in the post-game presser. It was not ideal, but doesn't bother me a whole lot. But he did surprise me with how tired and stressed he looked during the game. I have never been a professional athlete and I can't imagine how these guys feel when they play in the Super Bowl. They all talk about how anxious and excited they are through the week and can't really sleep the night before or for many nights leading up to the big game. That can't be the best way to go into the biggest game of your life.

Cam definitely looked gassed at times and resembled a 39 year old QB in the game, not Peyton. It looked like a combination of stress, anxiety, and possibly nerves. May be he didn't sleep well either. But I was most surprised by the fumble late in the game when he didn't jump on that ball and held back instead. I definitely don't know what happened there. He is one of the toughest running QBs in the league and I can't believe he was afraid of the contact. There is no explanation I can think of. At the end of the day, it was not Cam's Super Bowl. It was Von's. Lot of folks also say this was a boring game due to the lack of offensive brilliance and exciting offensive plays that have dominated the last few Super Bowls. I disagree. The game was close until very late and the Panthers were not really totally out of it. I was thoroughly entertained and found the drama gripping. Good job by the host city too managing a great Super Bowl. Now, it's time to put a bow on the NFL season. Bring on the off-season -- the only time all 32 teams have a shot and hope.

Denver 23 - Carolina 20

The Super Bowl has been dissected and analyzed in every which way the last 2 weeks including various talking heads pontificating on contrived racial issues around people's perception of Cam Newton. Thats what happens when we don't have a football game for 2 weeks after almost 5 straight months of non-stop NFL mania. Media has to keep their 24 hour sports chatter fed and happy and every angle of this game has been over-analyzed. We are all now ready for the game and glad it's less than a day away. I will spare you all the details of my line of thinking, but I am going to go with my gut and a little bit of my heart and say Peyton Manning walks away into the sunset a Super Bowl winner. My head says the Panthers could easily blowout the Broncos if a couple of early breaks go their way during the game. They are absolutely known for creating those early breaks and jumping on teams. Given Manning's recent performances in the Super Bowl, that might very well happen here. But I do like the narrative of Manning retiring a champion much like his GM John Elway. It's too good to pass up!

Aside from my gut feel and a marginal rooting interest in Manning's legacy, I do think there are legitimate football reasons to like the Broncos. Their defense is legit. I was very impressed with what they did to the Patriots couple of weeks ago both strategically as well as on the field. The Panthers offense and the MVP Cam are no joke and their balance on that side of the ball with their ability to both run and pass will be a major challenge for any defense. But I think Cam can be bothered by the Denver D and if they force him into a mistake or 2, the Broncos will be in business. Of course, everybody expects Peyton to be the one to be forced into mistakes given how he is more of a weak-armed, game manager these days. This Peyton is not the same player we saw 10 years back, but he can still do some damage, especially if you give him 2 weeks of rest and preparation time just like the Super Bowl schedule just did. Peyton also looked decent early in the game against the Pats, though the Pats defense is no comparison to the Panthers. I think there is enough juice in that right arm and if he doesn't choke like he does sometimes, he will give the Broncos D and their running game an opportunity to help him walk into the sunset in style.

Long story short, I am expecting a nip and tuck game with the Broncos upsetting the Panthers 23-20 in a close one. Thats my story and I am sticking to it.

Suns of Anarchy

The most depressing thing in sports right now is the plight of my beloved Phoenix Suns. They got into the news this week the only way they can, by firing their head coach Jeff Hornacek. The cute story of an old-time, classy, and quiet Suns player coming back post retirement to coach the team came to a sad and horrible end in the middle of his third season. There is a saying in business, "don't let your success kill you." To some extent, thats exactly what happened to Hornacek. He started his coaching career with a 48-34 record in 2013-14 when nobody expected anything out of the team. The Suns at that time were coming off a disastrous 25 win season and had a joke for a coach in Lindsey Hunter. They were barely one season into the post-Nash era which was one challenging and horrible season as expected and they had fired Alvin Gentry mid-season to replace him with Hunter. 

Horny was not expected to do much in year one, but he turned the team around overnight behind 2 exciting guards. Suns continued to play an entertaining brand of fast-ball similar to the previous regime and Horny was also surprisingly winning games. But unfortunately, 48 wins in the wild west gets you nothing except a few less ping-pongs in the draft lottery. In retrospect, this unexpected early success screwed everything up. Instead of debating Andrew Wiggins versus Jabari Parker in the summer of 2014, Suns fans and the front office was now dreaming about playoffs and free agents like LeBron James and championships. And then GM Ryan McDonough did something that to this day makes no sense to me. He went out and signed 5'9" point guard Isaiah Thomas to go with the other two PGs he already had on his roster - Eric Bledsoe and Goran Dragic, who were both actually good and were the engine behind the 48-win team. 

That was the beginning of the end. Why in the world did he need a 3rd small guard? There are a lot of legitimate rationalizations of this decision including the messy contract situation of Bledsoe and Goran, but the IT signing is the singular reason I believe McDonough will and should lose his job. I trace all of the current problems to that one decision. It went south fast from there and I hate Isaiah Thomas to this day for that. Poor guy, none of this was his fault and all he did for the Suns was play hard. But McDonough bringing him in was a big mistake. Not only did the Suns not have enough shots to go around, they didn't even have enough dribbles to go around with these 3 guards. This pissed Dragic off and he wanted out. They were not winning enough games either to even match the previous year's 48. They had to trade the Dragon and that was a bummer. Not only was the dragon a good baller, he also provided us an emotional connection to the Nash era of the Suns. 

McDonough also traded IT and brought in Brandon Knight. We were in the midst of another reload and all these moves were neither here nor there. The team was a mess. We can't blame owner Robert Sarver either because they have been willing to spend the last 2 season and have been chasing big name free agents. But stars like LaMarcus Aldridge are not biting. Signing the aging Tyson Chandler in the hopes of landing LaMarcus was another huge gamble that looks bad now. This season started with a lot of hope and went downhill in a hurry. We then had towel-gate-2 as another mediocre power forward threw a towel on the face of a Suns ex-player and current head coach in the midst of a horrible season. Unfortunately, Kieff is still with the team and it's the coach who is gone. Not quite the Anige-Horry ending yet. I hope they get rid off Kieff soon despite his great game under coach Watson tonight. 

Now we are in this mess with Earl Watson coaching the team. Part of me thinks he is Lindsey Hunter redux, but part of me also thinks he looks like a classy and smart man and hope he succeeds. There are rumors of the team wanting Nash coaching the team next year, but I think this idea is a non-starter. Nash doesn't look ready to tie himself down with a coaching gig. The Suns are 14-36 right now after starting the season 7-5. They may not win 25 games this year and this feels like the Suns' worst season in my memory. The 2012-13 disaster will always give a tough fight for the worst season award and the one silver lining we got this season is Devin Booker. This 19 year-old gives us some hope. The upcoming off-season will be very interesting - high draft pick and lots of cap money that stars may or may not take. McDonough is considered a smart, young GM, but I wouldn't be too sad if he loses his job. Much like Hornacek, McDonough has earned his firing with everything that has happened in the last year and a half. Bring on the off-season already!

Napalmered

If you are a fan of any team, that team's losses in the playoffs can be pretty frustrating. The further the team advances in the playoffs, the more the losses hurt as the expectations grow higher with every round of the playoffs and consequently, the fall is harder. And every team has to fall and fail in every league eventually except one champion. I have seen many highs and mostly lows being a fan of the Phoenix Suns. Comparatively speaking, I am not as emotionally attached to the Arizona Cardinals as I am to the Phoenix Suns. But their loss against the Carolina Panthers was still one of the most frustrating losses I have seen. Carson Palmer single-handedly lost this game for the Cardinals. He didn't lose by making a big mistake at a crucial moment, but rather by not showing up nor playing with any level of consistency or quality. The Cardinals were basically napalmed by Palmer.

The final score was a horrible 49-15 in favor of the Panthers and they seemed to dominate every aspect of this game. It's not just the Cardinals offense and Palmer that had troubles. Their defense wasn't much better either. Despite all of that, the most frustrating part of this game for me was, it was a very winnable game for the Cards. Even late into the second quarter with the Panthers having scored a couple of times and Palmer having fumbled once already, the Cards still had a legitimate shot at winning this game. David Johnson was running pretty effectively, Cards had scored once, and even forced the Panthers into a couple of 3 and outs. With less than 6 minutes to go in the first half and the score at 17-7, Patrick Peterson committed a costly mistake. He fumbled the punt return after one of the few Panther's 3 and outs and that was a punch in the Cardinals' gut. Panthers pushed it to 24-7. Peterson redeemed himself by intercepting Cam Newton in one of the subsequent possessions and returning it all the way to Carolina 22. But then Palmer followed that up right away with a break-breaking interception in the end zone - a horrible throw forced into double coverage. That was pretty much the ballgame.

The second half was quite an abuse of the Cardinals with more turnovers from Palmer. The bottom-line was, ugly Palmer showed up instead of the good Palmer we have been seeing all regular season. This game confirmed everybody's worst fears about Carson Palmer -- that he is not a big-game player, he is not a clutch performer, he makes big mistakes at the worst moments etc. He proved all of those theories right. I have always been a fan of Palmer and thought that the public perception and injuries have been pretty unfair to him. But after this game, I am a believer in all the haters. I even heard one talking head say Palmer was considered a one-read QB in USC who can be easily confused and they simplified the offense big-time during his Heisman season. The skeptics are right and he can't recover from this performance. God help the Cardinals next season.

In the AFC championship game, the Broncos pulled a Pats and outsmarted them with a brilliant game plan. I thought they had the Pats confused the entire first half on both sides of the ball. They have incredible talent on defense and got to Brady at will. But the way they bottled up Edelman was brilliant and they also had a great plan on offense. Now we have the sheriff in his final Super Bowl. He has an opportunity to walk off into the sunset as a champion like his boss Elway. Broncos will face the Panthers in what should be a close Super Bowl. Brady has dominated Manning 11-6 in their personal series, but that includes a 2-3 record in the playoffs, including losses in their last three postseason meetings, all in the AFC Championship Game. Seems like Brady beats Manning except in the AFC Championship games. Goes to show how all these stereotypes that the media builds are just that - stereotypes. Football is the ultimate team game and even a Brady or a Manning need a team around them, not to mention home-field to win.

We will definitely miss the Brady-Manning rivalry. That was a long-running, high-profile, yearly event, the kind of which we may never see again.

Instant Masterpiece!

There are instant classics and then there was the Cards-Packers game last Saturday night. I don't think the term instant classic does this game justice. This was an instant masterpiece. The game featured 2 crazy hail-marys at the end of regulation to send it to OT and an exciting 75-yard play to start the OT. This little commentary will tell you all you need to know about this game. I was re-watching the 4th quarter and with around 4 mins to go in regulation, with all of the end of the game and OT drama yet to play out, analyst Cris Collinsworth already says "I have never seen anything like this game!" And then all the mayhem happened! The reason he said that was because the game already had some wild twists and turns. There was a pick-6 by Patrick Peterson called back in the first half. Also, when Cris made that comment, the Cards had just scored a go-ahead TD where Carson Palmer's pass was tipped in the end zone and somehow the ball ended up in the hands of Michael Floyd. Thats a pass that could have easily been intercepted if the ball had bounced a different way. That drive also featured a couple of passes by Palmer that could have and should have been intercepted and returned to the house the other way.

Palmer didn't have a great game. He was up and down and kept the Cards fans on pins and needles the entire game with every pass he made. But at the end of the night, he made enough great plays to win the game. Fitz was his amazing self as always and dominated the OT to single-handedly carry the Cards home. The big 75 yard pass play in OT was a beauty by both Palmer and Fitz. Aaron Rodgers made some amazing plays as well in that last drive to send the game into OT. I can't believe he completed two hail-mary TD passes at the end of games this season. For all the enjoyment this game gave us Cards fans, if the result was any different, this would have been one of the most painful losses. I am not sure if I would still be calling it a masterpiece. A-Rod completed a 61 yard pass on 4th and 20 from his own end zone with 50 seconds to go in regulation. I encourage you to do a search on Google for "4th and 26" and you will see a play from the 2004 divisional round where Donovan McNabb completes a 4th and 26 pass to Freddie Mitchell to keep a late-game drive alive against the same Packers. The Eagles forced OT and eventually won that game. To this day, thats a signature play and a painful memory for the Packer fans. If the Cards had lost this game, us Cards fans would have had multiple A-Rod plays painfully etched in our memory forever. But the Cards survived those plays behind Fitz's own signature moves.

For the second playoffs in a row, Aaron Rodgers lost in OT where he didn't even get to touch the ball. As excited as I am about this game and happy that the Cards won, I agree with Clay Matthews that they have to change the OT rules. Few years back, NFL changed the rule to make sure a field goal in the first drive of OT didn't end the game right there. That change was good, but didn't go far enough.  Now, a TD in the first drive in OT ends the game. The logic being, football is a team sport and the defense has to do it's job and prevent the TD to be able to continue the game. I don't agree with this and both offenses deserve at least one shot. NFL has a hard salary cap and super star QBs like Aaron Rodgers are paid handsomely, every dollar of which they richly deserve. This means such teams may not have enough money to build a strong defense as much as they may want to. Point being, different teams have different philosophies of team building and different strengths and weaknesses. If a team doesn't have a good enough defense, today they will probably lose the game if they lose the coin flip in OT. Thats not right.

Forget whats right and whats wrong. Purely from a business and entertainment perspective, how does it make sense for the NFL to decide a big playoff game in overtime with Aaron Rodgers, one of the legendary players in the history of the league, standing on the sidelines and not even being allowed to participate? Thats like Cleveland Cavaliers playing the OT of a game 7 in the NBA playoffs and the result being decided by the bench players of the Cavs with LeBron just standing on the sideline and not getting a chance to touch the ball. NFL better fix this. I will add this though. The college type OT rule is better, but it is also flawed. In that scheme, the team playing second has a huge advantage in that they know exactly how much to score and are in 4 down territory the entire way. The team playing first on the other hand, has to pick between a field goal or a TD as they get close to field goal territory. May be we should just have a 10 minute OT period and let the chips fall where they may at the end of it.

This is a good topic for the off-season, though I doubt if the NFL will touch this. For now, the Cards march on and don't have to explain a bunch of crazy events from this game. I loved Bruce Arians throwing on 2nd down towards the end in an attempt to completely keep the ball away from Aaron Rodgers. The throw fell on the ground and they ended up giving A-Rod an extra 35 seconds. A QB like that can do a lot of damage, whether you give him 90 seconds or 120 seconds. So I was fine with them going for the kill there. But if they had lost, that would have been the talk of the town. It turns out it was Palmer's call based on what he saw at the line. Arians would have still had to explain that call, plus he would not have thrown Palmer under the bus if they had lost. All of this is moot now since they won. Now they get to play the scary looking Panthers in Carolina. Panthers dominated the first half against the Seahawks and barely held on to win the game in the second half. Broncos and Pats won at home too. There were 4 good games last weekend, but the other 3 pale in comparison to the masterpiece theatre that was the Packers-Cards featuring the prestigious thespian Larry Fitzgerald.

Get well, Mort. The rest is mere details.

This was an eventful and action-packed sports week with many ups and downs, but the latest news is a bit of a downer. ESPN NFL expert Chris Mortensen announced he is suffering from throat cancer and is taking a sabbatical. I don't know him personally, but he comes off as a decent guy on TV and I am going to miss him. These guys actually spend more time in our living rooms than some of our dear friends and we develop an attachment towards them whether we like it or not. This is a sad news and I wish Mort a speedy recovery. Hope to see him soon in his bus tours across the NFL training camps. A lot happened between last week's wild card weekend and the bad news from Mort. The NCAA championship game, a NFL move to LA, and a bunch of interesting head coaching hires in the NFL.

It turned out Vegas did get the Wild Card weekend right with all 4 road teams winning. I got 3 of the 4 games right with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers putting me in my place in Washington. It wasn't even close for the Washington no-namers. To be fair, we might have gotten the games right, but 2 of those 4 were coin-flip games. Seattle was incredibly lucky that Blair Walsh missed a game-winning chip shot field goal. Adrian Peterson had a costly fumble in this low-scoring game first and then supposedly didn't rush to the right to set Walsh up at his preferred right hash for the game ending field goal. He cut back left hoping for a first down. He fell a yard short of the first down and won't have an opportunity for a meaningful carry for another 8 months. The dangerous Seattle team gets to live another day.

The Cincinnati Bengals lost in an even more excruciating way than the Vikings as a series of unfortunate events gave 30 free yards and the game on a platter to the Pittsburgh Steelers. A questionable penalty called on the troubled Sun Devil Vontaze Burfict and a bone-headed penalty by Pacman Jones ended the Bengals season and almost got Marvin Lewis fired. He survived, but paid the ultimate price for signing talented nut-jobs like Pacman. Sometimes, these players hurt you at the most inappropriate moments. Pacman sure was incited by Pittsburgh Steelers' coach Joey Porter, who is no choir boy himself, but such excuses don't win games, smart, disciplined plays do. Bengals have to start all over again next season without their OC Hue Jackson, who is now the head coach upstate in Cleveland.

Now on to the divisional round, which is arguably the best football weekend of the NFL season. The Arizona Cardinals will be hosting the Green Bay Packers for the second time in 4 weeks. They crushed the Packers the first time around, but the Packers looked a lot better last weekend at Washington. Aaron Rodgers can always become a serious problem for any defense, but I still think the Packers have not improved that much in a month to pull off the upset on the road against a potent team. They will make this much closer than last time, but the Cards should win. I expect the same with the Pats - a close game with the home team winning. Chiefs are rolling and I won't be surprised if they win against a shaky Pats team. But if Brady can't beat Alex Smith, hoodie will figure out a way to.

On Sunday, the lucky Seahawks are going into the Panthers. I have no idea who will or even who I want to win in this one. I am always up for a good Seattle loss and they are a dangerous team for the Cards to face if the Cards do make it to the NFC Championship game, but if Seattle wins they have to come to the desert. I don't mind the Panthers winning, but that means the Cards will be going to Cam's house and deal with the dab and the nene. Leaving my and Cards preferences aside, this is an amazing matchup and anybody's game. The Hawks are good on both sides of the ball, but they looked beatable last weekend. Their run ends here and the Panthers will finish the job that the Vikes started. The Steelers-Broncos game is also hard to predict only because of the injuries to Big Ben and Antonio Brown. With them healthy, I would have no hesitation in picking them to beat Peyton Manning, who looks more ready to shop for Centrum silver than play in the NFL playoffs. But I give the Broncos and that defense a slight edge at home against a hobbled Big Ben and a Brown-less Steelers.

On the coaching front, aside from the Browns hiring Hue Jackson, Dirk Koetter (Bucs), Ben McAdoo (NYG), Adam Gase (Dolphins), Chip Kelly (Niners), and Doug Pederson (Eagles) have all landed on their feet and grabbed one of the top jobs in America. The most fascinating among those hires is Chip Kelly in San Francisco for his second shot. The ownership and front-office that had issues with Jim Harbaugh is hiring another guy with a questionable personality. On top of his personality, he is also known to have issues with managing players his way. The jury is still out on his unique, up-tempo offense and the Niners have Colin Kaepernick, who they were expected to get rid of, but might fit the aforementioned offense a lot better than most other QBs. Do they now keep him? How will this all shake out? We will find out in the next 6 months. Niners also have around 50 mill in salary cap as well.

The other big news this week was the St. Louis Rams getting the approval for their LA move. How ironic is it that Stan Kreonke, the guy from Missouri who was brought in as a minority owner by the LA owners when the Rams moved into that region is now spearheading the move out of St. Louis back to LA. It's a smart business decision and he is not even asking for a whole lot of public funds in LA. Looks like he will sink 1.8+ billion of his personal money into this stadium. He will make enough money in return for years to come, but the real returns will be in terms of the equity and his franchise's value. If the Clippers are worth 2 bills in LA, god knows how much the Rams will be worth in 5 years with that spanking new stadium in Inglewood.  Good for Stan and as always, the fans lose, despite the city of St. Louis promising public funds. To quote someone in St. Louis, "we are throwing money at the stripper and she is throwing it back in our face."

It's Stan's business and he can do whatever he wants, but sports teams are civic entities and there needs to be better checks and balances on uprooting a team from it's city. NFL does have strong bylaws and wordings around encouraging teams to stay in their communities, but those seem to be just words. None of that really matters when cash-money comes knocking. Now, San Diego is supposed to work it out with the Rams and move in to those new digs. That leaves the Raiders out and they are back to square one. They don't have a lease in Oakland as of today and San Antonio is back in the picture. Raiders owner Mark Davis keeps talking about Raider-nation as if it's some form of an universal entity not bound by any geographic boundaries. The Raiders do have bit of a distributed following due to their multiple moves and catchy colors, but can he be any more disingenuous and delusional? He is trying to convince us that Raider fans are a thing with or without Oakland. Thats his way out of town, if he needs one. The Raider fans in Oakland are not too bothered either because they are either too cool to care or they are convinced the Raiders have nowhere to go and will stay back, at least for a year or two. Let's hope for the best here. I am sick of the business of sports treating the paying fans as the least relevant entity in the World.

I would be remiss if I don't mention the NCAA Championship game last Monday. Alabama won over Clemson in an instant classic. I was really impressed with Clemson QB Deshaun Watson. Alabama's Jake Coker kept pace with him and it was amazing to see how many big plays this game featured on both sides of the ball. Nick Saban is not quite the legend that Bear Bryant is, but his resume is already better. He is playing in a more competitive era with a playoff. It's hard to believe that Bear Bryant actually lost his final bowl game and still won a couple of championships back in the day. It was indeed a different time and place and Saban is already at 4 rings versus Bryant's 6 at Alabama. Saban has one more from LSU. He is indeed a super legend in the making.

Bring on the Cards-season, AKA post-season!

There is always what you think is going to happen and then there is what you want to happen. The title of this article probably give it all away, though I am not sure what part of that is what I think versus what I want. My Super Bowl pick is Arizona Cardinals over the New England Patriots, a matchup supposedly America also wants based on a recent poll on the most exciting potential Super Bowl even over the Seahawks-Pats possibility that was awesome last year. I may be biased in favor of the Cards, but they are definitely capable and poised to make a deep run this post-season. It won't be a walk in the park - it never is, especially if they play like they did in week 16 against the Seahawks, but they didn't have much to play for then and they did show us they are way better over the previous 15 weeks. So I am going to cut them some slack. As for the Pats, they have been in a funk too, but I can't imagine the other AFC wannabes unseating Brady and Belichick this season. Thats my prognostication, but thats neither here nor there this weekend because the Super Bowl at Levi is a month away. The first round of the playoffs is kicking off today and these two teams are not even playing this weekend.

The wild card weekend is the best weekend of the NFL playoffs in a lot of ways. We get two games on Saturday and two on Sunday. The divisional round also feature 4 games, but then the well-rested big boys come out and blow fools out sometimes. Wild card weekend on the other hand usually features good, but not great teams and they typically give us closer games. This year's version lacks a little bit of sex appeal due to some new teams and injuries, but the games may be even crazier than usual. This is illustrated by the fact that all four road teams are favored to win this wild card weekend! I am not a gambling junkie, but I really doubt if the lines look like that often. Let's see if Vegas got it right this time, but here are my picks.

Kansas City Chiefs @ Houston Texans: This is probably the toughest game to pick. It involves two teams that have turned their season around and are rolling into the playoffs, but the Chiefs' transformation is a lot more impressive. Neither team has a hall of fame QB and that always makes it hard to dissect, but I pick the Chiefs to win this one on the road. We don't get to see Arian Foster or Jamaal Charles, but we will see a good game here.

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Cincinnati Bengals: Andy Dalton has been ruled out of this game and I am not even sure if it's a bad thing given his past post-season performances. All kidding aside, the Bengals will miss him and the Steelers should steal this one. Big Ben and Antonio Brown need to be on their A Game, but they are capable of an A+ game any given day. Ben has not consistently been A+ this season, but has been good enough to put the fear of god in most opponents. They are actually a trendy Super Bowl pick due to that reason. I won't go that far, but the Steelers should win this AFC North matchup, a division which more than any other seem to throw an intra-division wild card contest year in and year out. Those 3rd rivalry game of the season are always fun.

Seattle Seahawks @ Minnesota Vikings: Last week, the Vikings went into Green Bay and rudely snatched the NFC North title from the Packers. What do they get in return? A home playoff game and a lot of money for their owners, but possibly a loss to the surging Seattle Seahawks. They probably would have been better off losing a close game and the division last week and going back into Green Bay this week for a wild-card matchup on the road. The Seahawks look scary good on offense and their defense has not dropped off that much. Russell Wilson has absolutely played at a MVP level the last half of the season and he has reinvented this offense behind his arm and Doug Baldwin's legs. I doubt if any amount of Minnesota cold can stop them. I want the Vikes to win, but Seahwaks will win this one.

Green Bay Packers @ Washington No-Namers: Why are the Packers, who started the season 6-0 and have Aaron Rodgers playing QB, going into Washington to play a wild-card game on the road? This defies explanation except the obvious cliche "football games are won in the trenches." The Packers offensive line has been offensive much like their opponent's nicknames that I try to avoid. This O-line has made Rodgers look shaky and Eddie Lacy look fat! I can't believe I am saying this, but Rodgers is going to lose to Kirk Daniel Cousins this weekend. The Washington players and their leader Cousins might be penny pinchers and cheap off the field (what a cute story that is), but their offense has been prolific and confident on the field. I can't see this Packers team dominating them on either side of the ball. Rogers need to play at a hall-of-fame level to win this one and he absolutely can, but I am picking the No-Namers to win.

There you have it. Four more teams will be gone fishing in a couple of days and lets start the countdown to the Super Bowl.

NFL pre-post-season

The first couple of weeks of the post-season is the best time of the NFL year, but it always has an ominous beginning. Black Monday, right after the final Sunday of the season is when all the under-performing coaches are usually fired. This is the big news for a few days before the actual post-season games start. The timing of the firings was actually slightly better this year for their families since it happened after the new year. Sometimes, black monday falls right in the middle of the holidays. Much like black Friday after Thanksgiving, black Monday is starting earlier and earlier these days. Few coaches got fired Sunday night, not to mention Chip Kelly losing his job a week earlier. All in all, 6 coaches have left the building so far this year.

The teams looking for a new coach now are Cleveland (whats new?), San Francisco (again), Tennessee (after firing Whisenhunt mid-season), Miami, Philadelphia, and the New York Giants (after Tom Coughlin's "resignation"). The surprisingly smart decision came from the usually dumb Jim Irsay, the Colts owner. Common sense seems to have prevailed in Indy as they decided to re-sign and extend coach Chuck Pagano despite reports all Sunday claiming he will not be back. Apparently Chuck and general manager Ryan Grigson have agreed to settle their differences and work towards a common goal, which is to use Andrew Luck's immense talents to win a Super Bowl instead of wasting his prime away.

Ironically, San Francisco is looking for a new coach again in less than a year. If only they had brokered a working relationship between Jim Harbaugh and Trent Balke much like the Colts did this week, they might be in a much better position than where they are now. Out of all these teams, the Niner search might be the most intriguing only because they are looking for an upgrade in less than a year and have to make a splash to justify all that has happened in the last year. Many interesting names - some old and some new, are in the running for all these jobs including Sean Payton, who will cost some draft picks, and Mike Shanahan. Even Mike Holmgren's name is back in the mix for the Niners' job. For some of these rebuilding teams, the hiring of the coach may be the high point of their off-season. Good luck to them!

I can't believe the 2015 NFL season is already over. I took a break from blogging after last year's Super Bowl and the next thing you know, we are staring at the 2016 Super Bowl in a few weeks. I missed writing about a lot of interesting things in the sports world including the Golden State Warriors winning a NBA championship. That was the least likely event when I stopped blogging in Feb 2015. May be I should stop again next year and hope my Phoenix Suns win the championship.

Pats 30 - Hawks 20

It's been a while since I had the time to blog. Been a busy couple of months, but is there ever a better time to jump back in than around the Super Bowl? Actually, last week would have been better with the "deflate-gate" controversy in full swing. Supposedly, we are expected to stop talking about it and talk only about the game instead. Why? It was a legitimate topic that came up organically last week saving us from all the manufactured Super Bowl hype. I would rather discuss deflate-gate than the media generated "story lines" about these 2 teams, neither of which I am too fond of. How much more of the designer angles like "low draft picks" Brady V Wilson or Pete Caroll's stint in New England would ESPN have subjected us to if not for this scandal? Those stories are interesting if you care about the teams. If not, deflate-gate is as good as it gets.

The controversy itself feels very juvenile at one level, but the fact that this Patriots regime is entering the "repeat offenders" territory makes it very interesting. If the NFL can indeed prove that the Patriots did tamper with the ball, which of course is a BIG "if", hoodie will be in deep trouble given his past history with spy-gate. Thats exactly why Belichick and the Pats are so vociferously and aggressively denying the allegation. If convicted, punishment will be severe. Saints coach Sean Payton, who was suspended for a year for bounty-gate, will have a lot of opinions for the league office on the appropriate punishment for the hoodie. Lots of people are arguing that deflating the ball is not a big help for Brady or that the Pats are good enough to win without it etc. Thats not the point. The point is, if you are deflating the footballs after the refs have checked and approved them, you are cheating. Why would anybody do it if it didn't help? There are some parallels I see here with the steroid controversy with baseball, especially with Barry Bonds. Not that deflate-gate is that serious, but some people said the same type of things about Bonds and steroids. "He was always good", "He didn't need PEDs" etc. The counter argument is pretty simple. If it didn't help, why did he take it? Thats why Bonds is still not in the Hall Of Fame.

As for the Super Bowl itself, I think this controversy will only drive the Pats even more, as if they need any extra motivation. Brady and Belichick are getting up there age-wise and it's all about legacy for them at this stage of their careers. They have lost their last 2 Super Bowls and I am not sure if Russell Wilson can channel his inner Eli Manning and subject the Pats to a third Super Bowl loss. I am afraid the Pats win this one easy, 30 - 20. The Seahawks have to show up better than they did in the first 55 mins of their game against the Packers to even have a shot. If they show up with that weak sauce, they truly run the risk of getting blown out.  This Patriots team is not an amazingly dominant team by any stretch of the imagination, but they have a decent defense, a good running game that they turn on and off at will, and Gronk. All of those things typically cause serious issues for the Seahawks as if dealing with Brady and Belichick is not challenging enough. It might be a mistake to pick against the Seahawks after what they did to Peyton Manning last year and Aaron Rodgers last week, but I am going to do it. The Pats get it done in the big game even with the rightly inflated footballs.

Congrats to the Sheriff

Peyton Manning has now thrown the most number of touchdowns in the history of the NFL. He broke the record yesterday in style by shredding the vaunted and slightly overrated niners defense with a win on national TV.  The sheriff is well on his way to accumulating the numbers befitting the best QB in the history of the game - the new Dan Marino, owner of every single meaningful QB record in the book. And unlike Marino, he might have a shot at being recognized as the best ever because he has a Super Bowl ring as well. As a Marino fan, it pains me to see all his records get obliterated one by one by these QBs. The game has changed a lot and the records are not the same anymore. With that said, Peyton is a true legend and he is as good as Marino, if not better. He would have gotten to a lot of these numbers with or without the help of the modern NFL rules. It's truly a joy to watch the sheriff throw the football around when is on fire. He looks completely unstoppable most of the time.

Completing a pass in the NFL, even in this day and age, is hard and there are many QBs who remind you of that fact every Sunday. Just look at Andy Dalton's performance yesterday. But Peyton makes it look so easy. It's beautiful to watch the velocity, trajectory, and the accuracy on his balls. The only other QB that dominates the game quite like him in today's NFL is Aaron Rodgers. These two are in a class of their own and there is no real, near-term threat to Peyton's record because Rodgers started his career a little late sitting behind Favre. He may not have the time to put up Peyton's numbers despite his brilliance. The next legitimate threat to Sheriff's numbers might actually be the little Sheriff, Andrew Luck, who is also having an incredible season this year. Luck himself is so good that there is no regret in Indianapolis about letting Peyton go despite how good Peyton has been in Denver. Thats because Luck is just a younger, smarter, humbler, and more athletic version of Peyton. But he needs another 15+ years of sustained excellence to catchup to this record. Given the direction the sport if moving in, passing is only going to get easier and somebody will break Peyton's record sooner or later. But congrats to the sheriff here and now on his latest achievement.

Peyton and the Broncos look very much on track to get back to the Super Bowl. Then again, Peyton always looks great in October more so than in February. That is one knock against him. The team he lost to last year in the Super Bowl, the Seahawks, are looking rather mediocre and losing to teams like the Rams. The niners have a bunch of injuries and suspensions and are not looking great either. This opens up a great opportunity for the Arizona Cardinals who are leading the NFC West, the best division in the NFL, with a 5-1 record. The Cards have a couple of tough games coming up and have to still deal with the good niners, seahawks, eagles, and cowboys team in the NFC, but they are looking solid with a well-balanced offense and a stout defense. It should be a good stretch run in the NFC west. But then again, it always is across the NFL and thats why we like it so much as an entertainment option. Lets hope the Cardinals make it far this year. AFC West, NFC North, and NFC East are the other three divisions that are going to go to the wire. The NY Giants are not going to make it, but the SF Giants are probably going to win the World Series in 6 games. Thats my pick for the baseball World Series starting tomorrow.

Seasonal Transitions

It's been a busy summer and I have not been blogging a lot. I can't believe summer is already over and we are transitioning to fall. This time of the year means the sports calendar is pretty busy- not that the sports calendar is ever barren for us serious sports fans anytime of the year! We got our collective national obsession called the NFL in full throttle right now, college football is ramping up, and the MLB playoffs is flowing fine. We love the playoffs in any sport, but major league baseball probably has the highest bump in terms of edge-of-the-seat drama from the regular season to the playoffs. And especially this year, every other playoff game seems to be going extra innings. The drama started rather painfully for me with the Oakland A's blowing a 7-3 lead late in their wildcard contest against the Kansas City Royals and losing the game and the season in extras. That game was a microcosm of the last two months of the A's season and not a happy one at that. Their sudden and ugly reversal in fortunes can be directly traced on the calendar to the Lester for Cespedes trade - a trade I supported whole heartedly. Whether or not that's what caused the disastrous slide, we will never know. But I am ready to at least accept that the trade did not work. It was still a good gamble, but sometimes gambles don't work. Thats why its's called a gamble.

As controversial and equally loved and criticized as Billy Beane is, this season and that trade is the biggest blot on his resume to date. GMs, coaches, and other leaders will never publicly accept failure or that they made a wrong call, but I am surprised Billy is still defending the trade and is saying he will do it all over again. That's where I separate from Billy. I liked his effort and I supported his trade, but I will NOT do it all over again given that we now know what happened since the trade. If I am allowed to rewind time, I would rather try and see what happens with Cespedes. It can't be worse than what we saw since July. Billy says he saw both the Angles and the A's problems coming and thats why he did the trade. He maintains the A's would have missed the playoffs without Lester and the trade. I don't buy that only because the A's were not just a little different since July, they were flat out horrible. Sure, Billy and everybody else saw the Angles surging, but you can't tell me he predicted the A's would be this bad all of a sudden and you can't convince me that they would have been worse with Cespedes. But we will never know and the season is now over. Regardless of what Billy says, his resume is a little uglier because of this trade - fair or not. The harder truth to swallow for the A's fans is that this was their best chance to win it all and next year figures to be a lot more challenging. 

The Kansas City Royals, who put the A's out of their misery, continued their post-season brilliance on the road at Anaheim as if they do this playoff thing every year. Thats pretty impressive for a team that has missed the big dance for 25 straight years! I am totally on-board with them putting the Angles to rest in the ALDS. At least the A's fans don't have to deal with the Angels celebrating. The team across the bay from Oakland, San Francisco Giants, have won both their road playoff games as well much like the Royals and are back home to host and possibly eliminate the Washington Nationals. The Giants had a couple of horrible months much like the A's, but they picked a slightly better time for that bad stretch. They righted the ship towards the end of the season and are now rolling in the playoffs. They won a 18-inning game yesterday that they were trailing 1-0 in the 9-Th. You just can't put the Giants away that easily in this Brian Sabean era. A Giants-Dodgers NLCS will be epic, though the St. Louis Cardinals might have something to say about that. In any case, looks like we might have two wildcard teams in the championship series. The playoff games have been greatly entertaining and hopefully, the trend continues rest of this playoffs.

Billy Doubles Down

Oakland A's GM Billy Beane has already proved to us that he is all in this season, but he still found a way to double down at the trade deadline this week. Just like he did with the Jeff Samardzija trade when the A's were not really rumored to be in the running until Samardzija actually landed in Oakland, Billy scored another star pitcher in Jon Lester. This was a blockbuster, a rental, and not as popular a trade as the Samardzija trade was with the A's fans. I like both the trades and give Billy full marks as always. A's have been good in the past and Billy has gotten a lot of accolades, but they have always been a cute story and a surprising underdog. Never have they been the front-runner and a favorite to win it all and thats exactly what they are now, thanks to Billy's aggressive pursuit of star pitching. This is a  different reality for the A's and I love it as an A's fan. It's not that A's have not had star pitching in the past - who can forget Tim Hudson-Mark Mulder-Barry Zito, but they have not had trues aces since the big-3 were broken up. Even the 2006 ALCS team that lost to Detroit and a young Justin Verlander had Zito and Haren and good pitching like any other A's team, but Hudson and Mulder had already left town. Billy has finally decided he needs star pitching to win it all. Playoffs may be a crapshoot, but your odds go way up if you have Lester and Samardzija.

So why are the A's fans not unanimously excited about this trade? The reason is mostly emotional. Fans are a lot more opinionated and disappointed when big league stars are traded away as opposed to prospects even if that prospect is a stud like Addison Russell. In addition to that, all A's fans, including yours truly, love Yoenis Cespedes and thats who Billy gave up to get Lester. Cespedes is one of our own. He was the first, head-scratching, pleasantly surprising, power move by the new Billy we are seeing these days. Billy signed Cespedes for quite some money by A's standards and even outbid some big market teams for the little known Cuban transplant. Aside from being a rare, free market success story for the A's, Cespedes was good and has been the A's only highlight-reel talent. Whether it's winning the home run derby or doing well in the playoffs or throwing out unsuspecting Angels hitters at the home plate, Cespedes always had a flair for the dramatic and we loved and trusted him. But at the end of the day, he is a .256 hitter and a suspect outfielder, albeit with a hose for an arm. Also, the A's have lately been a light hitting team with good young pitching. But this year, they are leading the league on offense. So Billy is saying we should be able to lose Cespedes and still be offensively as good or even better than the last two years. And their pitching is going to be way better. Last but not the least, both Cespedes and Lester are going to be expensive free agents at the end of the season that Billy can't afford to sign anyways and if you look at them as mere rentals for the rest of this season, you have to like Lester over Cespedes. I wish Cespedes good luck and I will definitely miss him.

If A's fans put their emotional attachment to Cespedes aside and look at this rationally, they will agree with Billy. Sure, his hitting will be missed - especially considering he was the only consistent hitter the last two playoffs, but there is enough flexibility in this lineup to compensate for that and a pitching lineup of Lester, Samardzija, Gray, and Kazmir is priceless. As scary as it is to have the Angles and their 155 million-dollar payroll breathing down their necks for the division, the real thorn in the A's side has been the Detroit Tigers and their 162 million-dollar payroll. Billy has been doing a tremendous job of handling them both with a 83 million-dollar payroll, but he needs to beat the stellar pitching and MVP hitting of the Detroit Tigers in the playoffs and thats what his pitching pursuits this year is all about. Unfortunately, the biggest downer of the trade deadline for the A's came a few hours after they acquired Lester when Dave Dombrowski and the Tigers responded and stole David Price from Tampa Bay. It's a all-out arms race and that made the trade deadline fascinating and exciting. I do think both Lester and Price are a little over-rated and not quite in the class of Kershaw or King Felix, but then again, who is! These were still good trades and great arms to add to those two teams. I can't wait for a playoff matchup between Lester-Gray-Kazmir-Samardzija versus Scherzer-Price-Verlander-Sanchez.  I might still have to agree with the talking heads on TV and give a slight edge to the Tigers with their last three Cy Young winners and playoff experience, not to speak of Miggy Cabrera and that lineup. 

But first things first for the the Oakland Athletics. They are going to have to fight the Angels and their lineup all season long for the division, though the Angels pitching is a little suspect. These two teams have the two best records in all of baseball and how much more exciting can the rest of the season get for the A's. I wish them the best of luck! Nobody said winning the World Series is going to be a walk in the park. On a different note, the NFL pre-season will be off and running this weekend with the hall of game, but I wanted to give a special shout out to the MLB hall of famers inducted last weekend. It was a historically stellar class and congrats to all of the inductees. It included 300-game winners Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, slugger Frank Thomas and managers Joe Torre, Bobby Cox and Oakland's own Tony La Russa. Baseball historians are saying this was probably the third best HOF class ever.  We should definitely take a moment to appreciate these dudes we all saw perform in the recent past. Professor Maddux was the first baseball star I liked and my three-sport triumvirate when I started watching American professional sports back in the day were Dan Marino, Kevin Johnson, and Greg Maddux. KJ was the only one of those three that I had a team association with. The other two were from teams I didn't care about. Coincidentally, all three are considered under-performers as far as winning championships go. That probably says something about me and my values as well. But thats neither here nor there. The talent of those three was undeniable and congrats again to Professor Maddux on a hall of fame career.

He got this one right.

LeBron James got this one right. His "decision" in 2010 was a narcissistic disaster and the fact that he didn't realize that until 2012 only made it worse. People jokingly referred to his free agency this season as "indecision" or "decision 2.0", but he was determined to keep this one on the down low and handle things right. He refused to open his mouth the entire time. He didn't even publicly meet any teams except the heat - he owed that much to Pat Riley and the gang out of courtesy, if not anything else. And he didn't even have a press conference to announce his signing. He wrote a letter penned by Lee Jenkins on SI and flew away to Brazil. The letter (http://www.si.com/nba/2014/07/11/lebron-james-cleveland-cavaliers) was beautifully penned and ends with a "I am coming home" message which was music to many ears, including mine. The letter struck all the right notes and touched on everything relevant.

LeBron in that letter came off as a humble, loyal, home-sick, forgiving,  apologetic, superstar and he also made sure he drove the fan expectations down - a far cry from the "not 6, not 7" days. He gained a lot of fans back and a championship or two in Ohio is going to make him incredibly popular and we might finally have a legitimate threat to Michael Jordan for GOAT - Greatest Of All Time. He definitely knows what he is doing here and is trying to go in a different direction to build a unique legacy. He is way past just the ring counts - he is not winning that argument anyways since he has already lost 3 finals. MJ is 6-0 and LeBron is 2-3. But winning for his small-market home town and a resume along the lines of 4 championships and 8 finals appearance or something like that in addition to all the ridiculous stats he is already putting up is going to be hard to ignore.

He gave us all a feel-good, cool story and you don't have to be a Cleveland cavs fan to appreciate this.  Some of the LeBron apologists in the media were calling us all "haters" when LeBron was in Miami. They missed a basic point. Fans don't owe their fandom to anybody! I am not beholden to like LeBron or anybody just because he jumps the highest for his dunks or drops the sweetest dimes. Fans have every right to like or hate anybody for any reason as long as they keep it civil and don't make it personal. No fan asked to put LeBron in jail for leaving Cleveland in 2010, but he or she had every right to like LeBron in 2009 and change their mind and not like him in 2011. We see this everyday when athletes change teams and fans go from cheering to booing or vice versa just based on the laundry. We accept this, but somehow some people in the media didn't get why people disliked LeBron after the "decision." The "decision" took a feel good, small market, home town story away and some fans lost all incentive to pull for LeBron once he moved to Miami.

Fans don't owe the athletes anything. After all, fans pay LeBron, it's not the other way around. Customer is God in any business and it's LeBron's job to impress the customer.  The "decision" did the exact opposite - both the modus operandi and the end result were wrong in the minds of many fans. May be because the media is so involved with the sport and LeBron was clearly the best basketball player in the world, some people in the media couldn't see why people did not like or root for LeBron. Well, I hate the term "casual fans", but casual fans like or dislike an athlete for many reasons and the summer of 2010 gave them a truckload of reasons to hate LeBron. It's on him, not the fans. The league was not happy either for a completely different reason. The league made many changes in 2011 during the lockout just to prevent the kind of superstar conglomeration that the Miami heat created in the previous off-season.

One of the less appreciated aspect of the big 3 was how rare and unusual it was for 3 of the top 5 draft picks from the same draft to come together in their prime. This absolutely threatened the competitive balance and the whole logic of the draft in the NBA. Imagine a league where the top guys from every draft ganged up after their initial contracts and ended up in cities of their choice. Though, to be fair, these 3 did re-sign with their respective teams once after their rookie contracts before joining forces in 2010. But still, if LeBron, Wade, and Bosh could gang up in their prime, it would have probably been easier for guys from the other drafts to do it - given that the big 3 were superstars from a historically top-notch draft and it will cost a lot less and involve lesser egos with top picks from your typical, average draft. This scared the league as it threatened the system and the whole notion of parity and put too much power in the hands of the players. The NBA fixed it in a hurry, to the point that the same big 3 in 2014 faced much bigger problem re-signing with the heat though they were heat's own free agents this time around and had all kinds of "Bird rights".

LeBron has changed the culture of NBA free agency with his move in 2010 and superstars now are constantly trying to team up with each other. But the system has made it extremely difficult to do it. So after a lot of talk this off-season, stars were forced to go their separate ways. LeBron seems to always pioneer new ways to build a legendary career. He left town and teamed up with two other superstars who he was competing against in 2010. Now, he is going back to his small market, home team to try to win a championship for a downtrodden franchise. Few stars get a chance to do this. Neither MJ, nor Bird, nor Magic can claim to have done that. So he is charting his own course here. More power to him. It was interesting to see him hold the entire league hostage for a week without uttering a word. Everybody, including other stars were forced to wait for his move before free agency resumed again. He is wielding unprecedented power right now and wielding it well I might add. As a suns fan, I am getting ready to root for a suns-cavs finals every year. Some of us root for good things and the davids of this world against narcissistic things and the goliaths. I have no problem supporting LeBron now proving that us fans can change our mind and keep things fair if only the athlete does the "right thing". In the words of the king, "who am I to hold a grudge?"

In Billy we trust!

The Oakland Athletics have the best record in the Major leagues. They have won the AL West two years in a row and are looking even better this year. In 2012, they won the division with a nail-biting series at the end to put the heavily favored Texas Rangers away after the Rangers had gotten all the way to the World Series the previous two years. Nobody, even in the Bay Area, knew any of the players on the A's roster at that time. It was perceived as an amazing run locally and a fluke nationally. Last year, the A's won the division a little more comfortably, but they were still an anonymous team nationally and the local fans had barely gotten used to these guys. The national media was a little confused as to what to make of this team. There were no superstars, but the pitching was deep and terrific and the team just kept winning and surprising everybody. They proved 2012 was no fluke and that they are legit. Of course, both seasons, they lost to the more celebrated, higher-payroll, star-studded Detroit Tigers team in the ALDS in a five game series though they won the division over the more celebrated, higher-payroll, star-studded Angels and the Rangers. They came into 2014 with decent expectations - even nationally, and have been better than expected.

The 2014 A's have broken through. And Billy Beane went all in last week when he traded for Jeff Samardzija, one of the most sought after pitchers on the trade block. He did mortgage the future a little bit by trading his can't miss shortstop prospect Addison Russell, but he signaled finally that he wants to win the World Series and he is right in the middle of the window to do it. It may not have been a coincidence that the trade came right after a sweep at Detroit, but it was a coup nonetheless. A's were not rumored to be in the running for Samardzija, but they scored him early and comfortably. Billy decided to fortify a starting rotation that has already looked stellar so far. You could tell he was a little concerned about some of these arms - some young and some retread, slowing down later in the season. So he infused some new star arms into to mix. The pitching is so strong that the guy he demoted to the minors to create roster space was Tommy Milone, who had just pitched 6 scoreless innings! Billy is clearly getting ready for late October and he may not be done wheeling and dealing. He knows that Detroit will be around and their stars - both power hitters and pitchers, have to be neutralized. He now has the pitching to compete in any series against anyone and I love it.

The A's have often added to their teams mid-season when they were in contention. But usually, it's a rental for the remainder of the season and mostly hitters or bullpen help. Billy has rarely added a star starting pitcher via a trade and this has been a pleasant surprise to the A's fans. Samardzija started for the A's right away and gave them a gem of a start to go with a win. So life is all good in Oakland right now. Between their best record in the league, consistent winning over the last three years, Cespedes' highlight reel throws to the plate, and now the Samardzija trade, they are not anonymous anymore. The league knows them well and they have six dudes in the all-star game. They will be the fancy pick to win it all, though the Angels are breathing down their neck for the division. Billy has always maintained, I might add rightfully so, that the MLB playoffs are a crapshoot. Given his low payroll, all he can do is get them there and the rest is just luck and a pitcher or two getting hot or cold at the right moment. But this year, he has decided to do something about the crapshoot. He wants to go in with a bevy of hot pitchers and increase his odds of one of theoe guys getting hot and shutting some fools down in October. Thats exactly what he is going for.

Moneyball is so year 2000, but this team the last three years has been Billy's masterpiece and more impressive than even those moneyball teams. The A's have the fourth lowest payroll in the league and have been out-performing the big money spenders as always. The moneyball concepts have been co-opted by every other team and is nothing unique anymore. So Billy has found other ways to exploit market inefficiencies - he had to. He is loaded with pitching as always and some great signings and trades are behind it.  But platooning is the specialty of this version of the A's - the new moneyball if you will. The A's matchup their hitters against pitchers and rotate them in and out. The lack of stars gives them more flexibility to do this. Not only does it help the team to platoon these guys, it also puts them in the best position to succeed. Just to illustrate the point, they sometimes start three catchers. Aside from pitcher Scott Kazmir, outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, and now Samardzija, the other A's all-stars are third baseman Josh Donaldson, catcher Derek Norris, first baseman/outfielder Brandon Moss, and closer Sean Doolittle. Thats an impressive list of no-name stars who get the job done. It's just a matter of time before this platooning approach becomes the new fad and A's front office dudes like David Forst and Farhan Zaidi get GM jobs elsewhere, but Billy is trying to win one before all that happens. All he needs is just one World Series ring to cement his legacy as one of the best GMs ever and I hope he gets it done this year.

WWLD Summer

Time flies. I can't believe it's been four years already since the last WWLD summer. Once again, the biggest question of the summer is, "What Will LeBron James Do?" This will not be quite the emotional ride it was the last time around - unless you are a passionate Miami heat fan, which in and of itself might be an oxymoron given how flaky the heat fans usually are. Most of the NBA fans are watching this with a detached curiosity, almost daring LeBron to make this free agency the vulgar drama that it was the last time around. Unlike the last time when he was with the Cavaliers, he is the big, bad goliath now and the average fan doesn't have a dog in this fight. They are just waiting on the sidelines ready to pounce on him if he takes a mis-step. He better not make this a mess and subject us to another stupid "decision". If I was LeBron, I will keep this quick, clean, and quiet. As quiet as it possibly can be in today's twitter-fueled culture. It's already big news, but he cannot afford to mismanage it like he did last time.

As for what LeBron is actually going to do, obviously he has the world at his feet. It should be awesome to be the world's best at anything. LeBron is unquestionably the best basketball player in the world. The attention he demands and commands and the love he is going to get from teams coast-to-coast is going to be very flattering. The options are seemingly endless. There are rumors about how the clippers would be a great fit and how the rockets have all the talent in the world to surround him with. But seriously, does he really have that many options? Fans will have a field day if he goes to yet another team chasing a ring. You can call them haters all you want, but LeBron will be giving everybody even more reasons to hate if he goes to a third team in five years. It won't be illegal or even unethical by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure will be weird. It will be an unusual career path for a legendary athlete and will cheapen his legacy. Who exactly are we talking about here - the world's best basketball player or Jarrett Jack?

How many superstars, let alone legends, have played for three teams before they turn 30? I can't think of any. The closest I can think of in recent history is Shaquille O'Neal, who ended up playing for 6 teams and won his last championship in Miami in his early thirties. But even he was past 30 and had to move to Miami primarily because of the unusual drama with Kobe in LA. There have been cases of legends moving to other teams as they age and pursue that elusive ring or teams deciding to move away from aging superstars. Cases in point - Karl Malone and Charles Barkley in their old age or more recently, Peyton Manning. But Peyton had to relocate to Denver only because the colts decided to move on . Rarely does a legend move on his own from team to team in the prime of his career. LeBron will be pioneering a new trend if he does move, but it won't be the most endearing or legendary trend. If he goes to another team with a bunch of superstars, he will become the laughing stock again and rightfully so. NBA pros should be chasing LeBron for a ring, not the other way around. Given all that, I see only one of two destinations in reality for him. He either re-signs with the heat or shocks everybody and goes back to the Cleveland cavaliers.

He can sell the move to the cavs as a "home coming" and the fans will welcome him back with open arms, even the ones who burnt his jersey four years back. Cavs are considered a long-shot because they are a few years away from contending, but LeBron can take any four guys from the local YMCA to the second round of the Eastern conference playoffs. And the cavs talent ain't that bad - definitely young, but not bad. I would rather play with Kyrie Irving than Dwyane Wade at this stage of Wade's career. Granted, the cavs don't have Chris Bosh or a winning culture, but they do have the first pick in this year's draft and a bunch of young, under-achieving assets. LeBron can fix the culture just by showing up. I am not saying he would or he should go back to Cleveland but he could. Any other destination outside of Miami and Cleveland, he will lose a lot of face. The chances are, he will stay in Miami, but if Wade and Bosh pick up their expensive options, it's going to be very interesting and difficult for LeBron to stay. Miami would have no flexibility to improve in that case. Thats what makes this free agency fascinating. I still can't see him going to a new city, but then again, I have been wrong about his choices before and won't be surprised if I am wrong again.

Sweet Redemption

“We’ll do it this time," said Tim Duncan after winning the Western conference finals and earning the right to play the Miami heat in the finals. That quote made a lot of news because that pretty much qualifies as vulgar trash talking coming from the choir boys of San Antonio, especially Timmy. That was the ultimate indicator of how much the spurs were hurting from last year's disastrous defeat. We knew that last year's loss was a depressing and devastating punch to their gut, but the spurs are not the kind that wears their emotions on their sleeves or verbalizes them. But when Timmy spoke after the western conference finals, you could tell they were very driven to take back the gift they had given to the heat last year. Not only did they want to make it back to the finals and win it all this time, they wanted the heat and only the heat. And they got them. The spurs were not careful what they wished for and they didn't care.

Spurs knew they were better than the heat last year and were confident they have improved a bit this year. More than getting better, the loss last year was motivating and driving them everyday. The heat, on the other hand, had gotten slightly worse and couldn't even land the best record in the putrid eastern conference. LeBron had gotten better as always, but Wade had taken another couple of steps back in his accelerated journey "over the hill".  Is he the oldest 32 year-old ever? He is just four months older than Tony Parker, but plays like he is four years older than Tim Duncan. He is still good, but the drop-off from his peak is surprising and just too rapid for somebody who has not really been through devastating injuries. Wade was once considered MJ to LeBron's Scottie. Now, LeBron is carrying him every trip down the floor along with the other Miami scrubs.  

The first two games of the series were close and Miami even won one. The series went back to Miami and suddenly, the offensive floodgates were open for the spurs. They carved up the vaunted Miami defense almost every trip down the floor. The adjustment from last year was to move the ball swiftly and precisely to thwart Miami's swarming defense. Miami had no counter adjustment to offer. They did have some success stealing some of the passes in the first two games, but the spurs fixed that soon. Miami was done once Kawhi Leonard woke up from his two game slumber at the start of the series. The big three of the spurs didn't have to do much more than the next three -  Kawhi Leonard, Boris Diaw, and Danny Green as everybody was pitching in on offense. Diaw brought me back memories of his time with the Phoenix suns. 

The suns should have been winning championships eight years back with Diaw's skills surrounded by a team of passing, cutting, and shooting wizards. Diaw was working the same concepts in this series but with the wrong team. He got it done and so did the spurs as a team. Huge win for coach Greg Popovich, who deservedly won the coach of the year this season. The offensive flow was spectacular and Pop's defense never disappoints. His flexibility in transforming a Duncan centric post-up offense to a cutting, moving, 3-point shooting masterpiece deserves a lot of credit. So does his leadership in guiding the team past a devastating loss last year. It was a collective failure last year with Ginobli missing free throws, Pop pulling Duncan out at the wrong moments of game 6, and Duncan missing easy shots in game 7. They responded with a collective, team success this year. Congrats to everybody in the Spurs organization. They have sent LeBron into another summer of confusion and should keep us fans entertained. 

All Tied Up!

LeBron James is the best basketball player in the world - cramps or no cramps. Unfortunately for the Spurs, he showed it in game two to "steal" home court advantage. I have "steal" in quotes because home court is not going to be a big factor in the first six games of this series. Both teams are veteran teams with a lot of championship experience. Home court will probably matter in game seven, but the Spurs have to get there first. They would have loved to go up 2-0 - who wouldn't, but it's not the end of the world that they lost a game at home. The bigger question for the Spurs is, if LeBron had not cramped up in game 1, would they be down 0-2 and will the series be over for all practical purposes? That game was incredibly close when LeBron tightened up and couldn't move. If he had stayed in, it would have been another nail baiter like game two and it's anybody's guess which Spurs player would have missed how many free throws to blow it. Missed free throws continue to haunt the Spurs. After blowing game six last year with many missed free throws, they missed four straight in game two during a key fourth quarter stretch to make their life harder and LeBron's easier.

The Spurs probably are the better team in this series, but the best player plays for the Heat. And LeBron James is the best player on the court by a lot! If we shave ten years off of Duncan, he might come close, but not today. Given that, the Spurs have to play well as a unit and find out a way to slow down LeBron. This is where Kawhi Leonard comes in. He bothered LeBron a lot last year, but not so much thus far in this series. He has to make a bigger impact defensively. And the problem for the Spurs is, they are a little more dependent on Kawhi overall including his offense this year than they were last year as he is improving as a player every year. So if defending LeBron is affecting the rest of his game and is not slowing down LeBron either, the Spurs are in trouble. They need Sugar K Leonard to at least come through at one end. Let's see if the change of scenery revitalizes him in Miami. The Heat are not as good as they used to be because of Wade's decline. But they are no chopped liver either. Between Bosh, Ray, Wade, and others, they are still a load to handle. This series will be tight, long, and fun. I still like the Spurs in seven.

LeBron got a lot of heat for cramping up in game one. I didn't get that at all. It's not like he can control cramps or he was looking for excuses to sit out and lose that game to go down 0-1. What is he being criticized for? With that said, I was happy in someways to note that LeBron haters are still alive and well and are just waiting to come out of the woodwork. I have still not reconciled with him moving to Miami and continue to root against him. If I flashback four years to when he signed with the Heat, LeBron was clearly on track to becoming the best player in the world, if not one already. But Wade was a better scorer and  there were some question marks about LeBron's game. He had to endure some "Scottie Pippen" chants. Things are now completely different. He has erased most of those question marks and evolved into the undisputed leader of this Miami team. Wade has aged not so gracefully, but even a healthier, younger Wade has no shot at being anything more than a distant second fiddle to this version of the king. LeBron is a transcendent talent, but the reality is, his legacy is still hanging in a balance. A defeat in this series would send him to 2-3 record in the finals with a "cramps" cherry on top. Thats not good for his resume. All of this means only one thing - LeBron's towering presence will decide this series.

Predictable Four

Miami  versus Indiana in the East and San Antonio versus Oklahoma City in the West. Couldn't we all have guessed this at the beginning of the season? If there is one issue with the NBA, it's the predictability. Even with the ridiculously surprising first round of the playoffs this year, NBA is still the most predictable of all the leagues. NBA season is long and the playoffs are seven game series. This makes sure the best teams always bubble up. NFL seasons are shorter and the playoff games are obviously one game elimination contests. But thats not even the real reason for the parity, which has always been one of NFL's big charm. Very few Super Bowl champions even get back to the big game next year and the Super Bowl losers are typically lucky to even make it back to the playoffs. NFL's rigid salary cap and the large sizes of rosters are what makes it difficult for good teams to stay good and bad teams to stay bad. In the NBA, rosters are small and if you have a LeBron James, you are assured of playoffs every year. You add Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to that mix, life becomes real good and will continue to be good for years.

Major League Baseball does have a long season like the NBA that promotes consistency and predictability and does not have single-elimination playoff games - except for the new wild-card round. But it's still al lot less predictable than the NBA because it's just a different game. The starting pitcher means so much in that sport and one great pitcher on a roll can swing the series one way or the other all by himself. This happens a lot, especially in the wild card and five-game divisional series rounds. So NBA is clearly the most predictable. Thats not all bad. It's also the most "stable" playoffs, There is something to be said about the best teams always making it to the top. I have always thought MLB playoffs are the worst in this regard. After a grueling, 162-game season, a singular pitching performance can negate everything and foist a new champion on us.  Luck and random occurrences rarely impact NBA playoffs like it does other sports, though we do spend a lot of time talking about referees and calls.

We all knew these four teams will be where they are now. This doesn't mean the playoffs have not been fun so far or there is no reason to watch the regular season. After all, the sport does boast of the World's best athletes and the games - even the regular season games, can provide high quality entertainment. But the point is, we could be watching a Miami-San Antonio finals for the second year in a row. Miami most probably is going to make it to its fourth straight finals. At least thats what the league is hoping for as an Indiana finals will be a ratings disaster since the western conference finalists are already small market teams. The only surprise in terms of what we expected at the beginning of the season is that Indiana wanted and earned home court and Miami has to start the series on the road. Similarly in the west, OKC and San Antonio are the last two season's finalists and one of them is going to be there again. We could argue that OKC had the better prospects at the beginning of the season and it's a bit of a surprise they didn't end up with the best record in the west

Indiana took the circuitous route to get here with all kinds of inconsistency and drama since the all-star break, but they are here now with home court in their hands. They should have enough motivation and drive to get up and perform at a high level against Miami, the one team they hate and have been obsessed with for all the right reasons. Anything less than perfect basketball against LeBron and the Heat will send Indiana fishing with Kenny sooner than later. They better bring their A-game, which has been MIA for months now. Thats why I have to grudgingly pick Miami to win this series. I pick San Antonio to win the west. Serge Ibaka's injury is a bummer for OKC and us fans who wanted to watch a great series between these two great teams. It almost feels like the NBA could actually avoid injuries and put a better finals on the table if they stop playing all those regular season games and directly start the playoffs or the finals. Lets hope for a healthy and fun Miami - San Antonio finals this season. Of course, I won't complain if Indiana proves me wrong and eliminates Miami.  But Adam Silver and the TV channels will.