Not Dead

Just had a lot on my plate lately is all...

2 young kids, both hilarious and amazing.
Major renovations to Douchebag Manor.
The economy has rediscovered my real job and has provided me with a way to spend a sizable amount of time.
And all sorts of other things that I've been busy with.

Nevertheless, I don't want this to die. I've been saving a lot of things to write about. Might have shorter posts, might have less interesting (to you) posts. Definitely not doing Gameday Recaps ever again. Probably won't even be watching it this year (I'd rather watch the 10:00 Premiership Match on FSC - more on that in another post). I am still interested in college football, but I have little faith in myself to add anything terribly interesting to the online discussion. Too many smart people do this with more diligence and intelligence.

I have noticed, in the past several months, that I do need an outlet for the bile.

So a welcome back to myself. But first, a few Cheers and Jeers:

Cheers to Carriage House Construction, for coming in under budget.
Jeers to the guy who broke into my car to steal $8 in quarters.
Cheers to the producers of Law & Order: Criminal Intent for adding Jeff Goldblum, who wears pretty awesome specs.
Jeers to the producers of Law & Order: Criminal Intent for making a very short season, but mainly for bringing back Det. Wheeler when they could've easily written her off.
Cheers to Hop City Beer, a fine establishment for a beer lover.
Jeers to Hop CIty Beer, for being located on the West Side, rather than in Georgia's Beer Capital, Decatur.
Cheers to the dessert waffle at Leon's Full Service.
Jeers to the Crunchie candy bar, and to me for forgetting that I didn't like it each time I'd try it again.
Cheers to my son's ticklish feet.
Jeers to inexact MRI readings.
Cheers to Tommy Hanson's breaking ball. Reminds me of a tall Maddux when it whips back over the plate.
Jeers to the Marlins, because they keep winning with a mediocre run differential.
Cheers to the triumphant return of the Guardian's Football Weekly podcast, and the melifluous cyncism of Barry Glendenning.
Jeers to the sad departure of Candace Keener from the How Stuff Works Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast.
Cheers to upcoming book releases I'm excited about: Simon Kuper's Soccernomics, Jon Krakauer's Pat Tillman book, Bill Simmons' basketball book, Jeff Ross' memoir, Joshua Ferris' follow up to the exceptional Then We Came to the End, Chuck Klosterman's Eating the Dinosaur.
Jeers to the above-referenced business getting in the way of reading, and lots of other stuff.
Cheers to having two amazing kids that never stop making me happy.

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Bile Dump

Stuff that's bothered me for a while...

1. The way Alicia Keys draws every syllable out when enunciating in that American Express commercial.
2. SportsCenter's "Who's Now" gimmick.
3. Bob Wickman
4. Ringtone Subscription commercials
5. The fact that I'm not in London today, considering the Tour de France starts there, Wimbledon is just finishing, the Live Earth concert, British Grand Prix, etc.
6. When local sports talk radio focuses on "parenting" issues.
7. That SportsCenter sometimes shows WNBA highlights instead of MLB scores (and highlights or anything else, really).
   
8. Zach Braff's voiceover on Wendy's commercials.
9. And on that note, the Wendy's commercial where the dude in the Wendy Wig is kicking a tree. Am I missing something? Is "kicking trees" some sort of regional colloquialism or idiom I'm not aware of?
10. The way that Starz (which I don't get) has lots of movies I'd like to watch, while HBO (which I do get) has only TV shows I like to watch.
    
11. I know I'm not the first to say this, but Rafael Nadal's shorts.
12. The way that VH-1's host and hostess felt they had to spend a minute explaining Ricky Gervais' comedy during the Concert for Diana.
13. The taste of White Hawk IPA.
14. MTV's Scarred - the show and all commercials.
15. Wasting too much reading time on a weak book that you know is bad, but you refuse to put down on principle.

More later.

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Instant Karma's Gonna Get you

So I won't be the first or the last to rub salt in the wounds of Bill Simmons in regard to tonight's NBA Draft Lottery. But I did think it was nice to post the following I wrote (with a little editing) in an email to Messr. Elkon of Braves & Birds fame in reference to this column on who "deserves" the top picks in the draft.

As for Simmons' karma column... well, anyone can shoehorn what you want into a formula that's got completely subjective criteria. Really, the Hawks have less history than the Hornets or T-Wolves? Also, see how team history and traditions fits right into "Loyalty/History" and "Rigging Potential". Why not just have a category on its own of "titles won before anyone who watches basketball was born", give the Celtics a bunch of points and be done with it. I have no idea how he sees Milwaukee as having any worse luck than Atlanta (or more front office competence or better loyalty/history for that matter). But most of all, I love that Simmons' list of bad luck for the Celtics is this:

• Len Bias - died before most of the guys to be drafted were born. Irrelevant to today's team (of course it was a tragedy, but it was 21 years ago).
  
• Reggie Lewis - died 14 years ago. Would be 42 years old today and not playing basketball. Irrelevant to today's team.
  
  
• Demolition of the Boston Garden - not sure how that's bad luck. They moved into a bigger arena with luxury boxes, allowing them to compete with other franchises on a level playing field. If the Celtics were still playing in the Garden, there's no doubt in my mind that Simmons would call it bad luck or unfair and that the Celtics aren't able to draw free agents or pay them enough because of the lack of revenue from the arena. Also, they moved out of the Garden 12 years ago. Irrelevant to today's team.
• ML Carr era - OK, is this bad luck or is it front office incompetence? You can't get positive points for bad luck and negative points for management for the same exact guy, can you?
  
• The Duncan Lottery - OK. Bad luck. You've got one.
• The Pitino Era - See ML Carr above. Front office mismanagement is not bad luck.
• The Paul Pierce Stabbing - This happened in 2000, and Pierce did not miss a single game because of the stabbing. In the 2000-2001 season Pierce set personal (at the time) career highs for points, assists, rebounds, minutes, 3 pointers, blocks, and FG%. Yes, it is terrible that he got stabbed. But by all reasonable accounts, the stabbing had little or no effect on his playing ability or the team's strength.
• The Vin Baker trade - Front office mismanagement, not bad luck. Also, the guys they traded to get Baker (Kenny Anderson, Vitaly Potapenko, Joe Forte) amounted to virtually nothing from there on out. Baker ended up being a bum, but so did the guys they gave up.
  
• Red Auerbach's death - When an 89-year old man who smoked cigars his entire life dies, that is not bad luck. Arguably, Auerbach's long life and accomplishments with the Celtics was extremely good luck
• Doc Rivers' second life - front office mismanagement, not bad luck.

So basically Simmons idea of "bad luck" are a bunch of things that are so outdated as to be irrelevant to the team today or were the sole result of poor front office management. The only item that is bad luck was Duncan going to the Spurs via the lottery.

Compare to the Hawks: Jason Collier dies 2 years ago (and would probably still be involved on the team). In each of the last two years (and 3 times since 2000) a team with a better record has jumped them in the Lottery. And their Bostonian Celtics fan co-owner forced onto the team forces ownership into extensive litigation, handstrings front office from signing players to extended deals.

That's far more bad luck in recent years than Boston can claim. Also, the Celtics lost the Lottery in Duncan's year. That sucks. But this "bad luck" is only amplified because they had the most ping pong balls in a year with a good draft (which is luck). The Hawks had the most balls in a year when the best player in the draft was only Bogut (and still lost it). Objectively the bad luck (not getting the #1 pick when you had the most balls) is the same.

Every team in the lottery has had some bad luck, but lots more bad management. Boston is no better or worse than loads of other teams. The Celtics were no more deserving than Atlanta, Seattle, Portland or anyone else in the lottery.


Of course, now we'll get to see bimonthly columns on how unlucky the Celtics were in this lottery for 12 months.

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