Beaneball

My rooting interests in this first round of the NBA playoffs:

• Orlando over Detroit. I've never really liked the Pistons, and I have a soft spot in my heart for Darko Milicic. Plus, who doesn't love Dwight Howard? I want to see him average 20 rebounds a game for the playoffs. EDIT: How did I forget Grant Hill? Such a sad career it's turned out to be, which only makes it easier to root for him.
• Chicago over Miami. I hate the Heat. Ugh. Dwyane Wade? He'd be a very good player, as opposed to the Next Jordan, if he didn't get so much referee love. Shaq? He's the reason everyone hates Kobe. On the other side, Luol Deng is fantastic, and while I'm neither a fan of Ben Gordon (shoots too much) nor Ben Wallace (Pistons taint), Deng + Kirk Hinrich is enough to overcome that. Plus, they're playing the Heat.
• Toronto over New Jersey. I like Jason Kidd (NoCal!) and Richard Jefferson, and Lawrence Frank is one of my favorite coaches. But the Vince Carter factor is just too much for me. I don't necessarily like the Raptors all that much, but I want them to send VC packing. (Unfortunately, after seeing Game 1, it looks like they're overmatched.)
• Washington over Cleveland. I know Gilbert Arenas isn't playing, but it's still his team, so I'll root for him. Plus Eddie Jordan = straight-up GQ. Also, I really don't like the idea of LeBron mailing in half a season and then winning anyway.
• Dallas over Golden State. I usually prefer underdogs, but not this time. I do like Mikael Pietrus, but I'm a Nowitzki fan, just for the sheer physical freakishness of watching him play.
• Houston over Utah. This is the hardest series for me to pick. In the end, though, I can't root against Yao very easily - see my above comment about Dirk. It's just so much fun watching him shoot.
• San Antonio over Denver. I hate David Robinson. Sanctimonious bastard. Austen and I agree wholeheartedly on this one. But, for all the games he spends sitting in the stands, he's not playing anymore, and his taint is finally beginning to wash away. And while Allen Iverson is truly a joy to watch, Carmelo is ... not. That silly slap-punch + backpedal (Stop Snitchin'!) just solidified it for me. I'm a 'Melo Hata. On the other hand, I'll always root for Marcus Camby (UMass!). But in the end, Tim Duncan's role in getting Joey Crawford booted out of the league and the idea that if Manu Ginobli hadn't been a basketball player, he'd have made a remarkable non-Euclidean geometer convince me that it's got to be the Spurs. Just so long as David Robinson doesn't show up on the TV more than twice per game.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 18:42 | |

This year, I sporadically updated the NBA Heavyweight Championship sidebar over there on the right. As I note, I blatantly stole the idea from Ken Arneson. He tracks the Heavyweight Championship in baseball. This year, the Heavyweight of the Year award (for the best record in championship bouts) goes to the team that also had the best record overall, the Dallas Mavericks. The Utah Jazz wound up holding the belt at the end of the year, beating the Rockets to take it, which, happily, sets up a first-round playoff matchup between the two teams. The belt will not be in question, however, as the Jazz are immediately stripped of the championship upon the start of the playoffs: the belt goes to the team that also takes home the trophy in June. I also have a further award to hand out: The Wussy Trophy, which goes to a team that manages to avoid entering any championship bouts during the year. This year there are two Wussy Trophies, one to (oddly) the Detroit Pistons and the other to the Charlotte Bobcats. On the other side, the Toughman Trophy goes to the Utah Jazz, for fighting with the belt on the line an astounding seventeen times, nearly 20% of their overall schedule.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 10:49 | |

Oakland scoring sixteen runs is good and all, but it always gives me a little worry in the pit of my stomach because it makes me get this irrational "They've used up all their offense!" feeling. Of course, sixteen runs in Texas is like six anywhere else, so it's also not that big a deal. (I guess that's an exaggeration. If that were true, Joe Blanton's three runs allowed would be equivalent to, what, like one?) Travis Buck, by the way, happens to have the best headshot in the entire league. See it here. More importantly, he's been a bit underpowered as a minor leaguer, so seeing him get his first major league homer is a nice thing. At this point, he's absolutely ripping the ball: 282/440/564. He's not making great contact (fifteen strikeouts in just 39 at-bats), but he's hitting the ball hard (seven extra-base hits to just four singles) and taking his walks and seeing pitches (10 walks (one intentional, three last night), 4.27 pitches per plate appearance). Twelve games is way too early to make long-term judgments obviously, but he's certainly doing everything the A's could have hoped he'd do. I'm happy that Milton Bradley finally came back yesterday. He managed to walk four times yesterday to go with his single. In total, the A's walked twelve times yesterday, with just five strikeouts. The ugly? Mike Piazza had three of those strikeouts as he wound up 0-6. Eric Chavez probably would have gone 0-6, too, except that Adam Melhuse spared him a sixth at-bat by pinch-hitting for him in the 8th inning. The defensive lineup in that last inning was a little odd: Melhuse was at third base (he's played there nine times in his career), Bobby Kielty was in center, and Marco Scutaro was playing short (which he probably plays the worst of his three positions - his range doesn't seem to be that great).

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 10:30 | |