Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Knicks Car Wreck

Watching the is like watching a car wreck. You can't stop watching but it's so gruesome!

Take this Steve Francis trade. Francis isn't a bad player, but is he going to improve the Knicks? Now they have Francis, Jamal Crawford, and Marbury all fighting for playing time in the guard position. If Francis and Marbury play alongside each other, they'll be undersized at the guard position. Also, they are both are point guards who can score but aren't known for their passing ability.

Larry Brown, who supposedly emphasizes defense, now has Marbury, Francis and Jalen Rose, all players who are considered to think more about scoring than defense.

Contract-wise, things aren't much better, the trio of Francis, Marbury and Crawford are locked up through 2008-2009 season. As an aside, before this trade, 4 of the 12 players on the worst team in the league are locked up through 2008-2009!

The funny thing is, even though I don't want watch this team play much basketball, I'm totally interested in the soap opera outside the court! I don't know who to blame / credit for this mess but Larry Brown, Jim Dolan and Isiah Thomas have put together the best sports version of "unintentional comedy" I've ever seen.


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Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Thirst Quencher

Over one year ago, I pointed out that had a silly marketing campaign where they labelled their water bottles with the tag line, "Thirst Quencher."

Here's the image again.



This absurd marketing line seems to have spread to their sister company, Deer Park.



Water: a thirst quencher. I think the New York Times should put a label on that says, "reading material" and clothes should include a label, "so you don't go naked."


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Sunday, February 05, 2006

Knicks Acquire Jalen Rose

The KFB Sports corner continues...

The Knicks acquired Jalen Rose and a first round draft pick from Toronto (Denver's pick) for Antonio Davis.

I understand the general philosophy of this trade - get rid of a player who isn't going to make an impact on the team in general because he's older and has an expiring contract (Davis), acquire a first round draft pick (because they gave away theirs - see Eddy Curry trade), and get a player with a high, but expiring contract next year (Rose). But at the same time, this strategy hasn't been working!

Let's say the Knicks never made the Curry trade. They would have had at least the fourth pick in the draft, would have had Tim Thomas's expiring contract to trade away and not have to take on Jalen Rose's max contract. They'd also still be bad.

This sort of trade is what has gotten the Knicks into their current hole. I was trying to do some calculations with the help of HoopsHype. If they hadn't made the Curry trade, Kurt Thomas trade or Jerome James signing, I think they would have been under or close to under the cap next year. Isiah's got to have a little patience instead of just prolonging this wait to get under the cap. No single player, short of LeBron James, could make this team instantly better.


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World Baseball Classic

With all the players backing out of the World Baseball Classic in March, and questions about how well people will pitch because they haven't warmed up, perhaps MLB should consider moving the classic to November, after the World Series. That way, if a player got a minor injury they could recover in the three months before spring training. The pitchers would also be in shape in general and have less risk of injury.

I think the World Baseball Classic might be a cool exhibition but the quality of play can't be that good, or at least not as good as it could be.


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Super Bowl XL

Unfortunately, I won't be able to see the game tonight. Rather than grace you with an awful pick, here are some questions I have about the game in general:

1) In two weeks, can't you convince yourself of anything? People have invented all sorts of reasons how different things could happen. There's one group that thinks for sure that Pittsburgh will blow Seattle out. Another group thinks Seattle has a chance and can win easily. With two weeks to think about it, I think people can come up with any reason for anything, and convince themselves it's right.

2) Is Pittsburgh's running game that good? It seems like from the playoffs they've done very well throwing short pasess. Their average rush per carry in the regular season was 4.0 yards, which is actually way below Seattle's 4.7.

3) Is the 6th seed in the AFC really better than the 1st seed in the NFC? That's what the oddsmakers say. Granted, if Roethlesberger had been healthy the entire year, the Steelers may not have been #6 (after all, they were 15-1 last year).

4) Will there be any good commercials? Usually there's a ton of buzz for the commercials to look out for. Not so with this game. The pre-game buzz has been fairly low even for the game itself. Did you know Jerome Bettis grew up in Detroit, MI?

5) How good is Seattle's defense? They are 16th in yards allowed and 7th in points allowed. Their rush defense was 5th overall, was that because they were 25th against the pass? Their defense was pretty poor a year or so ago, can a team really turn it around that much in one year?

6) Does it make a difference that Pittsburgh plays a 3-4 defense? Seattle's offensive line is supposed to be one of the best, but they haven't had to match up against a 3-4 this year except for Houston in week 6. The speed and coverages of the 3-4 are a little different than the 4-3, so could this be an edge?

7) The coaching match-up of this Super Bowl may be between two Hall of Famers. Bill Cowher would beat a lot of his demons by winning this one. Mike Holmgren would go down with a select few in professional sports as coaches who have won championships with two different teams. You can check that out - many coaches have brought two different franchises to the championship level but very few have won two with different teams. Of course, the coaches don't play on the field.

8) What happens with the shirts that say "Super Bowl Champions" but are for the losers. For example, there must have been a ton of "Super Bowl XXXIX Champions - Philadelphia Eagles" merchandise. Does it just get destroyed? I think that stuff should be given to the homeless.


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