A quick suggestion for whoever is looking for something to do tomorrow afternoon: Carmelo Anthony and his charitable foundation are putting on a 3-on-3 basketball tournament at Cloverdale Courts for the second straight summer. It runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and besides the 40 teams of boys and girls from area rec centers playing double-elimination, there will be "family day'' activities like carnival games, contests, a three-point contest, food and music, plus local players and celebrities. 92Q will be broadcasting live throughout the event. Expected to attend: Sam Cassell and new Memphis Grizzly (as of midnight tonight, when the draft-day trade becomes official) Rudy Gay.

If you haven't been to Cloverdale Courts - at the corner of Cloverdale and McCulloh, across from Druid Hill Park - check it out; there might not be a nicer outdoor court in the city. Best of all - it's all FREE. Just be sure to drink lots of water and bring sunscreen; apparently we're done with the rain, but it will be in the 90s all weekend and last time I looked, there wasn't a ton of shade there.

If you do go, and you see Gay, ask him if it bothers him that he fell to eighth overall the other night, or if the fact that he's on a playoff team (unlike most of the players picked ahead of him, and a few that went after him) makes up for it. Try not to ask Carmelo about the draft, though - the player the Nuggets gave up their No. 1 pick this year for, Kenyon Martin, got kicked off the team midway through their first-round playoff series loss to the Clippers and might get traded this summer.

Posted by David Steele at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

It's over in New York. Two rounds, 60 picks, and Nik Caner-Medley wasn't chosen at all. Not that this is completely relevant here. But it means that nobody from Gary Williams' first post-championship recruiting class was drafted in the NBA. As aggravating as these recent teams were, that's still a surprise. I mean, Danilo Pinnock from G.W. was chosen (second round, Mavs), and he was ridiculed almost immediately for entering the draft, much less for staying in it.

Not to obsess too much on second-rounders, but everyone had better watch out for Serbia's Damir Markota, who the Spurs picked second-to-last. The Spurs have a knack for these kind of picks.

Intriguing second-rounders (at least in the sense that you know their names): Leon Powe, Cal forward, drafted by Denver and sent to Boston - he was once homeless, as a young teen in the East Bay, became a prep all-American, yet spent a good chunk of his late high-school and college career rehabbing knee injuries. When he's healthy, he's as nasty a 6-8 power forward as you'll ever see. Dee Brown, Illinois guard, Utah - had he not broken his foot during pre-draft workouts last year, he would have been a first-rounder last year. Yet he ends up playing next to Deron Williams, his Final Four backcourt mate. Ryan Hollins, UCLA center, Charlotte - he's 7 feet, and that's about it.

And one whose name you probably don't know: Vladimir Veremeenko, 6-10, 230, from Russia, and the second and last Wizards pick. Not exactly looking for immediate help from this draft, apparently.

Back to the first round. Portland has made, as of this writing, six trades, and ended up with four first-round picks: LaMarcus Aldridge, Brandon Roy, Sergio Rodriguez and Joel Freeland. The latter two - a point guard nicknamed Spanish Chocolate and a 7-footer from England who has barely been playing the game for long - probably won't even be in this country this season. But so what? The first two alone make it a great draft. They just have to be isolated from the rest of that roster, except for Juan and Steve, so they won't get infected.

The Celtics now have Rajon Rondo and Sebastian Telfair as their point guards, and they have Brian Grant's bloated contract to replace Raef LaFrentz's bloated contract. And there's still talk of a possible Iverson trade. The speculation is that the Celtics are gathering pieces to get other teams involved and sweeten the pot for the Sixers. Hmmmm.

You really can't argue with Toronto sticking with Andrea Bargnani at No. 1. It's a matter of trusting Bryan Colangelo to know what he's doing. Of course, three years ago we all trusted Joe Dumars when he took Darko Milicic at No. 2. But every report says that Bargnani is way more advanced than Milicic was.

There still probably isn't one player taken tonight that a team wouldn't trade right now for a shot at Greg Oden next year. Too bad those high school kids were "ruining'' the league.

It has to be said: Jay Bilas needs to stop doing the draft. Where he is on college basketball, in studio and as game analyst, is fine. But he hasn't changed since ESPN started doing the draft. Every player who left early, should've stayed in an extra year for seasoning. Every senior is ready to go and is going to surprise everybody. Thankfully, there weren't any high school players for him to call certain "busts,'' "flops'' or "big mistakes.'' International players are still a complete mystery. And most painfully, every black player is "athletic'' - although he doesn't restrict himself there, because he must have used "athletic'' five times when describing Miami guard Guillermo Diaz. The white players, meanwhile, regardless of their origin, have "questions about their athleticism.'' Honestly. Replay him.

To top it off, while discussing Paul Millsaps, who was unfortunate enough to have played at Louisiana Tech and thus was immediately compared to Karl Malone, Bilas said, "but Karl Malone was a top-five pick.'' Bzzzzzp! Wrong answer. That's only one of the NBA's draft legends, that Malone went 13th overall in 1985, one spot after the Bullets took the infamous Kenny Green. See, you made us go there. Next year, Jay will tell us about how Michael Jordan was taken BEFORE Sam Bowie. Of course, the draft analyst everybody will pile on will be Stephen A. Smith, just out of habit; never mind that no matter how loud he is, he knows more than probably everybody else on that set combined. Meanwhile, Dan Patrick made fun of the foreign draftees' names a disturbing number of times.

To recap: Rudy is with Memphis, where Houston traded him after taking him eighth overall. Adam Morrison to Charlotte at No. 3. J.J. to Orlando at No. 11. Duke teammate Shelden Williams to Atlanta at No. 5 (they'll find a point guard somewhere). Wizards take Ukranian 7-footer (maybe) Oleksiy Pechenko. The Knicks don't disappoint, by taking Renaldo Balkman and Mardy Collins in the first round, while Aldridge goes No. 2 in the spot they traded to Chicago for Eddy Curry (martial law is in force throughout the five boroughs). Portland made six trades and might have dealt at least one pick for himself. And the Terps get shut out.

Good night.

Posted by David Steele at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
                    

So, who was that the Wizards picked? And what in the world was Isiah Thomas thinking? And were the Nets laughing hysterically when they saw what the team across the river had done?

First things first. Oleksiy Pecherov is 21, he's from the Ukraine, played professionally in France (on the same team Tony Parker played for, for what that's worth), and he is listed at either 7 foot or 6-11 depending on who you ask, and at either 210 or 220 pounds. Here is his official NBA bio, and a profile from Draft Express; there also is a ton of info on him on eurobasket.com, for a fee.

It's a little hard to imagine he's going to crack the rotation. It might be more of a case of him cracking the nightly inactive list, taking the place of Andray Blatch or Peter John Ramos. According to his bio, he can shoot (yes, a European big man who shoots from the perimeter - what are the odds?) but also "isn't afraid to play physical.'' That might make him the starting center. It would be more reassuring if his bio said, "isn't afraid to stop LeBron from driving the baseline in the final seconds of overtime in a pivotal playoff game.''

In the Wizards' defense (to use a word they're not familiar with), getting a rotation player who fits their greatest need at 18th overall is highly unlikely. If he becomes - and get used to this comparison for the rest of eternity - the next Dirk, then no one will care that he went 18th and that no one knew much about him on draft night. Who had ever heard of the Spurs' late second-round pick in '99, some guy named Emanuel Ginobili? You have to think that way now.

Meanwhile ...

Renaldo Balkman? No, not Rolando Blackman; they tried him already. And not Ronaldo from the Brazilian soccer team. The Knicks got Renaldo Balkman, whom Maryland fans might remember from the NIT two years ago, if you haven't completely repressed the memory of the NIT by now. He played for South Carolina, which reached the NIT final four at Madison Square Garden two years in a row, which means he's a winner (!). It also means Isiah didn't have to spend money to scout him, which might have played a factor. He's listed at 6-7 but is being described on-air as being 6-5. He also has been described in various places as one of the guys who was crazy to leave school early. Apparently not.

ESPN's on-air blurb read that the area for Balkman that needs work is "offensive skills.'' Uh oh. ESPN.com's Chad Ford refers to him, twice, as "a poor man's Darius Miles,'' which could mean that he has the potential to change into street clothes at halftime of a game, or come to practice with liquor on his breath.

Suffice it to say that the pick was not popular among Knicks fans. The reaction definitely will go down in New York draft lore. They apparently wanted one of the remaining Connecticut guys, like Marcus Williams or Josh Boone.

Then, two picks later, the Nets took their two consecutive picks (including one acquired from the Clippers). They took Marcus Williams and Josh Boone. High comedy all around.

Jerry West just finished talking about getting Rudy Gay, although he issued a disclaimer about it because the deal isn't official yet. Seriously, aren't a lot of GMs wetting themselves right now? Not to date him too much, but The Logo was the only guy who thought Kobe was ready coming straight out of high school.

True story: during that draft's build-up, in 1996, Dave Twardzik, the Warriors' GM at the time, talked about how he had seen Kobe at one of the high-school all-star games, and Kobe really didn't stand out. If he hadn't had his name and jersey number, he wouldn't have noticed who he was at all, he said. If he had been a 7-footer like Kevin Garnett, the big high-school pick from the previous year, that would have been a different story. Twardzik, of course, then picked Todd Fuller, one pick ahead of Kobe. He was fired a year later.

Important update: Randy Foye is now in Minnesota; the seventh pick turned out to have been dealt twice, and Allen Iverson wasn't part of any of the packages. Portland moved up to get Brandon Roy. Oddly, everyone was saying the perfect local-attraction pick for the Blazers would have been Morrison (from Gonzaga), and it ended up being Roy, from Washington, who's better in every area except outside shooting. When in doubt, take the guy who got a cheap double-technical in a regional semifinal and still nearly carried his team to a huge upset, over the guy bawling uncontrollably in the final seconds.

Another important update: Philly fans apparently panicked when they saw Thabo Sefolosha next to the Sixers' name. He's been dealt to Chicago - for Rodney Carney. That should calm everybody down, unless we find out in a few years that Thabo Sefolosha is the Swiss Dwyane Wade.

First round is over, and if anyone knows what the Blazers ended up doing, let me know. Every single trade seems to have involved Portland. And yet Miles seems to still be on the team.

Posted by David Steele at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Hello, Rudy?

I got out of Camden Yards right around the first pitch of the second game, got through the traffic coming in for the game, fought traffic downtown, got to the Sun office, did a quick radio interview (Mark Gray's show on XM and on WOLB-AM 1010), turned to the TV, saw that they were three picks into the draft, watched three more picks, and then realized ...

Rudy Gay is still on the board.

That just goes to show you. Draft prognostication is one of the most pointless ventures ever imagined. Earlier in the day, before I headed to the ballpark, ESPN was airing reports on the half-hour about Rudy possibly being the first pick by Toronto, but that it probably was a red herring, with the Raptors trying to smoke out some trade offers. Fine. But still it was being dangled as a possibility that Rudy could upset the experts and go first overall. He was shooting up the charts, we were being told.

Wrong. As in, wrong direction.

Now, I can't be absolutely sure of this, because it was a little busy in the newsroom at that point, but I'm certain I saw Gay bent over, face in hands, liquid coming from the eyes, as he sat in the green room. Uh oh. How does he get past that? Easy: by hiring Adam Morrison's agent. Is that a gutsy campaign or what? Take the most humiliating moment of his career, the one that probably will chase him forever, and have him defend it as if it was something honorable, even desirable. It's the passion, he says. Right. If he were a little less passionate, he might have noticed that the game wasn't over yet and that he had a chance to win that game and be a hero. But that's just me. I'm cynical like that.

Meanwhile, speaking of surprises, wasn't everyone sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that the one guy Michael Jordan wouldn't take for the Bobcats at No. 3 was ... Morrison? I honestly don't know why I pay attention to draft predictions. You notice I didn't make any. I'm not crazy (most of the time).

Anyway, Rudy went eighth overall, to the Rockets - and, if I heard correctly, was dealt to Memphis in a deal that included Shane Battier. I hadn't thought about it that deeply, but if there ever was an ideal team for him, it's the Grizzlies. That style, that system, should let him flourish. And if Jerry West likes him, every team ahead of him should be second-guessing itself.

As for our hero, J.J. Redick, going 11th to Orlando isn't a surprise; that's about right in the middle of where he was predicted. The Magic apparently are one of those teams he says isn't worried about his herniated disk. We can at least assume he will play for them this season; that's more than the Magic can say about their No. 1 from last year, Fran Vasquez - he went back to Spain right before training camp started.

One more thing to ponder before I head home and dissect the Wizards' pick at No. 18: interesting that the Trail Blazers liked Randy Foye coming out of Villanova at No. 7 overall more than the point guard they took out of high school two years ago and who thus has two years of experience in the league, Sebastian Telfair. Not exactly a vote of confidence about Telfair's development.

More later ...

Posted by David Steele at 9:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Physically, I'm here at Camden Yards for Game 1 of the day-night doubleheader, where in the middle of the fourth, the Orioles lead the Phillies 4-0. Tejada has an RBI single, and has lined into a double play.

Mentally, at least part of me is on the NBA draft tonight. That's crazy, isn't it? This isn't even one of "those'' drafts, with a Shaq or Tim Duncan or Patrick Ewing on hand. It's apparently going to come down to Andrea Bargnani or a trade at the top. But I don't care. I'm into it. I didn't get into it until after the Finals were over, but now, it's going to be interesting viewing.

One big reason the interest is rising: believe it or not, this week, NBA TV has been running Classic Drafts from the past. Two of them jumped out at me: 1985, when Ewing was chosen, and 1986, for obvious reasons. 1985 stood out because of how insane the New York fans were from the moment the draft went on the air. There never has been a reaction like that since for a top draft pick. It was as if they were introducing the new Pope. That broadcast also reinforced how far coverage of these things have come in 20-plus years - broadcasters, graphics, clips, everything. It was the essence of cheesiness.

As I mentioned in a column last week, the first time I had ever dropped everything to watch the NBA draft was the year Len Bias came out, and I definitely didn't watch it with a group of other people before that, and haven't done it since. Won't do it tonight, either. But as I watched earlier this week, I was stunned at how much detail I remembered. I clearly recalled all the debate at the start of the broadcast about the "big'' Sixers-Cavaliers trade that got Cleveland the No. 1 overall pick. At the same time, you'll recall, the Sixers traded Moses to ... the Bullets! Huge day in Philly. It only took them about a decade and a half to recover from that. So that was, by far, the story of the day.

As for all the Lenny stuff, it came back to me instantly that before the draft began, he was sitting in a row with the other top picks (including Chuck Person, who for some reason decided to wear a white tux). I remembered his light-colored suit, his walk to the stage when his name was called, his shaking hands with David Stern, his interview with Rick Barry. I was a little surprised to see Red Auerbach talking so much on-air, live, about Bias and about pretty much every other pick being made. Has that happened with anyone that big on draft day since? That's like Bill Parcells going on air every two or three picks and critiquing everyone else's choices. But it was no big deal back then. That was when Red revealed that Larry Bird had told him he would report to rookie camp just so he could play with Bias as early as possible. It was pretty depressing, but it was fascinating.

Also depressing: seeing the likes of Chris Washburn, William Bedford and Roy Tarpley get called. And Pearl Washington, Walter "The Truth'' Berry and Hot Plate Williams. Nice draft class. On the other hand, I had completely forgotten that the Cavaliers got Brad Daugherty, Ron Harper and Mark Price in that draft. If not for Michael Jordan, the Cavs might have been in the Finals every year for a decade, and the core of that team came from one draft that was a piece of garbage for just about everybody else participating.

Middle of the fifth, O's up 6-0. Brian Roberts has finally gone deep! First home run since last August. Tejada is stroking it today; he just doubled into the rightfield corner. He's 2-for-3, and his other at-bat was a shot straight to Ryan Howard that doubled up Mora.

BUT ... Tejada got up slowly at second just now. He's staying in. Stay tuned.

Posted by David Steele at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

In the first few days after Ozzie Guillen dropped his infamous F-bomb on Chicago Sun-Times columnist and "Around the Horn'' regular Jay Mariotti, Mariotti appeared on Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio and said, among other things, "I'm not the story.'' Never mind, for now, that he was on a national radio show talking about it, that he wrote about it in the following days and talked about it on his national TV show.

He's not the story, he says. In this instance, he might be right. In fact, his father is the story. Mariotti's father wrote a letter to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review which was published in Sunday's paper, which defended his son, and which showed that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The elder Mariotti obviously can be as condescending and patronizing as the younger. For example:

"Here's the way it works, Chicago fans.

First, a journalist's job is to report stories, although you may not always agree with it. Even when a columnist is opinionated, if facts support a story, be they negative or complimentary, the column should be written.

What fans don't seem to understand is that journalists are not, or should not be, homers. Unfortunately for writers, and rightfully so, fans are loyal to teams. But loyalty can be blinding when your team is criticized.

Sadly, too many in the Chicago media shy away from, or sugar-coat, stories that tend to otherwise infuriate team owners or players and, in too many cases, the fans.

So, some of the media in Chicago avoid the slings and arrows of potentially severe and harmful retaliation (personal attacks and threats) by the powers that are. Their vendetta is subtle and ongoing.

This is not speculation on my part, but is occurring as I write and has been for years concerning Jay Mariotti.''

Thanks, Pop, for the journalism lecture. I like the fact that, in his mind, if you, as a sportswriter, don't rip the home team mercilessly at every opportunity, whether it's deserved or not, you're a "homer.'' Or you "sugar-coat'' things. Or, basically, you're a coward.

The elder Mariotti also played the First Amendment card, and while issuing his manifesto about courage, he completely glossed over the idea of a critic facing those he criticized.

But, parents, you know? What can you do.

Just to catch everybody up, here's the column that set Guillen off. Here's Mariotti's response to the original Guillen reaction, and another one three days later (remember, he's not the story). Here is the reply by Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune (our sister paper) on Mariotti's penchant for not attending games, especially when he rips someone. Here is a pretty clear-headed analysis of the issue, from both sides, by Mariotti's Sun-Times colleague Rick Telander.

And here is a defense of Mariotti's philosophy by ESPN.com's Skip Bayless who, oddly enough, actually does attend games and talk to people when he rips them. He worked for our competitor in San Jose when I was at the San Francisco Chronicle, and while he did his usual stir-it-up stuff there, he also reported like crazy and never, as far as I could tell, kept "at arm's length'' from his subjects. So it's an odd position to take, unless he's just doing it to be contrarian as usual.

More: This is what John Rocker thinks of it all. Note to Guillen: if John Rocker has your back, it's time to re-think your position. Of course, technically, Guillen already has re-thought it and apologized for the word he used, just not for his feelings about Mariotti. And, technically, Rocker and Jay Mariotti's father agree, too.

Apparently, the lesson from all of this is: this is a free country, and I ought to be able to shout the most vile, filthy things imaginable at you, as long as you don't do it to me.

One more thought about sensitivity training and Ozzie Guillen: is Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated enrolled in that class?

Back in April, Reilly devoted his back-page column to quoting Guillen in dialect, a tactic most forward-thinking journalists stopped doing about 50 years ago. Basically, he made the manager of the defending World Series champion sound like Speedy Gonzalez. Example: "Mang, eet don't take no geenus to play baze-bool. Eet don't take no Bay Roo. Jew jus fukkus.'' Followed by an English translation. Followed by a completely facetious, "Wait! Don't go! I'm not making fun of him!'' Followed by quotes from others around the organization about how that foreign-type guy don't speak the language too good, including the owner, who offered up this side-splitter: "I understand him pretty well. Until he asks for a raise.''

And, when Guillen brought up the completely logical and defensible point that American baseball writers had better start learning Spanish if they want to not only cover the sport better but prosper in an increasingly-bilingual society, Reilly quoted him in that hilarious south-of-the-border accent and then dismissed him with, "Good point,'' before continuing the ridicule.

In all fairness, Reilly may have apologized for that. If he has, please let me know and I'll apologize myself.

To his credit, Reilly had the guts to insult Guillen and his entire culture directly to his face. Had Mariotti chosen that path, maybe none of this would have happened. Conversely, had Guillen recognized that the F-word means a completely different thing to a large segment of American society than it does to him, maybe none of this would have happened, either.

Meanwhile, I hope, deep in my heart, that these findings from a survey recently completed by the Associated Press Sports Editors do not play a role in these sort of incidents taking place.

All that's certain is that if Guillen is the only one in this entire tale who is judged to have needed sensitivity training, then it was all a big waste of time.

Posted by David Steele at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Score one for old-fashioned print journalism, sort of. If you've heard within the last few hours that Larry Brown has been fired by the Knicks - not bought-out, not offered his resignation, but flat-out fired - that Isiah Thomas is replacing him and that the Knicks are refusing to pay Brown, you might have run for a TV if there was one nearby. However, if you turned on ESPN News, you'd catch only an update from a Knicks beat writer from a New York paper at the top and bottom of each hour, with the usual highlights package running the rest of the half-hour. Meanwhile, the other two big networks on the worldwide leader has World Cup soccer. Fair enough; the U.S. is playing, after all (and losing).

Thank goodness, then, for NBA TV. Oops, maybe not. There, you're getting more WNBA highlights than you could ever want in life. The crawl underneath informs us that - are you ready, are you sitting down - Miami won the NBA title and Dwyane Wade was the MVP. Can we cut to the studio or something, get some info, a little analysis, throw us a friggin' bone? It's the NBA's network, it's one of the flagship franchises, it's right down the street from the league office. OK, now there's a Brown item on the crawl, very bare-bones. Still, not a good showing so far.

So, where to go for info? The sites of the New York papers. Here's the Daily News story. Here's the Times story. Here's our sister paper, Newsday. Sorry, the Post only has the wire story. But in their defense, the guy talking on ESPN News was, in fact, the Post's Knicks writer. So that's one in their favor. And all three sites were reporting in this morning's papers that something was going to happen soon.

Meanwhile, speaking of the worldwide leader, as of right now, the website only has the wire story so far, too.

Final from Germany: U.S. loses 2-1. You know, the No. 5 team in the world, the ones getting so disrespected by everybody, the ones who were gonna show everybody they were for real. They got exactly one goal on their own in three games (the other was an Italy own-goal) and are done. If the U.S. had just gone over there and played and lost, instead of talking so much smack, this wouldn't look nearly as bad as it does.

Suggested headline: Going, going, Ghana. You're welcome.

Posted by David Steele at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

So much to talk about from the NBA Finals, so little space ... wait a minute, this is cyberspace.

* Never, at any point this season, postseason or even preseason, did I think the Miami Heat were the best team in the NBA. This really is one of the most shocking NBA championships I've ever seen, as a professional or as a fan. I don't think I was this stunned when the Bullets won in '78. Going into the playoffs, a lot of people were claiming that the Nets had the Heat's number and were going to take them out. The Heat were no better than the fourth choice going in, behind San Antonio, Detroit and Dallas, and there was reason to believe Phoenix had a better chance, too. And does anyone want to admit now to propping up the Lakers as a championship sleeper? Anybody? C'mon, you know some of you did.

* Speaking of which, the networks missed a golden opportunity by not setting up the Kobe-cam for the night Shaq won. Of course, Shaq spent most of the post-game celebration sticking the knife a little deeper into Kobe and the Lakers, saying that Pat Riley is the best coach he's ever played for, and that Dwyane Wade is the best teammate he's ever had. But you know what? Shaq was entitled. That whole lovefest for Kobe in L.A. after Shaq left was sickening. So much for "Shaq has never won without Kobe.'' With some tweaking here and there, Shaq might have four more years of complementing Wade and winning titles, like Kareem did when he officially turned things over to Magic after the first three titles. No more 40-and-20s, a lot more 9-and-13s, but that should be good enough. At least until LeBron gets a team around him.

* On the subject of teammates: Antoine Walker and Jason Williams have championship rings, and Patrick Ewing and Charles Barkley don't. Wha-? Nice on-the-floor shimmy by Walker during that game last night. Lovely, classy touch.

* I guess I should mention the team Miami beat, the Dallas Mavericks, at this point, five paragraphs in. But if I do, I'd have to mention Phil Mickelson, too, because they're in a heated battle for biggest chokers of 2006. Only three teams have ever blown a 2-0 Finals lead. One was Wilt's first Lakers team in 1969, the series in which the old Forum in L.A. had balloons in the rafters and the team had printed up victory celebration plans for Game 7 against the Celtics. One was the 76ers, one of the most talented yet looniest teams ever to get to the Finals - Dr. J, George McGinnis and Bobby Jones, but also Lloyd (soon to be World B.) Free, Darryl Dawkins and Joe (Jelly Bean) (Kobe's father) Bryant. They lost to Portland in 1977, in Bill Walton's last moment of near-perfect health. Now Dallas, which just flat-out gagged, no matter what Mark Cuban would like you to believe.

(Brief digression: With this U.S.Open, maybe we will now recognize the difference between who is the best - Tiger - and who we deeply, passionately want to be the best - Anybody But Tiger. Once upon a time, everyone wanted Karl Malone to be the NBA MVP, even though it clearly was Michael. They finally gave him one, but when they did, he proceeded to blow those free throws in the Finals to set up Jordan's game-winner, then a year later get his pocket picked by Jordan to set up that game-winner. Maybe that makes Phil the Mailman. The Tiger-Phil rivalry actually is looking a lot like the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, which since 1920 is 26-1. Tiger vs. Phil is 10-3 - and, it seems to have been forgotten, the last two for Tiger were just a year ago. It also seems to have been forgotten that Tiger has never flat-out blown a major, period, much less the way Phil did. A little perspective, please. Thank you. End of digression.)

* No team in recent memory had looked as good from the start of the playoffs right up until they were one game and six minutes away from the title - and then looked so bad from then on. Worse, the Mavs not only choked, they whined. And the fans showed no class, booing throughout the trophy presentation. Yup, those cheatin' refs made the Mavs score seven points in the fourth quarter of Game 4, made them blow a double-digit lead in the last six minutes of Game 3 when a 3-0 series lead was in the bag, and made Dirk score two points, with no baskets, in the fourth quarter of the biggest game of the Mavs' season, at home. Everything I said about Dirk after that 50-point game against Phoenix in the West finals, I take back. That might have been the most fraudulent 29 points ever scored in a series-clinching game, and I have no doubt that some people will say, "Hey, Dirk did his job, look at the numbers, you can't pin this on him.'' Legends don't run away from the ball and force passes to teammates in the clutch, especially not passes to the likes of Erick Dampier running down the lane. Yet, to take a little of the blame off of Dirk, we must take note of Jason Terry missing his last 11 shots last night. The moral: never trust accomplishments against the Phoenix Suns ever again.

* Of course, not a mumblin'  word about the officiating came from the mouths of anyone in Dallas while they were up 2-0, being unofficially crowned champions by everybody watching, and reportedly making parade plans. But all of a sudden, Avery Johnson got loose. Jerry Stackhouse got loose. Cuban got loose. You'd think they were traded midseason from the Seattle Seahawks, they were doing so much finger-pointing at the guys with the whistles. Never once did anybody say, "You know, considering how games are being called and how the NBA is punishing players for cheap shots, Stackhouse really screwed up by even committing an act that might get scrutinized by the league office.'' Nor did anybody say, "There are better ways to make a point about officiating than the owner running onto the court, cursing out the commissioner and saying he's fixing the games.''

* That being said, the officiating stunk in these playoffs from start to finish; Cuban's and the Mavs' mistake was in claiming that it was all directed at them. Please. It was by far the biggest blight on a great postseason, and it's highlighting the fact that it's accepted as gospel that games are not on the level, that David Stern is some big puppeteer working strings to get the winners and ratings he wants. Across the board, the NBA has to get the officiating repaired, and that's the only way that perception will go away. Not even hitting players, coaches and owners with massive fines or suspensions for public criticism of the refs is going to get it done, although Stern needs to start digging into pockets more often, because the worst of the conspiracy theories are coming from within his own league. He's about a decade too late in seriously cracking down. This is the only league that has to deal with this. Baseball players apparently are ingesting every substance short of wild antelope blood to improve performance and tilt the playing field, yet the NBA is the one viewed as crooked.

* I knew it would hurt. But I have to endure it. Pat Riley was right. Ouch! Ouch! Stop it! He made the right moves. Ow! He was the right coach to get it done. YEOW! Uncle, uncle! I give up! By the way, I was relieved to find out that the famous covered bowl in the Heat locker room was filled with cards and photos. I was terrified of what it might have been. The Master Motivator knows no real limits in his tactics. It could have been fingers, for all anybody knew. Or something more disgusting, yet team-oriented.

* Last but not least ... Dwyane Wade isn't Michael. But he doesn't have to be. What he is, is good enough. And if he keeps being that good, maybe the two-decade-long obsession with The Next Michael will end, and players can go back to being players.

Posted by David Steele at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

This has been a very painful, emotional week, and I personally am glad the day has come. The closer the 20th anniversary of Len Bias's death approached, and the closer the deadlines came for the column I wrote for Sunday's paper and for Monday's paper, the more the memories trickled in. I was a little surprised at how clear my recollection still was of what that day was like, and I hope that Monday's column reflects that. I realized after I wrote the one for Monday, that it physically hurt to write them.

I also realized that I have gotten a feeling of dread, unease, even pain in a way, every year on that date. It's just one of those dates that always will be significant. Last year, before Game 5 of the NBA Finals in Auburn Hills, a group of writers from the area sat around at dinner and talked about it, realizing that the 20th anniversary was a year away. The conversation started because one of us said, "Today is June 19. You know what day that is.'' Everybody knew.

For the Monday column, I made myself stick to the feelings of that single day. To think about everything that happened after that would have been a lot to gather and turn into one column, and it would have taken up the entire section. All of those recollections came back easily, too. I decided not to go to the funeral at the chapel, because I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it. When I saw the pictures of his brother Jay, walking behind the casket as it left the chapel, crying almost uncontrollably, I knew I was right. I did go to the memorial service later that afternoon; Cole was packed, and it all seemed unreal that it was packed for that reason, of all things.

I remember Mrs. Bias speaking, and I remember Jesse Jackson. At the time, everyone was still willing to believe that all the reports about cocaine being a factor was a mistake, or a lie, so when Jesse talked about how the children should grieve, but they should also learn, the atmosphere got really uncomfortable. After the service, I went to the Diamondback office, where several other staffers were gathered, and listened live on the radio to the medical examiner's press conference. He confirmed that the heart attack was caused by cocaine. From that moment on, it seemed as if we would hear the phrase "cocaine-induced death of basketball star Len Bias'' every day for the rest of eternity.

When Maryland made the Final Four for the second time in 2002, I wrote about that for my former paper, the feeling of finally being able to admit to having graduated from Maryland with pride instead of trying to hide it. Living and working in Florida, New York, Connecticut and California during the 16 years that separated Len Bias's death and Maryland's national championship, it gradually became impossible to tell where you went to school without an interrogation, a smart-ass comment, even a display of sympathy for having lived such a wretched existence. Duke alumni anguished over the stain the lacrosse scandal is leaving on your school's name - you should consider yourselves lucky. You have no idea how bad it can get.

The sadness never went away, though, not even with that championship and the return of Maryland's overall reputation. I knew that when I spoke to Len Bias's mother on the phone last week, and when I met her in person when the photographer took the photo that ran with Sunday's column. It was, in fact, the first time I had met her. I got slightly choked up on the phone, and also when I met her and told her, 20 years after the fact, how sorry I was about her son (and about Jay). That probably was slightly unprofessional. Being any other way, though, would have been fake.

By Monday afternoon, there should be a special edition of my weekly podcast up on the Sun website and on iTunes. Four of us here at the Sun - three who were at Maryland while Bias was there, and the fourth who was at Howard at the time - will talk about this anniversary. It will cover a lot of ground. Listen in if you get a chance.

Then it will be time to rejoin the sports world that Bias left 20 years ago. Back to the Finals, the World Cup, the U.S. Open and baseball - where, it turns out, drugs are the story of the day. Apparently his death and the lessons from it didn't sink in there. Different drugs, but still.

Posted by David Steele at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
                    

Congratulations to the 2006 NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, who completed the sweep that everyone had predicted on Sunday night, finishing off the pathetic, doddering Miami Heat 2 games to 2.

I mean ... uh ...

Will we never learn? Didn't we just go through this last year, when San Antonio blew Detroit out of the water in Games 1 and 2 at home and everyone figured the series wouldn't even go back to San Antonio? It went back, for a seventh game, and might not have if Robert Horry hadn't hit that three in overtime in Game 5 in Detroit and bailed the Spurs out.

One last time: wins in the first two games at home do not a series victory make. These are the Finals, not the first round between the No. 1 and 8 seeds.

Now, we have to ponder this: does a team that scores SEVEN POINTS in the fourth quarter of a Finals game even deserve to win a championship? And these are the Dallas Mavericks, not the Knicks of the early '90s. Obviously, they're not playing the Phoenix Suns anymore. The Heat tried to give them Game 4 in the fourth quarter when they insisted on leaving Gary Payton in the game and turned the ball over seemingly every time they went upcourt - and Dallas never even made a game of it. And Dirk Nowitzki's newfound status among the elite is in serious jeopardy. That was horrendous. This is the same team that was six minutes away from putting a headlock on the series with a 3-0 lead, and two nights later, when it's crunch time again, they shoot like your kids' midget CYO team.

Meanwhile, Shaquille O'Neal appears not to be a dead man walking after all. Maybe Wilt Chamberlain was disrespected more routinely during his career than Shaq is, but I'd need to see proof. Fat, old and lazy is what lots of people who ought to know better were saying, not just after Game 2 when he scored five points, but after Game 1, and even after Game 3. Lazy - that's the one I'm not getting; I have no clue about where that comes from. For whatever reason, he is not ever supposed to be injured or exhausted - or just aging or beaten up after 14 NBA seasons.

Enough already. It's as if people think they're watching Benoit Benjamin or Michael Olowokandi instead of a guy who's going for his fourth championship in six trips. Even when he was putting up 40 and 20 with the Lakers, Kobe was supposedly always "saving'' him in the fourth quarter, and now that he's putting up 17 and 12, it's as if he's picking up his paycheck while wearing a stocking cap over his face. He actually can still play a little bit. Not as well as Dwyane Wade - 36 points, on a supposed bad knee - but then again, at this point, who can?

Oh, and he hit his free throws. Just like he said he would, back when people were saying he's nothing but a 7-1, 330-pound albatross that teams have to win in spite of. Sometimes, you have to laugh.

It's not going to help the Mavs to mug the Heat players to slow them down. Maybe the weirdest exchange of the night was the debate between Mike Breen and Hubie Brown, throughout the numerous replays from several angles, about whether Jerry Stackhouse's cheap shot on Shaq on that third-quarter breakaway was a flagrant foul or not. They should have thrown a flag on it, never mind call a flagrant. You've got to love how fast Pat Riley got to the other end of the court to keep players apart. He's still got the quicks. He was doing that 10 years ago, back when the Knicks were brawling every other night, including playoff games.

Riley, as this unfolds, is looking like a great coach again, while not making Avery Johnson look like less of a coach. Johnson can't take his players' shots for them. Then again, it was Riley who said (in this series and lots of times in the past) that a series really doesn't begin until the home team loses. That hasn't happened yet, and apparently his players got the message while everyone else was imagining the sight of David Stern handing the trophy to Mark Cuban.

(Including me, by the way. That's the exact conversation I was having with a friend while driving home Tuesday night, having left a restaurant where I had watched Game 3 because the Heat looked done going into the fourth quarter. I was crossing Pratt Street when that friend said, "Hey, Miami's winning and there's only three seconds left! But Dirk's going to the line; it's probably going into overtime.'' Fateful last words. Yes, I was wearing a headset while I was driving and talking.)

Having said all that, Dallas is still the better team, should still win the series, and probably will win Game 5 in Miami, because it's almost impossible for the home team to win the middle three games of the Finals. Yet seeing them win two straight, the way they did to start the series, is difficult, so let's say again that it's going seven. To match the number of points the Mavs scored in the fourth quarter. It's going to be a while before I get over that. The other night, Stackhouse scored that many in about 10 seconds at the end of the first half, on two shots. I mean, c'mon, seven points. That's unfathomable. That goes against everything this postseason has been about. It's just wrong.

Posted by David Steele at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

If you know anything about the website truthaboutduke.com - and the main thing you need to know is that it was started and is operated by a Maryland grad - then this shouldn't have surprised you. I just hopped on it this afternoon, but I'd guess that the item, photo and link to the news of J.J. Redick's DWI arrest went up within seconds of the story getting out.

First reaction upon hearing the news: J.J. Redick is the luckiest man on the planet. If you're as big a lightning rod as he is, and you're going to do something that otherwise would attract every last miserable amount of attention you'd ever dread, you're better off doing it the day after the quarterback of the Super Bowl champion wipe out on a motorcycle without wearing a helmet. Ben Roethlisberger is Redick's human shield.

Duke haters are, of course, drinking this up. But outside of the obvious polarizing reaction to anything Duke, certain facets of this are really troubling on a lot of levels. For instance, here's what Mike Krzyzewski said in a statement released after the early-Tuesday morning arrest: "J.J. knows he made a mistake and regrets it. He represented the very best in college athletics and exhibited outstanding character at Duke the last four years. He is and will continue to be a credit to the Duke basketball family. As his friend and coach, he has my total support.''

This is the statement released by Redick's agent, Arn Tellem: "J.J. is an outstanding student athlete of the highest character. He is an exemplary role model and is a credit to his family and the entire Duke community. This is nothing more than an isolated incident. Everyone who has come into contact with J.J. as a student and an athlete knows the quality person he is and will continue to be.''

This is the statement Redick released through the university: "I regret what happened last night, and want to apologize  to my family and the Duke community for the incident.''

And this, roughly, is what I heard Mike Golic, the co-host for the Mike and Mike in the Morning national radio show, say this morning: "He doesn't have a history of doing anything like this. He's a good kid, he made a mistake, he'll probably learn from it and never do it again. I can't believe this will affect him (in the NBA draft).''

Wow, where to start?

First, Redick isn't a student-athlete anymore. The reports so far from this story say that he graduated last month, which is good. But that also means that he's a grown man in a grown-up world, a man auditioning for his future employment and trying to impress his employers, i.e., the NBA.

The NBA, like every other pro sports league, doesn't just rely on gushing TV commentary to evaluate a player; they do their homework, they investigate backgrounds, they do interviews with the players in person and with everyone close to him, and they take into consideration DWI arrests two weeks before the draft, a week after the big group tryout camp and in the middle of individual tryout season. It may very well be the very first time Redick has done something like this, but he picked the absolute worst time to do it, and anyone who thinks it isn't having any effect on how teams view him now, is crazy. And truth be told, no one knows what bubbles to the surface when checks on potential first-round picks, especially lottery picks (which he reportedly might be), are done. Teams can't afford to give a player they're investing that much in the benefit of the doubt, or to take the coach's or agent's word for it. We as media (depending on whether you consider a radio talk-show host "media'') shouldn't either.

It's not unreasonable to believe that if this were a football player from Florida State, or a basketball player from Cincinnati, that some talking head wouldn't be giving us the old "he's not a bad kid, he just made a mistake'' speech. And if that coach - a Bobby Bowden or a Bob Huggins - trotted out the lines about the best in college athletics and a credit to the program, eyes would be rolling from coast to coast. This coach deserves no less.

Also, as a graduate and as someone on his own trying to make the NBA, why is Redick issuing statements through Duke? Why is "the Duke community'' invoked by everybody involved here, including his agent? There's nothing wrong with supporting him publicly - after all, Redick made a lot of money for that school and its coach over his four years - but when does the umbilical cord get cut?

Last, and most important, it's way past time to stop referring to drunk driving as "a mistake.'' Calling your coach Melvin instead of Mike is a mistake. Taking a two-pointer when you've down by three in the final seconds is a mistake. You can almost say that walking out of 7-11 with a bag of Cheetos in your hand and forgetting to pay for it, is a mistake. If push came to shove, you could claim that getting behind the wheel without realizing how buzzed you are is a mistake.

But driving drunk and then doing a U-turn in the street to avoid a police checkpoint, as police have said - that's not a mistake, that's a crime. An intentional one. With potentially fatal consequences. And it says a little more about "character'' than either Krzyzewski or Tellem would like to believe.

Maybe this won't affect Redick's NBA future, and maybe it will slap some sense into him. For his sake and for the sake of other drivers, let's hope so. But getting coddled like this by people who are supposed to be helping him can't possibly do him any good. He doesn't need public apologists, he needs someone to tell him he'd better clean this up.

Posted by David Steele at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Hey, instant poll time!

Which team in the last 24 hours absorbed the absolute worst, most humiliating, most soul-crushing, question-your-very-reason-for-playing ass-whupping?

* The Orioles, skunked by Francisco Liriano (seven innings, one hit) in that 4-0 smackdown in Minnesota yesterday afternoon?

* The Miami Heat, bludgeoned by the Dallas Mavericks in Game 2 of the NBA Finals last night, down by 27 in the third quarter, Jerry Stackhouse (!) driving in the final nails in the final seconds of the first half, making the most irresistible force in the Finals over the last decade sit on the bench nearly the whole fourth quarter, and inspiring him to blow off the post-game interviews and eat $10,000 in fine money?

* Or the U.S. Soccer team, who told everybody they'd be crazy if they held to the old stereotypes about them and didn't give them a shot in the World Cup, pummeled 3-0 by the Czech Republic a few minutes ago?

Well, at least the Orioles' debasement wasn't on display for the entire nation to see. For that matter, the beating the Heat took might have been missed by a lot of people because of the late tip-off; for certain, many don't know the final score because they likely were smart enough to turn it off and go to bed during the third quarter. Hey, Shaq was done by then, so why did we need to stay up?

But we ran a question of the day not long ago asking about skipping work or taking a long lunch to watch the big U.S. opener. Just goes to show you, if you're going to disrupt your life, job security and sleep patterns for a World Cup game, find another country to follow. Nationalistic fervor aside, this team ain't worth the effort. Go back to the office, eat your three squares, and if you must, hit the pub to see Brazil or Italy or Trinidad and Tobago.

Granted, this was the first game. Group play is far from over. But c'mon. Has so much talk ever been backed up by so little? All this "Watch out for the U.S.A.'' talk. Between all the talk of how our soccer is being disrespected around the world, and the condescending explanations by hardcore soccer fans about why we haven't embraced the sport like every other nation has (something to do with us being too stupid to understand it and having too short an attention span to appreciate it), there definitely is an annoyance factor following the U.S. team to Germany. It really needed to show something. What it showed is that it can do a pretty good impression of a team that doesn't belong.

The hard numbers say the United States was ranked fifth in the world coming into Cup play. They sure didn't play like it today. Even if you know the mere basics about the sport at this level, you know that it's really, really hard to lose 3-0 in the World Cup, unless you just fielded a team for the first time last year. What a disaster.

You know, on second thought, I could make this just a general list of meltdowns and include Michelle Wie. But that would be cruel.

Posted by David Steele at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Not to pat myself on the back, but the consensus here (and it's clearly a biased crowd) is that the networks did miss out on a good one. If the LPGA truly had the profile it wants to have and thinks it deserves, then Se Ri Pak's shot on the playoff hole would be recognized as one of the clutch golf shots ever. Believe it, if the winner at the U.S. Open next week pulls one off like that, he's an instant immortal. Yet with that, the playoff in general, and the way Michelle Wie was in it until the final three holes (and had everyone sucking their breath in on that putt on 18), this tournament would have been a memorable one for fans all over, not just the ones on site and the ones tuning in on the Golf Channel.

Speaking of fans on site: attendance for the final day was 28,400, a notch below Saturday's high.

Another take on the vets schooling the kids: three shared the best score of the final day, 68. Two were Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb. (The other was Cristie Kerr, who hopped into that tie for fifth with the Golden Child.)

From the winner: she admitted that last year, for the first time in her career, she didn't like golf. "I said I don't know why I keep going to the golf course; it's all stressful, I don't even have fun out there, and that makes me a lot upset on the golf course.'' After playing almost non-stop her entire career, she said, she was burned out. Now, obviously, she's back. This is her fifth major win. It just goes to show you how long she's been around; it seems like you've heard her name forever, but she's just 28, and started playing on the tour just eight years ago.

From the marquee name: sometimes you forget Wie is just 16, because she looks so mature (not to mention tall). Then she drops a line like this: "I feel like my (putting) stroke is just awesome right now.'' Duuuuuuuude. Like, you know? What-ever. Yes, I'm an old coot, leave me alone.

On that topic, when Wie left the scorer's trailer to talk to us hacks (and I don't mean just Damon Hack, the New York Times golf writer), she stopped for a moment to dry her eyes. At least it looked that way. She might have been dabbing sweat. But she definitely was focusing on her eyes. That was a brutal finish, so you really can't blame her if she teared up afterward (or, as we now say, went Frank Robinson on us, or Adam Morrison on us).

One more observation before I head home and try to catch the fourth quarter of Heat-Mavericks: a group of Morgan State students - Rashad, Steven and Paul - were following Wie all day, and had been there all weekend. They recognized me at the 10th green, and we walked the next few holes together. Some of the talk was about Wie. Much more of the talk was about Steve McNair. It's now official: I have been asked about McNair by someone in town every single place I've gone, every day since the trade went down. Don't ever again pretend that the Ravens don't run this city. Hope McNair knows what he's gotten himself into.

Posted by David Steele at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Now, that was some drama. Se Ri Pak and Karrie Webb went to a sudden-death playoff after Pak, playing brilliantly all day, three-putted the final hole of regulation and let Webb catch her. But Pak made up for it on the first playoff hole - she got her second shot to roll to within about three inches of the hole. Webb left hers about 20 feet away, and her last-ditch try broke to the left early. All Pak had to do was get to her ball without a mountain lion rushing onto the green and dragging her away. Putt goes down, she wins.

Just after Pak had nearly blown her chance at 18, Michelle Wie putted her way right out of her first professional win. Down by one, at 8 under, with three holes to play, she shot into the rough on 16, then watched her fairly short par putt spin around and out. On 17, she missed a birdie putt that would have tied her for the lead. Then she got into trouble on 18 off the tee - two troublesome tee shots in three holes - got to about 18 feet, went for the tie and, with the masses around the green screaming like lunatics, watched it head straight, then slip by at the last second. She was winding up for a Tiger-style fist pump as it headed on its way, then had to pull it back. It was tough. She then muffed the comebacker as well to finish in a tie for fourth at two back.

To sum up, the old schoolers pretty much decided that the youngsters weren't going to take over yet. Pak and Webb have 12 majors between them, and have now split the first two this year. And Annika Sorenstam decided her tournament hadn't gone down the tubes, either, shooting a 68 to finish three back.

More later ...

Posted by David Steele at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

A.k.a., the Wie Watch. In case you were wondering if this final round of the LPGA Championship is that big a deal, big enough for me to rant about CBS blowing a chance to televise it, you should know that the New York Times' golf writer made the trip down this morning, specifically because Michelle Wie is in position to win it.

Wie tees off, with Korea's Shi Hyun Ahn, in about 45 minutes, the second-to-last pairing. The last pairing is the co-leaders, Pat Hurst and Ai Miyazato. Wie, Ahn and Mi Hyun Kim are one shot back, three others two shots back. In a group of five at three shots back is the winner of the year's previous major, Hall of Famer Karrie Webb, who took the Kraft Nabisco in April in a playoff with Lorena Ochoa (who's in the group two shots back). Yikes.

Annika Sorenstam, by the way, teed off an hour ago. She's six back, mainly because of that two-shot penalty yesterday when she moved part of a divot, and if she makes a run it'll be a miracle.

None of the early starters is making a move so far. The earliest are just finishing their round.

It's worth pointing out that of that group of 13 within three shots of the lead, there are exactly three Americans: Hurst, Wie and Sherri Steinhauer. Eight of the 13 are of Asian descent, including Wie and Hurst, whose mother is Japanese. The Asian media covering this is so numerous, it almost looks like the Yankees clubhouse, or courtside at the Houston Rockets' games. The impact on the game here and in their homelands is astonishing. The best players are either really young, have roots in the Pacific Rim, or both.

In other news ... the party's on at the White House, I assume. In the final minutes of their World Cup match, it's Mexico 3, Iran 1.

Posted by David Steele at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

It's windy and getting windier, nippy and getting nippier, there's still a couple hours left of daylight, and Pat Hurst still leads a few holes into the back nine. And, oh, by the way, Michelle Wie is one stroke back. She's on 10 herself and drove into a downhill rough on the right, but she's in a bunch at six under. She's been a little inconsistent, but has hung in there, and was waiting when Hurst, coasting through most of the round, double-bogeyed the ninth hole to bring everyone back in range.

Meanwhile, nowhere near the leaders is ... Annika? Yup. She pulled a major gaffe on the second hole when she moved part of a divot away from her ball. It wasn't much on first look, but she definitely got caught (apparently by her threesome partner/onetime rival Karrie Webb, who needs all the help she can get so far) and was slapped with a two-stroke penalty. Without it, she would be at least close; instead, halfway through the round she was five back and scrambling. Also, don't hold your breath waiting for first-round leader Nicole Castrale.

The attendance today, with good weather: 29,800, nearly as much as the rain-soaked first two days combined. And a bonus for those who couldn't make it out today or tomorrow, the Golf Channel will carry today's round until conclusion, then start an hour and a half early Sunday, at 2:30 instead of 4.

Posted by David Steele at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The third round, delayed while golfers rained out yesterday finished the second round, got under way about 45 minutes ago. They're going in threesomes again today and split the field between starts on the first and 10th tees, so the final round tomorrow shouldn't be disrupted - weather permitting. And it's been cool and cloudy today, but no sign of rain.

Pat Hurst, one of the golfers completing the second round this morning, leads going into the third by one shot, at 7 under. In a group at two back are Michelle Wie and first-round leader Nicole Castrale. At three back is Annika Sorenstam, with nine others; she finished this morning, too, and shot a 69. The cut was at two-over, and 76 made it through.

The crowd seems festive, and many apparently made it out for the early tees. On the bus from Lot 3 that I was on, there was lots of cracking wise about the hand-written signs above the windshield on the bus. Three of them referenced the rules against eating and drinking on the bus; the fourth read, "This bus isn't your bedroom, so keep it clean.''

Of course, those riders could afford to be festive. They didn't have to park at Ripken Stadium, on the other side of I-95, where all other spectators were directed.

In case you're killing time until the Golf Channel starts coverage of the tournament today, here's a World Cup update from the game on Channel 2: midway through the second half, Sweden and Trinidad and Tobago are still scoreless. Kind of like here.

Posted by David Steele at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Yes, it's also LPGA weekend, Belmont weekend, World Cup weekend and Jason Grimsley Snitch Search weekend, as well as the end of Steve McNair Week in the state of Maryland.

But there also happens to be a lot going on tomorrow, the day before Game 2 of the NBA Finals, right here in B'more. At 1, two ex-Terps from the early Gary Williams days - Walt Williams (now part of the post-game studio crew on Wizards Comcast broadcasts) and Dunbar High's Keith Booth (now one of Williams' assistants) will speak at Sports Legends at Camden Yards, as well as answers questions and sign autographs. It's the museum's contribution to the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture's exhibit on the history of blacks in basketball, which runs through July 7.

Sports Legends' executive director, Michael Gibbons, said back in April when I pointed out the lack of a Bullets presence in the museum, that it was participating in the Reginald Lewis museum's exhibit, and this event tomorrow is the evidence. Speaking of the Bullets, Gibbons says he's been swamped by calls, letters and emails from people interesting in helping get the Bullets display off the ground, so keep it all coming.

Later tomorrow, at Morgan State, Kurk Lee is holding a charity game that really does deserve the adjective "star-studded.'' Expected to be there: Sam Cassell, Carmelo Anthony, Juan Dixon, Lonny Baxter, Chris Wilcox, Steve Francis, Gilbert Arenas - plus Tommy Polley, Mark Clayton and Randy Hymes (all Ravens, or just-recently Ravens), and some guy from the Orioles, used to play shortstop, his name escapes me. Those are just the locals. If you got unfortunately addicted to "Flavor of Love'' as certain bloggers around here did, the winner, Hoopz, will be there, too.

Beneficiaries are Lee's own foundation, as well as Ripken's and Cassell's, Towson U and the city parks and recreation department, among others. Here's where you can find more info.

Now, if you have to decide between that and Ray Lewis's Ray's Summer Days final-day events, I can't help you. It doesn't affect me either way, unfortunately, because I'll be at the LPGA championship in Bulle Rock all day tomorrow. But if you're in a basketball frame of mind and want to fill the gap between Game 1 and the 9:10 p.m. start of Game 2 Sunday, you've got options.

One reminder about the Finals: contrary to what you might have been hearing nonstop since last night, the series is not, in fact, over. Winning Game 1 at home doesn't exactly make the Mavs a lock. Shaq, in fact, has managed to win three championships while shooting free throws just as horrendously as he did Thursday. Don't sit around wondering when Dirk is going to have his 50-point game, because the Suns aren't expected to show up during this series. This still has seven written all over it.

Posted by David Steele at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Here is the story Jamison Hensley put up on our website about 45 minutes ago. (Forgive the timing; we're blogging on dial-up here at the Castle in Owings Mills.) This is the release the Ravens passed out to reporters here not long before that:

"Three-time Pro Bowl QB Steve McNair, who was the co-most valuable player in the NFL in 2003, will take a physical later today with doctors from the Baltimore Ravens.

Permission for the physical was given by the Tennessee Titans, who have a contract with McNair.

If McNair passes the physical, a trade between the Ravens and the Titans will take place.

Results from McNair's physical are not expected to be completed until tomorrow (Thursday) morning.''

A brief timeline of today's events: The morning practice at the mini-camp ended at about noon - and, it appears, during the last portion of that, the deal was being consummated and the physical arranged. After practice was over, Brian Billick spoke, then Ray Lewis stepped in front of a bank of microphones and about 30 reporters and talked for about 25 minutes. His most noteworthy comment was he had apologized (and was apologizing) to his teammates after he "spoke about something that I probably shouldn't have spoken about.'' That is, made critical comments about them in relation to himself and his role on the team.

A little over an hour after that, the reports began to surface that a deal with the Titans for McNair was done. Both teams had comfirmed it within an hour of that.

Congrats, in a big way, to the readers who chided me for a previous blog and column about the Ravens needing to step to it and not let this drag on a second longer than it had to. The tone of those comments were, "Gee, do ya think? Of course they're going to hurry up.'' You all were right. Of course, so was I, but we're not here to talk about the past.

Speaking of that, Dr. Feelgood, a.k.a. Jason Grimsley, asked for his release from the Diamondbacks today and got it.

Posted by David Steele at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
                    

Yup. Here is the Arizona Republic story that implicates ex-Orioles pitcher Jason Grimsley. And the search warrant for the search of his home and the affidavit Grimsley gave to the federal agent - who happens to be the same one who cracked the BALCO case.

And here we were, thinking that Barry Bonds is the only baseball player who ever used performance-enhancing drugs. Then again, maybe it's his name blacked out all those times in the affidavit. And maybe he's also Latin, since Grimsley referred more than once to "Latin players'' frequently being the source of such drugs.

Now, maybe the investigation George Mitchell is heading for Major League Baseball would have come across this information eventually. Maybe those investigators already have it. The fact is, the bust took place just seven weeks ago, and Grimsley talked to the feds as recently as six weeks ago. Which is all very confusing, because as we've been told endlessly this year by the same diligent chroniclers of the game, baseball is clean this year because now it has drug testing. Except, you know, for human growth hormone, which also happens to be one of the substances Bonds was using according to all reports.

Which makes this story on Slate.com even more relevant: it questions, among other things, why such a vigorous defense has been put up by so many writers and broadcasters for the cleanliness of Albert Pujols. Ex-Sun baseball writer Buster Olney - one of the very, very tiny percentage of members of his fraternity to 'fess up to having missed the story when it was right in front of him - raises the same questions in the current edition of ESPN the Magazine.

ESPN.com makes you pay for access to the mag online, so here's what Olney writes: "To speculate that he is on any kind of juice would be outrageously irresponsible. But to say with certainty that he is clean would be just as irresponsible, because I don't know, not for sure. None of us does, except Pujols himself ... The scientific reality is that we are at the dawn of the enhancement era, not at the end, and somewhere around midnight baseball lost the benefit of the doubt.''

I try to read what he says about this - his ESPN.com blog, for example - as often as possible, because he has that level of credibility, and because he has the nerve to say things like that, rather than his colleagues, who are in the process of revising history. Plenty of people are trying to forget that once upon a time they belittled the writer who noticed the andro in Mark McGwire's locker, joined the cheerleading during the '98 home run chase, ridiculed Ken Caminiti's and Jose Canseco's claims and derided the congressional hearings as "grandstanding.''

Good job, Arizona Republic and Slate.com and Buster Olney. The next step is for fans to wave signs, taunt and throw objects at games that Barry Bonds isn't participating in. Will fans at the Diamondbacks games throw tubes of cream at Grimsley the way they did at Bonds?

Posted by David Steele at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

I'm here at Camden Yards on the nicest day of the homestand, by far. O's are up 2-0 in the third. Next to me in the press box is Roch, who will be handling your Orioles blogging needs, freeing me up to break down the just-concluded NBA conference finals, and give a little background on why it brings no joy to see Pat Riley in the Finals.

To cover a Pat Riley-coached team, as I did when I covered the Knicks for three years (1992-95), is to see the sausage being made. You completely understand how he gets teams to follow him, to bind together and to win, but you also see how he presses buttons, how he manipulates and uses whatever he has at his disposal (including us in the media), and you see how he burns players out on him and, eventually, burns himself out. Now, players who do eventually burn out on him almost always put those feelings aside later and return to play for him - best example is Anthony Mason, with whom he fought almost every day as a Knick but who came back to play for him in Miami - and they swear by him, because he got them to win. At the end of the TNT broadcast of Dallas-Phoenix last night, Magic Johnson said he was picking Miami almost solely because of Riley.

At the same time, you can't ignore how he ended negotiations with the Knicks before the last season of his contract began, by getting total control in Miami and faxing his resignation to the Knicks. You can't ignore how he walked away from the Heat when it was hitting rock-bottom three years ago, then walked back in (over Stan Van Gundy) when he had a team worthy of his coaching.

Ugh. But we went through all of that this morning.

Meanwhile...

* One of these days, TNT will do the Finals, and it will be the best Finals coverage ever. Marv Albert was brilliant again, Kerr and Collins great next to him, the graphics were perfect, the sideline reports were timely and fitting, the sliding panoramic camera is a great addition, and nothing beats the studio crew. (Even Magic is getting better, but Reggie Miller has been a real find.) ABC is nothing special except for Hubie Brown, although Mike Wilbon (from another paper) and Mark Jackson have been good at halftime). ESPN is horrendous on games. Maybe the new CW network (part-owned by Time Warner, which owns TNT) will bid on future Finals. Of course, that means endless promos for "Girlfriends'' and "Gilmore Girls'' instead of endless promos for "The Closer'' and "Saved''.

* We don't have to wait for the Finals to decide whether Dirk Nowitzki has made The Leap. He made it in Game 5. Score 50 points in a game like that, the swing game of a series like that, after the horrible game he had played in Game 4, and save 22 of those points for the fourth quarter - to elevate yourself and everyone around you in the most dire of circumstances - how can anyone doubt him anymore? And if you were doubting him at halftime of last night's game, did he shut us all up or what with that third quarter? It's amazing to see the guys who have that kind of ability figure out what makes the difference between a great player and a special player. Dwyane Wade figured it out early, Steve Nash just figured it out, and between last year's playoffs (when he was ripping teammates, sulking and mentally taking himself out of games), Nowitzki figured it out. Some players haven't, and might never, figure it out (Vince Carter, for one, is hereby dropped from the "superstar'' category), and some never did (Karl Malone, sorry, bye-bye).

* Nash, by the way, carries himself on the court differently than he had throughout his career until, honestly, this season. Just something that became noticeable last night, just by the way he was walking, holding his head and shoulders up, sort of a confidence/cockiness/self-assuredness. Look at old tapes of him in Dallas: he was very, very good but had an air about him that was a little self-deprecating, or at least an air of not trying to draw attention to himself or of trying to be a quiet leader by example. Not any more. Either the MVP awards brought it out of him or adding that to his approach made him an MVP. Chicken or egg. The sad thing is that there will be talk that he didn't "get'' the Suns to the Finals, again, and that it detracts from his MVP credentials. Amare Stoudemire in street clothes is what detracted from all of that, and if the Suns don't make a move all summer and just add a healthy Stoudemire, I'll take the Suns right now to win the West in '07.

* It's hard to say that the Pistons, if they keep going down this path, will be back in the Finals again. That edge, wherever it came from, that got them to the Finals twice in a row, is gone. It shows how fragile chemistry can be, and it shows that they were a complete aberration in winning the way they did without a sure-fire superstar. So many people have said that the worst thing that could have happened to them - and the exact starting point of their backwards slide - was when they got four players into the All-Star game and bitched about not getting a fifth. So much for the salute to team play: getting recognition killed their title chances, because they got too impressed with themselves. Their 2 1/2-year run was the perfect blend of right players and right coach at the right time - against the right team, the fractured Lakers in '04.

One more thought on the ex-Eastern champs: in the '03 draft, they bet on Darko Milicic being a future star for them at a position where they would need one a few years down the road. They passed on Carmelo Anthony because they already had Tayshaun Prince, and they didn't need immediate help there or at any point in their rotation at the time. Three years later, with the team fallen off and Darko being a bust and then traded, with depth suddenly a big problem and a bench lacking offensive explosion, with the offense evaporating because they suddenly fell in love with perimeter shooting at the expense of post-up and mid-range scoring - do you think they might have made a terrible mistake in passing on Anthony?

One other reason the Pistons might not be back: the Cavaliers might be just one good trade or signing away from getting to the East finals.

* Dallas milked a lot from the limited big guys they have against San Antonio, then milked a lot from their small lineups against the Suns. Every move Avery Johnson has made in the playoffs has been right, and it goes without saying that this team barely resembles the outscore-you Don Nelson teams of the past. Him against Riley is going to be very interesting. Not that I'm showing love for Riley, but I'll never put down his coaching - and I still think that's only a slight edge in his favor in this series.

On those big guys, by the way: I saw Erick Dampier do a pretty decent job on Shaq one-on-one, with no help, when he was a Warrior and Shaq was a Laker, and DeSagana Diop guarded Tim Duncan almost perfectly in overtime in Game 7 of their series. Just something to think about, even though Dampier hardly played in the Suns series and Diop got spot duty. Something else to think about - DeSagana Diop? Between him and Kwame Brown, they might have more to do with the age limit than any other factor. Yet look at what he's been able to do, after Cleveland couldn't wait on him any longer.

* There will be nothing unsatisfying about Shaq and Wade getting rings, but them getting rings for Antoine Walker and Jason Williams is appalling. A year ago, J-Will was snatching pens from writers he didn't like in the locker room after his Grizzlies lost a playoff series. Now he's playing for a championship. Meanwhile, Walker ruined whatever good karma he had been collecting when he dropped in a three-pointer in the closing minutes of Game 6, when it was all but over, and did his stupid shimmy downcourt. Coat-tail riders are really annoying.

On the other hand, Alonzo Mourning could sit on the bench the entire Finals and still be a deserving champ. He's had his aggravating moments, with the flexes and fist-pumps and the way he weaseled his way out of New Jersey and Toronto - but the man has had a kidney transplant. He's playing for a title with someone else's kidney!

* With Dallas in the Finals, I will bet everything I own that Terrell Owens not only will attend a game and make sure he's seen at his seat, but that he'll do something to draw attention to himself during this series.

* If the Heat get to within one game of winning the championship, ABC absolutely should set up a camera wherever Kobe Bryant is watching the game and either go to it occasionally, or do a split-screen the entire night.

* The biggest impact Dallas's win last night made? Everyone can get a decent night's sleep from now until Thursday. I've been bleary-eyed and yawning for a month and a half, because something's happening every night until 1 or 2 in the morning (depending on overtimes, West Coast tipoffs and post-game press conferences on ESPN News or NBA TV). It wears you out.

Posted by David Steele at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Thoughts while flipping away from the Orioles rain delay and on to the start of the NBA game ...

I may have to give serious consideration to adopting the Mavericks as my NBA team for the rest of the playoffs. (I'm typing this before Game 5 against the Suns tips off.) For one thing, I have yet to see a playoff blog as insane as the one run by the Dallas Morning News. At this moment, there is a heated debate underway about the suspension of D.J. Mbenga, who only the most hardcore, devoted Mavs fan even recognizes as a member of the team, being suspended for going into the stands in Phoenix during Game 4. Fans are also monitoring the clothing worn by the sideline reporters for signs of bias. I wish I were making that up.

There also is video of part of the altercation in the stands that got Mbenga suspended, and the aftermath - raw feed posted from a Phoenix TV station. Yes, that is Mark Cuban getting involved. Yes, the blond woman did give the crowd the finger with her free hand, the one not holding the beer. No, I wasn't sure either which woman was Avery Johnson's wife until the end of the clip.

The clincher for my Mavs conversion? As Marv, Steve and Doug were doing their pre-game set-up, TNT was showing Jason Terry stretching at a courtside table, apparently not the scorer's table because there were seemingly high-rolling ticketholders sitting there. And sitting at that table, talking to Terry at point-blank range and grinning a strangely familiar grin ... Ross Perot. Yup, that one, the Texas rich-guy/outsider presidential candidate from a few elections back. My first thought was, "Is that Ross Perot?'' My second thought, unfortunately, was, "Is he dead?'' According to Wikipedia and other sources, he's not. So that was him.

That's quite a fan base there: crazy conspiracy-fueled bloggers, angry coaches' wives and spurned White House contenders doing their Spike Lee impressions. And as far as I know, they've never thrown full cups of beverage at opposing players, hurled chairs at each other, or run onto the court in mid-game. Not all fans of the teams still playing can say that.

Speaking of sullying your city's name while your NBA team fights for a Finals berth ... there's a strong possibility that Gilbert Arenas is being wrongfully accused, and the police who arrested him in Miami last weekend being unnecessarily overzealous. That is, if this story and this column from the Post, and the other interviews Arenas has done this week, are to be believed, and I don't see a reason for them not to be.

How time flies. Mavs 22-14 late in the first, and O's have not resumed.

Posted by David Steele at 9:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

There are a couple of good pieces out there about the Human Porcupine, to an extent, but more in general about the way the media has covered him and the entire steroids mess. The fact that the central points are made by writers from completely different generations, cultures and (I'm guessing) experiences, should tell you that this has not been among our finest hours in this business.

This one, on MarketWatch.com, quotes esteemed veteran sportswriter and author Robert Lipsyte, who, among his other notable acts, fought to have his paper, the New York Times, refer to Muhammad Ali by that name, rather than Cassius Clay. His current notable act: pointing out, point-blank, that the baseball media "closed their eyes to steroids.''

This one, on ESPN.com, is written by Jason Whitlock, who is considerably younger and louder than Lipsyte, but no less provocative. How provocative? In this column he refers to Babe Ruth as the Sultan of Segregation, pointing out a certain discrepancy in the "legitimacy'' of the home-run records that people seem determined to brush off.

The bottom line: I've heard a lot of excuses, explanations and rationalizations as to why the people who covered baseball during the Needleball Era did practically nothing about the evidence they saw in clubhouses every day, and why of all the players connected to this, the Porcupine is getting the overwhelming majority of scrutiny and scorn.

Some explanations have been good, some bad. But overall, we were derelict in our duty, and left it up to the feds who busted BALCO and the investigative reporters who pounded on that bust to do our jobs. I hope we don't screw up the next game-altering, history-affecting, society-upheaving scandal that lands in our laps.

Posted by David Steele at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)