By revealing not only the topic of my column for tomorrow’s Sun, but also referring to something in it before it’s published, I’m probably costing the company millions (or even dozens) of dollars in lost revenues. But here we go anyway:

Kobe Bryant is the topic (always a favorite, as you know). In one description of him, I compare him to the kid in the Twilight Zone episode who would know if anyone thought bad things about him, and he’d destroy that person -- or, in some cases, dogs who barked at him too much. If the results were grotesque enough, his father would beg the kid to put the victim “out in the cornfield."

Thus, a quiz:

1. What was the kid’s name in the episode?

2. Who played him, and what other ‘60s show did he star in?

3. Would it be funny to call Kobe by that name for the rest of his life, or would nobody get the joke?

4. Did the new Twilight Zone show that came out a few years ago for a hot minute, hosted by Forest Whitaker, ever do anything stupid like a remake of that episode?

5. Is the fact that I referenced a show that went off the air nearly 50 years ago drive a permanent wedge between me and the target demographic of this blog, not to mention make me the kind of crusty codger columnist I used to make fun of when I first got into this business?

Sorry, no prize for the right answers, even for the last question.

Here's a link to the Kobe interviews with Stephen A. Smith and Dan Patrick today.

One more NBA note, to the reader who replied to the last blog post -- who, it seemed, defended fans who throw garbage on the court -- let it be known that neither the Jazz, Spurs or NBA agree with you.

And, based on this account, I don’t think calling the Jazz fans "low class" or "low rent" is out of line.

It’s a good, subjective reason to hope the Spurs end the series tonight, to keep it from going back to Salt Lame City.

-- David Steele

Posted by Administrator at 7:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The holiday weekend is over, and it's time, for now, to put the Sammy-Davey thing to rest (but at least check out what Tom Boswell of the Post wrote about the Orioles today). Same for the NCAA lacrosse Final Four, but not before congratulating Johns Hopkins, again, and not before wondering how Duke's loss is going to affect the campaign for a memorial to its fallen heroes down on the Mall in Washington. And, for now, the less said about Michael Vick and his hobby, the better.

Now it's time to ask the fans, the paying customers, the people who have the final word on the deeds and misdeeds of athletes everywhere: when are you gonna get your act together?

After the disgrace at the end of the Spurs-Jazz playoff game in Salt Lake last night, it had better be soon. Everybody has plenty to say about the players when an incident like the brawl in Auburn Hills takes place, but to this day, very little is said about the acts by fans in the stands that not only started it, but escalated it. The thrown cup, the thrown chair, the thrown beer and food, the people running out of the stands and onto the court. All sorts of rules and policies were put in place to rein in the players, and one of them bit the league in the rear a couple of weeks ago in the Spurs-Suns series.

But as far as the fans go, it's business as usual. No one seems to want to rein them in. No one seems to want to really call them out. No one seems to want to hold them accountable for their low-class, low-rent actions. Yeah, yeah, the players make a lot of money, they should be able to take it, you pay a lot for your ticket and it gives you the right to do this and that, blah blah blah.

But c'mon. Your team is losing, you don't like some of the calls, you can't take the fact that your team is choking and your coach is melting down and your players are cheap-shotting opponents in retaliation, so you start throwing things on the court?

The last scene from the arena post-game last night was of Spurs players ducking their heads and, inexplicably, looking up to their left as they went through the tunnel to the locker rooms. Something was going on up in (or coming out of) the stands there, but ESPN never addressed it. Michele Tafoya then came on and said she wasn't able to get any post-game interviews because Gregg Popovich was trying to herd everybody into the tunnel to avoid the hurled objects. According to one report, Bruce Bowen did get hit.

You go, Jazz fans, support your team by any means necessary. Be the Sixth Man, without fear of punishment.

Some 10 hours later, it's still being treated as a footnote. Here's one exception, from CBS Sportsline. Understandably, the main story was the way the Jazz completely lost their poise at the end. But the fans were no less of a story. They acted ignorant, and it's not the first time, contrary to what the above column implies - back in the late '90s, when the Jazz were always playing deep in the playoffs, fans there rarely hesitated to reach as deeply into their bag of insults and stereotypes as possible, from what they said to the signs they waved. To their credit, they didn't make this a nightly occurrence throughout the regular season, but the playoffs definitely were a different story. Even this postseason, the Warriors' Stephen Jackson accused those fans of hurling racial epithets.

But not until last night, from what I can recall, did they ever resort to throwing objects at the players.

Then again, if nobody talks about it afterward, did it really happen? Or does it only become a real, tangible act when players snap and retaliate? When they become the villains and the poor, paying customers the "innocent'' victims?

Posted by David Steele at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

One comment I hear constantly from both the subjects of our stories and the readers is, "You guys have to sell papers. That's why you focus on the negative.'' Or some variation of this. It tends to follow stories that are, to be honest, negative. At least the stories are about something that's negative to the subject and is perceived as negative to the readers if it's about their favorite player or team.

All writers tend to get a lot of letters, phone calls and e-mails when, say, news breaks about something bad a player or team did, especially if it involves some entanglement with the law. The letters and such inevitably are about how we just want to find negative stuff to write about and how it would be nice once in a while if we'd do something positive. Why don't we ever read any good news in the paper? Players are doing this and that all the time, but it's never in the paper, only things that are bad, and make them look bad.

There are times when that's not completely false. Of course, nothing in our job description says we're obligated to write either all good or all bad about anything -- just to write the truth about it. Still, sometimes we all think, during a particularly trying time, "Man, I'd like to write something good about these guys once in a while.'' Believe it or not, we actually enjoy it. Good stories about good people and great accomplishments can't help but lift everybody's spirits. And, we have to admit, it has to lift the readers' spirit and contradict their feelings about us being butchers and vultures and naysayers and haters.

Well ... in Monday's paper, I wrote about how the Orioles would be better off firing Sam Perlozzo as manager. By definition, a very negative take. I'm still getting e-mails about it, and was getting e-mails suggesting it the entire week before that. Everyone's been discussing the topic ever since. In doing so, the entire miserable last decade of Orioles history has been brought into the conversation. Pretty depressing, unrelentingly so.

The next day, I wrote about a pair of athletes at UMBC who graduated this week with high academic honors, are going to prestigious post-graduate programs and brought pride and honor to the school and its athletic programs. One of them, Isaac Matthews, was from Maryland (Oxon Hill). It tied in nicely, I thought, with the success the UMBC men's lacrosse and women's basketball team had this season, and it contrasted with what often seems like an endless procession of bad stories about academic struggles throughout college, including the ones here.

Just what everyone swears they want to read more of, don't see enough of, and complain that we outright ignore in favor of negative stuff.

You should see the e-mails that have come in since then.

Specifically, the e-mail. Singular. One. Exactly one reply to that supposedly heartwarming, uplifting story you rarely see in the sports section.

Here it is, from reader John Leahy:

"Your column this morning is a refreshing start to my day. It must have been fun to write this story!
Hope you have a fun day.''

Mr. Leahy, thank you very much, It was fun to write it. I am very glad it gave you a good start to your day. And my day was more fun, largely because of your appreciative note.

The next time you, Mr. Leahy, write in to tell me there's not enough good news in the paper and that you truly wish there was more, I'll buy it. You're on record as having put your keyboard where your mouth is.

Posted by David Steele at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

What we learned from the NBA lottery last night:

* It's still as comfortable as your old robe and slippers. Yes, the changes in the actual selection process have been extremely controversial, but the staging is the same as it was 22 years ago. Then: the losers sit on stage at risers with their team logos looking as if they're rather be swimming in the East River; the camera closes in on them when their teams are called, making for priceless facial expressions when they don't get the pick they desire; the NBA official opens envelopes with the logo on it, drawing it out for maximum dramatic effect, and the next-to-last card causes that team rep to pretend, on live TV, that he didn't just get a figurative Bruce Bowen-style knee in the groin. Now, it's exactly the same. The reaction winners last night: Tommy Heinsohn (scowled and mouthed a choice profanity), Jerry West (lost every trace of color in his face), Dominique Wilkins (slightly gaseous) and Lenny Wilkens (textbook "I knew this was too good to be true'' fake smile).

* Not all lotteries are created equal. You have to have a Greg Oden or Kevin Durant as the prize to make this whole thing worthwhile. Last year, not much life, because on lottery day, no one had a clue about who should even be considered No. 1 - and it ended up being Andrea Bargnani, who likely will been seen as a steal some day, but who was the very definition of anonymity at the time (and pretty much now). Of course, go back to LeBron, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Ewing and even Chris Webber, and you see money, prestige and championships changing hands right before your eyes, and the draft itself hasn't even taken place yet.

* Tanking doesn't pay. Sorry, Celtics and Grizzlies. You asked for exactly what you got. Some teams just were plain bad, but you two just gave up, and couldn't even come up with a lie people could even sip, much less swallow. The fact that Danny Ainge pretty much made it obvious that (1) the team he now calls "a playoff team right now'' didn't have to be as bad as it was this season, and (2) he pulled a Rick Pitino in basing the franchise's future on the bounce of a ping-pong ball, despite the spectacular failure of the Pitino plan 10 years ago - well, Celtics fans should be burning him in effigy this morning. As for Memphis, I look at Jerry West and think the entire scenario made him physically ill and probably pushed him toward separating from the franchise for good. Why should The Logo ever be party to something like this? If there were half as many Memphis representatives in the papers, TV, radio, websites and blogs as there are from Boston, we'd have heard more about this.

* Isiah Thomas continues to live a charmed life. He won just enough to keep his job, and, as it turns out, to keep Oden and Durant out of the reach of the Bulls, who own their pick. He probably saved Madison Square Garden from burning to the ground, too. And that's about all the winning he's done lately. But that was enough.

* The Eastern Conference is doomed. Oden and Durant end up in the West? The competitive balance of the conferences isn't going to end anytime soon. Who out there remembers back when a choice Eastern Conference series was considered the de facto NBA Finals and the Finals itself anticlimactic? It was 1998, to be exact. We're coming up on the 10-year anniversary. With Oden and Durant, Portland and Seattle might make the playoffs this year, and that could mean that 10 of the best 12 teams in the league will be in the West. Yikes.

* The NBA doesn't do conspiracies well. In a world envisioned by the Oliver Stones of the NBA-watching (and -hating) public, Amare would have played Game 5, the Suns would be playing Golden State for an NBA Finals berth, and the most storied franchise in the game would have landed one of the top-two picks. Instead, the two most coveted players of this draft begin their careers in the two most remote outposts in the NBA. Most people didn't even realize the Trail Blazers or Sonics were that bad.

*  A certain city we all love might rue what happened last night for a long time. Stay with me here. Seattle got the rights to Durant, because early indications are that Portland is going to go ahead and take Oden (which, by the way, sets them up for a reprise of Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan in 1984, if Durant becomes Michael and Oden's legs turn out to have the stability of an Utz crab chip). Now, Seattle is having arena problems, and it has an owner with roots in Oklahoma City, which has an arena that can host an NBA team today, having proven itself when the Hornets used it as their temporary post-Katrina home the last two seasons. Oklahoma City, of course, built its arena without even a hint that an NBA team might someday come there. If things don't work out in either Seattle or Oklahoma City, there is a new arena rising in Kansas City, a moderate-sized city which one would think would be content with baseball and football teams with rich histories and mostly-rock-solid fan bases - but also made a leap of faith, enough to entice the NHL's Penguins to take a look at moving.

So Durant might not play in Seattle for long. He'll likely eventually play in a city that had the vision to build an NBA magnet of a facility. Which means he definitely won't play in a city that had no vision about that whatsoever, which took 40 years just to acknowledge that its arena was "obsolete,'' which decided that while building a 70,000-seat football stadium 40 miles from a larger market on blind faith was good business, doing the same with a 20,000-seat basketball arena was foolhardy, and which now plans to build a smaller place that instantly limits it to small-time events.

Thus, that particular city will not be the future NBA home of Kevin Durant, the most accomplished freshman in college basketball history, the player of the year, the most electrifying, magnetic player in the draft this year, a player who will surely cash in with endorsements and become a marquee name, a linchpin to the league's future ... and a native of the state of Maryland.

Or, for that matter, the future NBA home of Chris Wilcox, who helped lead the University of Maryland to its only national championship.

I think we know what city we're talking about.

Posted by David Steele at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

This guy wearing No. 23 for the Cavaliers last night - where did they get him from? And why did they get rid of the guy who wore that jersey in last year's playoffs?

To watch LeBron James not even think about taking that shot in the final seconds of Game 1 of the East finals against the Pistons last night - to make his move down the lane, drive past Tayshaun Prince, have at least a full step on any and every other Pistons defender, get right under the basket, and then kick it 25 feet to the corner so Donyell Marshall can try a game-winning three  - is to wonder if the LeBron from the 2006 first-round series against the Wizards and the second-round series against these same Pistons had been kidnapped.

With all the moaning and groaning this morning about how LeBron either isn't playing and thinking like a superstar, or can't win by himself against a star-free "team'' or trusts his teammates way too much or makes weird decisions even for his age or is downright scared of the moment (that's more of a talk-radio theme), a lot of people seem to be forgetting that he was the exact opposite of all of this last spring.

Specifically, against the Wizards in Games 4, 5 and 6. Game 4: had the audacity to take about three giant steps and a couple of baby steps through the lane for the game-winning layup. Game 5: faced up his defender on the left side and just blasted past him down the baseline for the game-winning layup. Game 6: drew every defender the Wizards had available to him at the top of the key, then found a wide-open Damon Jones for the game-winning jumper. Plus, he did the whole walk-up on Gilbert Arenas at the free-throw line between his free throws, patting him on the shoulder and whispering that he'd miss.

Where was that LeBron last night? Hardly ever went to the basket. Didn't attempt a free throw. Didn't take a three-pointer. Took all of 15 shots. Forgot, or was completely unaware of, or decided not to notice, exactly how easily he got down the lane on that last play where he passed off. Suddenly started channeling Dirk Nowitzki, or Vince Carter, or Karl Malone or Chris Webber. Anybody but me. Falling back on the "It's a team game'' crutch.

No, it's a "best players'' game. It becomes a team game when everybody on the roster, the trainers, the towel boys and a couple of beer vendors have to rush toward you on every move you make with the ball, at which point you turn it into a team game and pass to Damon Jones or Donyell Marshall. Thus freaking everybody in the league out and putting fear into them every moment you're on the court.

The Pistons completely blew the defense on that play, in about 10 different ways - Prince letting LeBron get to his side instead of keeping him in front, help defenders getting there an hour late, Rasheed Wallace seeing this develop and leaving Marshall alone in the corner to desperately reach LeBron (kind of the way he left Robert Horry open in Game 5 of the '05 Finals, for the three-pointer that pretty much gave the Spurs the championship). And LeBron didn't make them pay for it.

Sometime in the last week or so, he stopped being the guy that had been making teams pay for such gross errors. That really was weird, and if Cleveland wants to get to the Finals, he'd better get back to being that guy again.

Tonight: Game 2, Spurs-Jazz, in which the Jazz need to show some life sometime before the fourth quarter just to give us a reason to keep watching when the series moves to Salt Lake. Before that, the lottery, where you can see some of the most distinguished and accomplished names and faces in the NBA have their dreams crushed on live TV. You know that if the Celtics don't get one of the first two picks, Danny Ainge might need to be sedated. And if the Knicks do get one of the first two picks, and has to give it up to the Bulls because of the still-mind-blowing Eddy Curry trade of two years ago, martial law might have to be declared in the five boroughs.

Posted by David Steele at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Some coach or GM or owner from way back once said that he can't let fans make decisions for him, or else eventually he'll be sitting with them. So, to be honest, it might not be the wisest thing for Peter Angelos, Mike Flanagan or Jim Duquette to relieve Sam Perlozzo of his Orioles managerial duties because the fans are demanding it. Or because someone in the paper says they have no choice left now.

But they almost can't help but factor in exactly how angry the fans are right now. It's a rage Perlozzo, Flanagan and Duquette inherited, but it's their responsibility, too. They themselves set expectations for this season that are not being met. And that's the last thing you can afford to do when fans have been forced to swallow so much losing for so long. They really are running the risk of driving off yet another huge segment of fans, shriveling the attendance at Camden Yards even more, even forcing fans south to the Nationals, who didn't even try to field a competitive team yet are not that far off from the Orioles' record so far.

Oh, the faithful are losing their faith. So much so, they're agreeing with me. When's the last time that happened? Actually, they've been on fire for a week before yesterday's game, and it's really on now, if the e-mail responses to this morning's column are any indication.

True, Perlozzo isn't getting the job done, says one, "But some of the blame must lie with the Orioles'
front office for acquiring the $42-million bullpen in the first place.''

Says another: "Why doesn't anyone mention that the O's have been essentially losing with the same coaching staff for 9 years? ... This team is a disaster.''

Another asks who would accept the job of replacing Perlozzo: "I wouldn't if I were a manager with credentials. Would you?''

There was also this: "Seems like bad teams keep blaming the manager and keep hiring new ones but always with the same outcome.''

And one more asks the very legitimate question, that if one demands the firing of an employee, what's the plan to replace him and will that move truly make things better -- but then adds: "Oops we're talking about the Orioles, WHO CARES!!!!!!!!!!!!!''

That's harsh. And that doesn't even include all the e-mails that referred to the old days, the Oriole Way, Memorial Stadium and the like.

That tells you that the people are mad about a whole lot more than the moves the manager makes with the bullpen or the batting order. The bull's-eye is on a lot more backs than Perlozzo's. And they've been aiming for, now, 9 1/4 years.

It's a shame, because Perlozzo is a nice man and a baseball lifer, I badly wanted him to get the job full-time after he took over for Lee Mazzilli two years ago, and in his defense, he clearly got stuck with less of a roster than he expected. And in reality, it isn't fun, at least for me, to write that someone should lose his job, especially since at least a couple of requests come in here each week requesting that I lose mine, including one this morning that I didn't include above. Peter Schmuck was right in his piece this morning: the owner is stuck between a rock and a hard place, although he did put himself there.

He's the one who has to get himself out of there. If changing managers does the job, he should do it. Fans can't run the team, but he has to consider this: with a 10th straight losing season staring him in the face, pretty soon there won't be any fans left to try to run the team.

Posted by David Steele at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)
                    

Just sat down from the national anthem at RFK for the Orioles-Nationals finale, and it's still jarring, two full seasons later, to hear "O!'' shouted out, followed by boos. Looks like this will be, for the time being, the defining symbol of the still-building rivalry. The fans are still feisty about it, and intend to be for a long time to come. And there are a lot of orange-and-black-clad fans here today, and have been all weekend. Maybe more than there were in Camden Yards when the Devils Rays were in town.

Full disclosure: Unless this game is played at breakneck speed, similar to last night's (you can only complain so much when an 11-inning game still comes in at 3 1/2 hours - thank you, good pitching and National League rules), I'll be tipping away around the sixth inning to catch at least the start of the Spurs-Jazz Western Conference final Game 1.

The guess here is that you have to be a real hardcore NBA fanatic to watch the rest of the playoffs, East or West. It became pretty clear after the Suspension Game in the Spurs-Suns series that there are a lot of casual bandwagon-jumpers who got passionate about these playoffs only when the Suns started taking an edge. The Spurs, of course, have made a habit of going deep into the playoffs every year and turning off audiences all along the way. The Post's Mike Wilbon touched on this nicely in a column last week. The Spurs play exactly the way critics swear they want NBA teams and players to play, but when it's time to tune in, they get seduced by teams like the Suns, who, it should be mentioned, still haven't reached the Finals in their current incarnation. True, they are tons of fun to watch, and it would mean a lot for that style to be validated with a trip to the Finals, if not a championship. But it hasn't been; the Spurs' way has, and so here they are.

And they face the Jazz, who are equally low-buzz, overlooked for a gritty comeback from 0-2 in the first round to win Game 7 on the road, and for subduing the Cinderella team of the postseason, Golden State, in five games yet. Again, the Warriors had a high entertainment value, except they're worse closers than Danys Baez. So, here also are the Jazz.

I say, watch anyway, because both teams really do play basketball as right as it can be played, even if it's not as much of a high-wire act. Then again, I'm a little tired of begging for a little NBA respect, so if you don't wanna watch, go ahead, stick with the emerald chessboard or the beautiful game or the sport of kings or whatever else might be on.

Too bad about the Suns, though. If you get a chance, try to send Amare Stoudemire a rule book during the offseason, and some video of the league's real superstars, the ones who don't lose their heads and lose playoff series for their teams.

Posted by David Steele at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Before tonight's Game 6 in San Antonio, we could get all huffy about how this really should be the game where the Spurs face elimination, rather than the Suns, because David Stern is an out-of-control megalomaniac who abuses his power by sticking to the letter of the law.

Or we could let cooler heads prevail and think calmer, more rational thoughts, like the ones below:

* Once again, David Aldridge, now of the Philly Inquirer and (very unfortunately) formerly of ESPN, injects knowledge and common sense into things. I needed support for my views about the suspensions from the Game 4 scuffle, and here comes D.A. to the rescue. To wit: "The NBA doesn't have all these anti-fighting rules in place so that it can penalize one of its most appealing teams at the worst possible moment. It has these rules in place because many in Middle America and on Madison Avenue have turned their backs on the game and trashed it every chance they got, and it would be economic suicide to give them any more ammo in the form of another bench-clearer. You want to blame somebody? Look in the mirror.''

* It's all a moot point now, anyway, and now you ask not how the Suns are going to survive tonight, but how did they come so close to winning Game 5? Granted, if you only take the last two minutes and insert Amare Stoudemire then, they would surely have won; they almost definitely would've gotten a better shot at the end than Steve Nash's three with Tim Duncan all over him. In fact, the possession before that (after Bruce Bowen's big three-pointer), Shawn Marion had a wide-open three-pointer and rushed it; he makes that shot pretty regularly. So all the hand-wringing over the competitive imbalance was kind of a waste; it's not as if the Suns were completely incapable of competing for one game without their big man. More reason for him to have kept his behind on the bench that night. And more reason to just watch the game instead of playing it in your head for 48 hours in advance.

* More proof that the whiners didn't know what they were talking about: there were so many comparisons between Stoudemire and Diaw's scoring averages and Robert Horry's, thus concluding that a scrub was sacrificed to knock out two more valuable players. Does anyone actually watch these games? Do they know what value Horry has to the Spurs, and how much they'll wish they had him tonight? If he only scores three points in a game and it happens to be the game-winning three (it's merely his career trademark, you know, the whole Big-Shot Rob thing), how does that make him a scrub? And has anyone heard of a thing called low-post defense? Sheesh.

* Not done yet: now that the visiting team has won three of the five games in this series, we can probably hold off on waving the Spurs into the conference final just because they're at home. Come to think of it, the Suns have lost only one time when they were at full strength, and just barely both times; Game 1 was the day Steve Nash was gushing blood for the final two minutes, and then there was Game 5.

* One thing we are certain of: the Spurs are, in fact, dirty. Everyone might as well stop denying it.

* I offer the usual suggestion to those struggling to make it to the end of the late game: nap during the first game. The Nets scored six points in the fourth quarter of Game 5 and still beat Cleveland, in Cleveland. What do you think you'll miss tonight? Speaking of which, would you all be yelping like a bike had run over your foot if Eddie House and Antoine Wright had left the Nets' bench after a flagrant foul? Would you be talking about integrity and the letter of the law and interfering with the quality of the series then? (We won't even get into the Stephen Jackson-Ron Artest comparison.)

* Even at this relatively early stage of his career, playoff games featuring LeBron James should be much more enticing to watch than they have been so far. What is the problem? Part of it's him, part of it's the team around him, part of it's the style, part of it's the level of competition. But this is awful to watch. The possible East final between the Cavs and Detroit will be brutal.

* On that topic, something smells funny in Detroit, too. They can't afford to get bored and blow off two games the way they did against Chicago in the last round, at least not if they want to win it all. How bad a reflection of the conference is it when the Pistons can lay down twice in the semifinals and not pay for it?

OK, forget the cooler-heads-prevailing thing. I do feel better now, though, just for letting that out.

Posted by David Steele at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Why isn't more being made of this story this morning?

From USATODAY.com: "New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi, saying he's likely tested for illegal performance-enhancing drugs more often than anyone else, believes Major League Baseball should have apologized years ago for its widespread drug problem.

'I was wrong for doing that stuff,' Giambi told USA TODAY on Wednesday before playing the Chicago White Sox. 'What we should have done a long time ago was stand up — players, ownership, everybody — and said: "We made a mistake."'"

None of the morning radio talk shows are talking about it. The other websites have it played very far down on their pages. ESPN is running crawlers on it, and it's been mentioned in a few top-of-the-hour updates. But, for example, Mike and Mike are actually broadcasting from New York this morning, and if they've spent even a second talking about it, I must have missed it.

If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time Giambi has admitted publicly using banned substances. His 2005 apology, after his grand jury testimony leaked out, was universally acknowledged as lame, considering he never specified what he was apologizing for. He's never come close to talking about it in-depth since. Until now, until this pretty clear-cut acknowledgment.

Realistically, there is only one player connected to steroids in baseball with a bigger name, bigger profile and bigger resume than this guy - former American League MVP, current New York Yankee, owner of a nine-figure contract, constantly in the tabloids for a while, booed and ripped for non-production for a lengthy period, tied to BALCO, pretty much a larger than life figure with the hair and tattoos and, for a while, national endorsements. And on the day his team plays the most-hyped of all the interleague series starting today, Yankees vs. Mets, he comes clean about his own use and points a finger at baseball in the process.

And it's practically a non-story.

Yet people swear that Barry Bonds isn't being used as a scapegoat, that they're not funneling all the anger about steroids in baseball and tainted records and killing the integrity of the game into one player and shrugging off all the other evidence of how widespread it all is.

Suuuuuuure they're not.

Posted by David Steele at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

They ought to just change their slogan to "The NBA: Damned If We Do, Damned If We Don't.''

The reaction to the suspensions of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for tonight's Game 5 between San Antonio and Phoenix, has been amazing. I have no way of positively identifying whether the same people who are throwing their hands up and shouting to the heavens about how unfair the NBA is to punish two players for only taking a couple of baby steps off the bench and toward where Robert Horry had leveled Steve Nash on Monday night, are the same people who threw their hands up and shouted to the heavens about how the NBA was again harboring criminals, reprobates, deviants and thugs after that slapfight at Madison Square Garden in December.

That's why David Stern held Stoudemire and Diaw to the letter of the law, and that's why the law was put in place in the first place. Well, it was actually put in place because once upon a time, the NBA's larger concern was to prevent, literally, bench-clearing brawls back in the 1990s, which were exemplified by the playoff suspensions with the Knicks and Heat in 1997. They were worried about the league's image, but also about the on-court product.

But since everyone has been treating the NBA like it's finishing school for the Crips and Bloods for the last decade (that's not an exaggeration, as we've learned), and especially since the Auburn Hills brawl three years ago, and since everybody overreacted to the Knicks-Nuggets fight (the first real on-court incident since Auburn Hills), and since the NBA is unashamedly hypersensitive to such perceptions these days, now we have a first-team all-NBA player sitting out a suspension in a pivotal playoff game.

And the Suns players knew the rule. How could any NBA player not know the rule, since their very reputations hang on its implementation? The NBA can't afford to have anything close to a real fight any more. It wouldn't be embraced, applauded or even marketed the way such things are in other sports, or haven't you seen the late-night commercials for the Knockout Hockey DVD set?

Remember a few weeks ago, when the Orioles were praised for "not backing down'' to Gary Sheffield when he menaced Daniel Cabrera in Detroit, how much it signified their feisty nature that they all streamed out of the dugout and the bullpens to back their man up? Yeah, let the NBA's players do that and see how everyone feels about it. In fact, let's see how a scuffle like the one between Jay Payton and Melvin Mora in Toronto the other night would play out if it were, say, Stephen Jackson and Baron Davis, on the bench with cameras trained on it, or in front of the locker room.

Actually, we already know. Hence the rule, and hence the players' full knowledge of it.

Stoudemire and Diaw should have known better. Whatever instincts they had to rush over to Nash, to have his back against a clear cheap shot, must be suppressed, not only because there is a specific rule against it with clear consequences, but because there also is a price to pay to the image of everyone else in the league. Had they not been prohibited from going any further, had they played any role in the scuffle escalating into an actual fight, we would have been right back to the players-as-thugs debate (as if that ever ended).

Yet even as they slammed on the brakes and coaches corralled them before they got to Nash, and even as the NBA did what it had to do to them, you now have the public, and many commentators and talking heads, screaming bloody murder at the league for depriving us of a key player for the home team trying to break a 2-2 series tie, and of that team being punished more than the team that committed the original infraction, and of the star power being diluted, and, of course, the avalanche of conspiracy theories about how the NBA will surely correct the competitive imbalance. (Note the hypocrisy of insisting the league fixes games to favor star players and teams that bring high ratings, then saying the league was wrong for NOT manipulating the outcome to favor a star player and his high-rated team, and then predicting that the league will manipulate the outcome tonight to level the playing field. Of course that all makes sense. All criticism against this league has logic in the critics' eyes.)

So, you have to blame Stoudemire and Diaw for violating a rule that's been on the books for a long time, for which others have always been punished, and that nobody who watches this league can't not be aware of. But blame the double standard that always, and apparently forever, will be applied to the NBA and its players' actions.

This entire incident is really an NBA haters' paradise. Then again, what incident isn't, no matter how benign?

Posted by David Steele at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

And the winner is - well, to quote one responder, "Clemens, by a snout.'' At least so far. Between the emails and replies to this blog, Roger Clemens deserves the title of Biggest Pig in sports over Kobe Bryant. And, to paraphrase one of the regular readers, yes, it might be worth it to rename the award in honor of Alec "You're a Rude, Thoughtless Little Pig'' Baldwin.

No write-in votes, though, which is disappointing. Doesn't Pacman deserve some love, after preparing for one meeting with Roger Goodell with some lap dances the night before, and for getting caught speeding the week before the next meeting? To his credit, though, Pacman's no longer in position to ruin his team's season. Then again, he might have made enough of a good impression to get his suspension reduced. Probably not now, though.

Back to the Great Pig Debate. Most intriguing are the number of readers who defended Clemens with the "You'd do it too if you were offered that much to do so little'' argument. He's their hero, apparently. Which not only sends a pretty depressing message about the state of America's work ethic and sense of integrity, but also completely misses the point.

Clemens asked for all of this. He brought it into the negotiations, not the Astros or Yankees. It wasn't them who sweetened the pot by saying, "What if we let you go home between starts?'' It was Clemens' idea to not even consider joining a team before June. He had every opportunity to say, "I'm only pitching half the season, I've already made more money than God, some of my kids are grown and making money for themselves, and I'm almost forty-freakin'-five years old. So I'll give you a good rate for my services, maybe something incentive-laden, bonuses for winning and that sort of thing.''

By next season, he'll be demanding that he be allowed to sit in the stands and suck down a brew while the Yankees are batting.

But this is not meant to sway anyone's vote. Poor Kobe is not getting full recognition for his singleminded dedication to making as many things around him in the NBA revolve around him and his desires.

So keep those votes coming. And think about whether Alec Baldwin should either be GM of the Yankees or of the Lakers. Or, maybe, the Titans. In fact, maybe that's our next poll: with his mouth and his disregard for "rude, thoughtless pig(s),'' what franchise needs Alec as its owner?

Meanwhile, as you ponder the darkest corners of your soul to determine the standard by which you measure the value of Clemens, Kobe, Pacman and Alec Baldwin against the rest of decent society, lighten up for a minute and check this video out. Male readers: hold onto your credentials, because it ain't pretty.

Posted by David Steele at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

The case is laid out in this morning's column: the top contenders for the title of Most Selfish Athlete are Kobe Bryant and Roger Clemens, and I proclaim Clemens the winner.

What do you think? Is Clemens really deserving, or is Kobe's selfishness being shortchanged? Or are there other, more worthy candidates? Put some thought into this. Don't instinctively say Terrell Owens, for example, especially since he seemed to be on his best behavior at Cowboys minicamp yesterday.

Let me know by e-mail or by replying here. Polls are open indefinitely.

For what it's worth, Dave Stewart isn't impressed with Clemens' team spirit, either. And Stewart, who actually has earned his reputation as a big-game performer, has some credibility in this.

Coming soon: a suggestion to correct the westward tilt of the NBA playoffs. Hint: It involved eliminating the Eastern Conference entirely.

Posted by David Steele at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
                    

That's how one longtime blog-reader and -poster describes Baron Davis, and if you saw any of the fourth-quarter moves he threw on Utah last night - particularly the reverse Spalding he imprinted on Andrei Kirilenko's face - you would agree. What has gotten into him, besides good health (finally)? That was the most exciting, riveting, exhilarating 20-point playoff rout I've seen in a long time, and a big reason is Baron Davis.

The other big reason? A crowd that was better last night than it even was in Game 6 against the Mavericks. That was 13 years of pent-up frustration being let out, all the years of rotten basketball and revolving-door coaches and inept draft picks and short-sided trades and no-sighted free-agent signings and, of course, coach-choking. Golden State is clearly God's basketball team right now. You say you love underdogs, really love underdogs? Well, George Mason and Boise State have nothing on these guys. They're a bunch of Cinderellas in crazy haircuts and tatts and beards they borrowed from Grady on Sanford and Son, and they like going after mega-versatile shot-blocking small forwards and dunking in their grills.

And they're doing it against an eminently likable team. The Jazz have been increasingly fun to both watch play and observe interact. Kirilenko is the real thing (even with that facial, and even with his strange loss of focus and playing time before this series). Carlos Boozer, a Duke alum acquaintance pointed out, is undoing years of Blue Devil flopping in the NBA. It's no longer such a head-scratcher that Deron Williams was drafted ahead of Chris Paul a couple of years ago (some time soon, we'll have to take a second look at the U.S. national team and who did and didn't make it, and Kirk Hinrich will not be happy, nor will Paul or Williams).

Plus, I'm still choking up over the whole Derek Fisher drama from a couple of days ago, largely because he really is one of the most decent guys in NBA history, and because he was an unsung hero from the overbearing Shaq-Kobe-Phil Lakers teams, and because he hit the shot with 0.4 seconds left in that 2004 playoff game at San Antonio.

Last night, the Jazz pretty much had no chance after the first couple of minutes of the second quarter, and never played well the whole night and suffered badly from Deron Williams' foul trouble and Dee Brown's neck injury, but they kept playing hard anyway and at least didn't cover themselves with shame the way the Mavericks had the week before. The Warriors and the fans (nice touch by ESPN with the decibel meter, and with having Hubie Brown do the game) were just too much for them and everybody else.

I think I'm over my bitterness from having covered those losers for all those years.

Yet what I want more than anything out of this series is at least six games, so you've got to root for both teams. I'm also rooting for a mid-afternoon nap, so I can stay up and watch the good games out West. Most of all, I'm rooting for an in-depth investigation into who keeps putting these lame Eastern Conference games on in the weekend afternoon time slots on ABC. Game 4 of the Jazz-Warriors: 9 p.m. ET Sunday on TNT. Good choice. The saddest part of last night's broadcast was Hubie and Mike Tirico trying to make Game 4 of Pistons-Bulls, arguably the biggest letdown by a fairly well-anticipated series in this decade, worth watching tomorrow afternoon. (They probably should have sold it as a chance to see one of the other truly underrated players in this postseason, one of the great clutch playoff performers and perfect-fit guys in the NBA, Tayshaun Prince, who I will always be convinced should have won MVP of the 2004 Finals for completely locking down Kobe one-on-one. Even he's not a good enough reason to watch that game, though.)

The second saddest part: trying to hear either the post-game questions Baron Davis was getting on-court or the answers.

Posted by David Steele at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Wow. You get caught up in other projects, get a little busy, and suddenly you wake up and they changed the blog name on you.

Just kidding. This has been in the works for a while. The online powers-that-be suggested a few months ago that it was time for this blog to have a distinct name and a distinct identity, something a little more creative than just my name slapped on top of it. Everyone else's blog does, and always has, from Roch Around the Clock to Medium Well to O, by the Way to, in other departments, Random Rodricks.

I agreed. I just had a problem nailing something down, partly because the new name would have to truly capture what this blog was all about, and partly because I couldn't live with a corny, unimaginative play on my last name. The blog name was not going to rhyme, was not going to be alliterative, was not going to refer to Superman or metal or something being stolen. I've been hearing lines like that since kindergarten. Enough, thank you.

But "Steele Press'' fits. For one, outdated as the term is, I'm still a member of the press. For another, this has become a gathering place for the hidden, silent not-quite-minority of basketball fans, especially NBA fans, especially rabid NBA playoff watchers, thus the full-court press allusion. For one more, I can't help it, I try to bring a full-court press approach to everything I write for this news organization, print or online.

But I start out under my new name with more of a half-court press. This morning's big takeout on the international influence on American sports, and vice versa, includes a timeline led off by Pele's arrival in the U.S. to play for the Cosmos. How's that for timing? Last night, I finally watched the outstanding documentary Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos. The title explains it: The rise of the Cosmos in the 1970s generated the one real, true soccer boom in this country. It's also a glimpse of this country, and New York, in particular, in the 1970s (Ed Koch even has a cameo, and the summer of '77, with Studio 54, the blackout and Son of Sam, are noted as well). All the major characters of that time from the Cosmos and with the pro soccer league in which they played are represented, most of them representing themselves -- the notable exception is Pele. You watch it, and if you were around at the time, you realize how much you'd forgotten about how that team really did dominate the sports world in ways that it's unimaginable for any soccer team to do now. Yet the connection to the recognizable names and events in soccer today are made surprisingly clear, proving that it wasn't just a lightning-in-a-bottle moment. The most fun aspect of the film, though, is the evidence that one of Pele's teammates, Giorgio Chinaglia, might have been the most selfish, self-absorbed, greedy, pompous athlete who's ever lived, kind of an Italian soccer-playing blend of Clemens, Schilling and T.O.

And what does this have to do with a half-court press? I used watching this movie, which I've had out on Netflix for too long, as an excuse not to watch the start of the Pistons-Bulls game. When the movie ended, I clicked over; the Bulls were pulling away to a double-digit, first-half lead with about two minutes left ... and the Pistons had scored 28 points. I was appalled. I turned to something else, turned it back on at the end of the third quarter ... and the Pistons had closed the gap to one. I watched the fourth quarter, and the Bulls turned to marshmallows right before my eyes. They never had a chance -- or, better, they had a chance and decided instead to give the softies on the Dallas Mavericks a run for their money.

So what we saw in a pivotal game in the semifinals of the Eastern Conference playoffs last night was the visiting team score 28 points in the first half and 10 in the second quarter -- and the home team turn around, cough up a 19-point lead and score 30 points in the second half, 13 in the fourth quarter (the last three on a meaningless three-point play in the final seconds).

That was putrid. I'm through with the East until the finals. So far, in six East playoff series, there have been three sweeps, one 3-0 lead, one 2-0 and one series that wasn't as close as the 4-2 decision indicates. Just because it's an inferior conference doesn't mean it can't be competitive. The injury-crippled Wizards showed more heart than most of their conference brethren have.

Yet we get the honor of seeing the Pistons and Bulls again on Sunday on ABC. Meanwhile, it appears that the network won't show Utah-Golden State until there are no other games to be played and they're fresh out of Grey's Anatomy reruns. The Warriors can really make a case for being disrespected (including here, since I dismissed this series as being bad for the league last week, and I regret that now) -- they haven't gotten a sniff of network TV yet in two series, and they keep getting stuck with Dick Stockton calling their games. Are Marv Albert and Steve Kerr demanding that they not be assigned to them unless in an emergency?

Game 3 of that series is tonight, and after what happened in Game 2 -- especially with the Derek Fisher subplot -- I can promise I won't be watching any soccer documentary while it's on.

Posted by David Steele at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Final score in 10, O's 1, Devil Rays 0. And off I go. Don't even have traffic to fight getting out of here, since the announced attendance was around 14,000. Thank you, Aubrey Huff. Jack, Kate and Juliet thank you, and so do Baron, Stephen, Carlos and AK-47. Good night, all.

Posted by David Steele at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

It's just after 9 p.m., it's the bottom of the eighth, miraculously, at Camden Yards, and there's still no score. Which only reminds me that I'm about to miss the start of Game 2, Golden State at Utah, which negates all the benefits of one of the first huge scheduling breaks of the NBA playoffs: a Western Conference game starting earlier than 10:30 Eastern time. It's my own fault, since I was trying to make sense of the revelations about the steroids investigation in this morning's paper, and it took the entire game (and I'm not sure if I pulled it off, but you can judge for yourself tomorrow).

So at this point, I run the risk of missing the whole first half of the Warriors-Jazz game. Maybe the second half, too. I also run the risk of missing Lost, not because I've joined the 21st century and finally gotten TiVo (go ahead, I deserve it), but because I've gotten into the habit during the playoffs of watching both Lost and 24 the next day online. Of course, the closer it gets to the season finale of Lost, the less I want to wait a day or more to see it. (With 24, meanwhile, I can take it or leave it. The episode when the president had about his 12th stroke of the day, and the next one when the square-headed vice president started getting freaky with the assistant who talked him into perjuring himself, really killed the urgency of staying on top of that show. I'm also trying to figure out how the woman who was suspected of being a mole and was being choked by another agent in the interrogation room, ended up running all of CTU a couple of hours later. I think the writers of 24 secretly went on strike before the season began.)

Now, we're through eight, and it's still scoreless. I could stay and watch a possible marathon, or a dramatic ending, and end up missing all of the game and all of Lost, or bolt now and catch Lost, then see the fourth quarter of the Warriors game.

Well ... I'm still here. I'm not sure if I should be surprised, but a lot of people might want to watch the Warriors game and Lost, because there's a move up the aisles. Wow. I can't say this is a good sign for the Orioles.

Posted by David Steele at 9:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

San Antonio 111, Phoenix 106 in Game 1. But the Suns might have won had Steve Nash not started spurting blood like someone from a Friday the 13th movie in the final couple of minutes. If you don't have a strong stomach, please avoid highlights, although the FCC probably would block every network from showing the full highlights of the Suns' trainer trying to stop the geysers of blood coming from the bridge of Nash's nose.

The above headline, by the way, isn't my idea; on the ABC broadcast, Mark Jackson said it was like the scene in the first Rocky: "Cut me, Mickey!'' Come to think of it, they could have used one of the cut men from the Mayweather-De La Hoya fight the night before. And it all seemed like a fairly simple head-butt with Tony Parker, and initially it looked as if Parker had gotten the worst of it. That was before Nash's nose started re-enacting one of the plagues from The Ten Commandments. At one point, he doubled over in his seat on the bench, and it really looked as if he was about to pass out. But it was actually because the blood was getting in his eye.

The bottom line on this (besides Nash turning paler than he actually was) is that he couldn't get back into the game. He tried twice; the first time he ran past Mike D'Antoni, pulling off the warmup jacket like Clark Kent, except he started gushing again, like Vitali Klitschko. So the Suns couldn't really run many effective plays at the end - yet Amare Stoudemire still got about seven shots, tips and putbacks from point-blank range, couldn't put any of them in, and never got a whistle (and didn't deserve one). Plus, after the first possession after Nash came out, and after Stoudemire's first miss in close, he grabbed Manu Ginobili when they still had some 45 seconds left, were down by just two, and didn't have to foul yet. It was kind of a ripple effect of Nash not being out there.

I fully expect the scene with Nash to pop up on YouTube any second, so feel free to send it along if any of you come across it.

Posted by David Steele at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Ponder this, before you ponder all the other things about the Golden State-Dallas series that just ended, especially last night's Game 6:

If you were told before the game that one of the players would score 33 points and hit seven three-pointers and lead his team to a 25-point victory, and one other player would shoot 2-for-13, miss all of his three-pointers, score eight points and be the sixth-leading scorer on the losing team, and you had to choose which player was which, and the choices you were given were Dirk Nowitzki and Stephen Jackson - which would you pick?

Me too. Until last night.

If David Stern does not immediately exercise his best-interest-of-the-game powers and institute a re-vote for the MVP, then the NBA rules should be rewritten. There is no way that the Most Valuable Player award, with names like Michael, Magic, Bird, Russell, Chamberlain and the rest in its history, can be tainted with the name Dirk Nowitzki after that performance. If I'm Karl Malone or David Robinson, I'm mad, too. At least they were outplayed in the postseason of their MVP years by Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon. Dirk got outplayed by STEPHEN JACKSON. That would be like Derek Jeter winning the AL MVP, going to the playoffs and going 0-for-16 with 12 strikeouts against Jim Brower. OK, Jackson's a better basketball player than that, but c'mon. His next playoff series might be interrupted by an assault trial. He was in uniform for the Warriors last night because the Pacers couldn't have him around anymore.

If all the Mavs did was lose to the Warriors, even in six games, even after Dallas' two wins came in games in which Jackson was thrown out and Baron Davis was ejected from one and fouled out on a phantom sixth foul in another, even after Davis dominated the final game on one leg - that would be bad enough. But they lost by 25 points. With Dirk gagging horrifically the entire final game, then reduced to being petrified of even going near the ball, then being taken out with six minutes left so that the scrubs could finish up.

He's made me rethink a lot about what I've said about Kobe the last couple of years. No way does Kobe pull a 2-for-13, eight-point, two-shots-in-the-second-half dog like that in an elimination game. Selfishness is nothing to be proud of, but it's better than cowardice.

Dirk Nowitzki will never live this down. (Check out the Dallas Morning News column by Jean-Jacques Taylor, the headline and the first sentence. Ow.) The Mavs will never live this down - they could win 73 games next season and no one in their right mind would pick them to win the championship. (Here's David Moore in the Morning News on that topic.) Avery Johnson will never live this down; he was on the verge of being the next coaching god until the final minutes of Game 3 of last season's NBA finals, and then he let his team melt like chocolate left on the stoop on a July afternoon, and they haven't stopped melting. Mark Cuban definitely will never live this down, because by becoming known above all else as a ref-baiting, commissioner-feuding whiner, he set a tone during the finals last year that his team adopted so completely that it couldn't help but fall apart in a situation like last night's.

This is a terrible moment for the league, too. Don't get me wrong. I definitely still feel for the Warriors, because I started covering them near the start of the 12-year playoff drought (the year they took Joe Smith No. 1 overall, remember that, 12 years ago next month?), had them as a beat for four years and columnized on them for four more. (Ex-colleague Bruce Jenkins lays the sordid history out nicely here.) This is one of the epic stories of the year, and the fans out there deserve nothing less. But are we ready for the fact that either Golden State, Utah or Houston is going to be in the Western Conference finals? The Spurs-Suns series starting Sunday is now the de facto finals, and frankly, I'm not big on Mr. Two-Time MVP But Never Reached the finals breaking through this year for Phoenix. The East remains grotesque.

So here's who's NOT left in the playoffs: Dirk Nowitzki. Kobe Bryant. Shaq. Dwyane Wade. Carmelo Anthony. Allen Iverson. Gilbert Arenas. Dwight Howard. And the first round still isn't over, so the carnage could continue.

No one has gone out more disgracefully than Dirk, from beginning to end in this series. He kept talking about how the Warriors were taking him out of his game, that he had to help his team in other ways, and, ultimately, that he never really got it going, never got into a rhythm.

So, so weak.

Posted by David Steele at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

Before this dissection of the latest drama in the NBA playoffs, let's give a hand to reader Melvin, who replied to the posting about Josh Hancock by pointing out the previously unrecognized similarity between Tony LaRussa and Harvey Keitel. You're right, and I swear I hadn't noticed until I looked at the video of the post-accident press conference (available at the Post-Dispatch website). Maybe we should stop calling LaRussa "Genius'' and start calling him "The Wolf.''

Meanwhile, the P-D's Bryan Burwell likens LaRussa to Buford Pusser instead, because of the whole bust-you-in-da-head-widda-bat routine. (Which, if that's the case, we've got to consider Tony Soprano as an influence as well.) Also, very nice perspective in the same paper from ex-Sun writer Bernie Miklasz, who acknowledges his own DUI past and says it gives him more authority, not less, to raise it as an issue.

Enough of that for now.

One major drawback of having all the good playoff series taking place out west is that if you're trying to keep up with it, you're not going to bed before midnight any time soon, and haven't for a while. I actually had to squeeze in two power naps last night, but they allowed me to see the fourth quarters of both the Raptors-Nets game and the Mavs-Warriors game, both stupendously suspenseful and satisfying. Good thing I waited to expound on the playoffs, because I was going to say that overall, the first round is a real letdown from last year. Now it's conceivable that at least two series will go seven games (Mavs-Warriors, Jazz-Rockets), possibly a third (Raptors-Nets) and if Kobe goes hog-wild and Kwame decides to start earning a fraction of his paycheck, a fourth. If last night taught us anything, it's that a 3-1 series lead does not mean it's over. Easy to forget sometimes.

Some observations:

* Dirk was three minutes away from becoming instantly eligible for induction in the Karl Malone-Chris Webber Playoff Shrivel-Up Hall of Fame. It was stunning to hear Dick Stockton say, after the three-pointer that started that final 15-0 run, that that was Dirk's third field-goal attempt of the fourth quarter. He was literally running away from the ball the entire quarter up until then. If they had gone ahead and lost that game, especially after blowing that lead, especially after Avery Johnson and every NBA writer in America had called him out, he would never have lived it down. But he went back to being an MVP in those final three minutes.

* The Warriors are in big trouble. Wonderful way they went up 3-1, but there are two flashing, screaming warning lights going off. First, nice way to finish the game, jacking up three-pointers nonstop down the stretch with a nine-point lead and time on their side.  If you have to shoot, how about going inside, making the other team foul you? Then again, was there some compelling reason you had to shoot at all? Second, in each of the two losses, neither Baron Davis nor Stephen Jackson finished the game. Inexcusable, especially Jackson getting thrown out again. Charles Barkley defended him on the TNT postgame show, a fine show of support from Mr. Self-Control. Not really clear why you'd bait the refs like that when they've been T'ing up players all season for that and accelerated it in the postseason, including games you've played in. The only explanation: Stephen Jackson's fearlessness/insanity is both his best and worst enemy.

* It took Avery Johnson this long to undo the blunder of Game 1, trying to match lineups with Don Nelson, but he coached the Mavs right back into this series. People get way too blustery about in-game Xs and Os when judging a coach (for proof, check out how Sam Mitchell is scrutinized in Toronto and see his post-game snippiness last night), when knowing when and how to push the right buttons means a lot more. Avery pushed Dirk's button at the right time, and it may have saved their season.

* It's not going to be easy for Dallas to go into Oakland and force a seventh game, because that place has been a pit all series long. Good for the Warriors fans, who I said years ago, when covering them for the S.F. Chronicle, that they are the best fans in the NBA, maybe in all sports. But it's not impossible. The Warriors obviously don't completely have the Mavs' number. Who knows if that Warriors choke last night changes things?

* If the Jazz and Rockets weren't tangled up in their own madness, they'd be hanging on every second of the Mavs series, because the winners play each other. Great story, but who do you think either Utah or Houston would rather play next round, Dallas or Golden State? By the way, everyone in the league should be paralyzed with fear over what the Rockets might be like if T-Mac and Yao are both healthy and maxing their abilities out. Yao in particular is so close, he can taste it. He's right there, in position to rule this league for the next decade, like Shaq.

* It took too long for the Phoenix-L.A. series to resume. Steve Nash goes for 23 assists, Amare gets a 20-20, the Lakers crumble on their home floor, and then we wait three days for the possible clincher? The NBA is just never going to get this first-round scheduling straight. Contrary to their belief, it's not great for TV, because even if there are two or three games on every night, with at least one of them you've forgotten what happened in the last game by the time the current one tips off.

* I may never stop laughing at the Raptors fans' serenading of Vince Carter last night. Throughout the fourth quarter, no matter who had the ball, they would alternate chants, seemingly one side of the arena to the other: "Let's go Raptors ... V.C. (STINKS)!'' Of course, he caps the night by having the ball for the game-tying shot, driving the lane, then veering off to his right, then passing to Bostjan Nachbar so he can have the pressure of draining a game-winning three (which, of course, they didn't need). If they make it back to Toronto for Game 7, the fans should just pass on the booing and chanting; instead, every time Vince touches the ball, they should flap their arms and make clucking sounds.

* Other guys to be scared of in the future: Andrea Bargnani and Jose Calderon. Warning: I am about to exercise the weakest, laziest sportswriting trick in the book, comparing a tall white guy who can shoot to Larry Bird. But Bargnani is the closest player I've ever seen to shoot like Larry Bird. His entire motion is a carbon copy, as if he spent his childhood in Italy watching old Celtics videos. It was weird to see last night, because Toronto games were not a must-see destination for League Pass, and when I did catch them, he was either hurt or not playing much. But wow.

* How in the world did three teams in one conference - no, one division - get swept out of the playoffs in the first round? Not that it was a huge surprise under the circumstances. The Wizards had been pretty much reduced to their Jordan-era selves (thankfully, minus Kwame, although Brendan Haywood did a nice sulky, whiny impression) by the injuries. The Magic never had a chance against the Pistons. And the Heat aged before our eyes. Still, that was embarrassing. It also was an indictment of one of the bigger, least-addressed flaws of this league: the season is too long. Everybody just wears down, young and old. Now, they've also got this nonstop commitment to the U.S. national team to worry about. It doesn't matter how much money they make, how does grinding them into dust year-round and expecting them to be at their peak during an also-too-long postseason make this game better?

* Last but not least: of all the shows on all the networks in the entire broadcasting universe that will ever be aired, the one I absolutely, undoubtedly, unquestionably will not watch one second of is "House of Payne.''

Posted by David Steele at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

If the reports coming out of St. Louis since last night are to be believed - and so far, there's a lot of conflicting and contradicting going on with a lot of people - then the story of Josh Hancock's death in a car accident over the weekend has taken a very ugly turn.

This is the latest story on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Web site, in which a couple at a popular St. Louis restaurant says they saw Hancock drinking fairly heavily a few hours before the fatal accident. In the same story is news of an accident three days earlier, in the wee hours before a Cardinals day game, in which Hancock walked away uninjured - but which adds that he supposedly was fined for showing up late for the game, and giving as his reason his being (in the words of the writers) "hung over.''

The story brings into question the Cardinals players' comments - relayed all over the papers, wires and TV and radio Sunday and Monday - that they had feared for his safety because he hadn't answered his phone, but it turned out that he had only overslept. The hint is that it was all a cover story.

Tony LaRussa's reaction to these accounts is a little worrisome. Yesterday he told reporters before the game in Milwaukee- at which they honored Hancock with his number on their sleeves and with his jersey hanging in the dugout and bullpen - that he had told the team to be on the lookout for "insincerity'' by reporters trying to find out more about the story. Or, in LaRussa's words, "to slam you.'' And "to further their own agendas.''

"The first time I hear insincerity I'll start swinging this fungo because it doesn't have its place," LaRussa said.

The story speaks for itself and sounds pretty complete, to this point. But obviously there is more to come of this.

The first thought that came to mind: it wasn't exactly along the same timeline, but this was how the stories about Len Bias's death evolved. First, the shock of the tragedy, then the questions of how fate can take away someone so young, then the reports of cocaine in his dorm room, then the reports of people trying to get their stories straight. Except Lefty Driesell never threatened to physically attack anyone who asked questions about it, at least as far as I recall.

Being protective of his players and skeptical about outside intrusion is understandable. But at the very least, LaRussa owes some people an apology.

Posted by David Steele at 1:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)