Me like Sergei Federov

An all Suns edition in anticipation of Game Two tonight!

Nash was apparently sick with the flu in Game One, but he's better now. If it's the same strain as hit my friend L, it was the flu of near-death. I'm really impressed that he pulled off a performance like he did.

I think tonight can go really well, and will--as long as the Suns' bigs don't get in such foul trouble so early.

I know that the skills competitions on All Star Saturday aren't indicative of actual game ability, but it came as no surprise to me that Tim Duncan could make a three. Horror, yes. Surprise, no.

All season long, they've kicked butt at closing games. (46-5 when leading going into the 4th.) So what happened in Game One, and how can they avoid that kind of melt-down in the future?

The Suns have been nominated for the Professional Sports Team of the Year in the Sports Business Awards presented by Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily. That's a lot of words to say that a periodical (a magazine? a newspaper?) think that the Suns are a first class organization. In fact, they're the only NBA team nominated. Pretty cool.

Kurt Thomas really has joined the forces of evil, and calling a Spurs player "Dirty" is redundant. Just sayin'.

We (the Spurs) had to get through the Lakers. The Bulls had to get through Detroit, Detroit had to get through Boston. That’s always part of NBA history. If they don't get through the Spurs this year (*washes my mouth out with soap*), it won't be because of any mental block.

The best extended metaphor to describe this series in the history of ever. This made me laugh and laugh and then quote it at people. Here, let me quote it at you! A new nobleman, Steve Kerr, has armed the warriors with a new lance. Saint George's lance was named Ascalon, the Suns' lance is named Shaq.

Ok, ok--one non-Suns item. I'm rooting for the Caps tonight in their game 7 against the Flyers. How awesome would it be for them to get into round 2, when they weren't supposed to even get into the playoffs? *knocks so much wood for tonight's games*

Mr. Dinkins, would you please be my mayor?

Again, it's been awhile since my last update. This time it's because I was very sick for about 2 weeks. Blech. Some older links are mixed in here, mostly because I found them interesting and/or important. Enjoy!

The Suns
Saturday's Game One loss against the Spurs was pretty hard to take. To lose a 16 point lead and have it go into two overtimes (one of which happened on a 3-pointer from a 7-footer) before finally losing on a last second shot? Just really hard to swallow. In the post game interviews, the Suns all looked so sad. Shaq was barely audible, and Hill looked like he probably had been crying. It broke my heart.

May Tuesday's game go much better, without dumb fouls and dumber luck.

Game recaps: Associated Press, Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune

It looks like Diaw is key for this first round matchup (and in my mind, the entire playoff run).

Unrelated to the playoffs, Barbosa met Shaq first when he was 7 years old. They shook hands, and then Shaq broke LB's gym's backboard. It didn't get fixed for a week and a half.

Other NBA
Apparently the new owners of the Sonics had no intent to keep them in Seattle, no matter what they told the NBA or the previous owner. I know this is old news, but it's important context to the fact that the NBA team owners approved the Oklahoma City relocation. A few things stood out to me in the second article.

One: Clay Bennett hopes no one understands the concept of context. Bennett said his words had been misinterpreted. When he wrote, "I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can," he meant he was determined to find a way for the Sonics to remain in the city. Ha!

Two: Bennett is...facing a class-action lawsuit brought by season-ticket holders who say they were duped into buying tickets under the premise the Sonics wouldn't leave. Crazy!

Three: And this week former team owner Howard Schultz announced plans to sue to get the team back, saying Bennett did not make a good-faith effort to secure a new arena deal as he promised when he bought the team in 2006. I'm glad *someone* is paying attention to the emails from the first article, since David Stern seems to be so prone to flattery. Even if Seattlites don't like Schultz either.

The Nuggets had major bus problems on the way to game one. Bad omen there with black smoke and everything.

Isiah Thomas finally got fired, but he's been kept around seemingly for kicks. My friend Anna suggested that this may be to avoid paying out the nose to let him go. Whatever it is, I'm glad he's (mostly) gone to stop the poisoning of that franchise (and the league as a whole).

FIBA and Other International Ball
Here, have an overview of Olympic qualifiers and the Olympic games themselves.

Brazil is optimistic about their chances to get through the Olympic qualifiers. I'm definitely rooting for them.

Tiago Splitter's sister, Michelle, has been dealing with leukaemia for awhile, and recently had a recurrence. I hope her health improves.

Shabtai von Kalmanovic treats the members of his basketball team (Spartak) really really well. That includes Dianna Taurasi, Sue Bird, and Tina Thompson. He has a little more than a smidge of smarm though.

Becky Hammon signs with the Russian national team to play in the Olympics. This was weird to me, until I read that article. She's right, her choices were to sit on my couch and watch the Olympics, or play in the Olympics. It made it an easy decision.

The WNBA
The WNBA draft happened while I was not busy maintaining this blog. It was a pretty awesome (if semi-predictable) draft, and the Mystics got a pretty good (and local!) pick-up in Crystal Langhorne.

The Seattle Storm (who are my preseason guess for a championship) recently entered into a sponsorship deal with Olivia Cruise Line. This is (probably) due in part to their off season pick up of Sheryl Swoopes (longtime spokesperson of Olivia). This is the first time that I know of that a WNBA team has officially entered into any kind of partnership with a high profile member of the lesbian (or gay) corporate community. However! Their press release on this cracked me up and not in a good way. The only time that they mentioned anything about the GLBT nature of Olivia was when they mentioned famous personalities that had been involved with the company in the past (and present). Entertainers and athletes aligned with Olivia have included stars such as Melissa Etheridge, Heart, KD Lang, Missy Higgins, Paula Cole, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and the Storm’s own Sheryl Swoopes. No other GLBT mention, even though olivia.com literally announces that it's "Where Lesbians Go."

The New York Liberty are going to play an outdoor game this year. It marks the very first regular season game of it's kind in pro-ball. Male or female.

Tamika Catchings is working hard to rehab from last year's torn Achilles Tendon. She wants to help win the Fever a championship, and she really really wants to play in the Olympics.

WNBA Transactions:
* Nikki Teasley, who was my favorite Mystic two years ago and who I still love a lot, is pregnant. I was all excited for her, b/c a little Mystic baby! But then she got let go, for reasons that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Raise your hand if you believe that. No, me either. Pretty crummy.
* Former Mystic, Stacey Dales retires from the Chicago Sky to focus on broadcasting.
* The Minnesota Lynx picked up Ashley Awkward. This is mostly notable because my sister will love her name. She came from Australia's WNBL, and it'll be interesting to see how she does in the WNBA.
* Sue Bird re-signed with the Seattle Storm.
* Yolanda Griffith gets signed to the Storm. Yes, they're collecting fairly old players, but I have the feeling that they're going to be really good.
* The Phoenix Mercury lock Dianna Taurasi down for another three years.
* The Mercury sign Yuko Oga from Japan. I don't know much about Japanese women's basketball (they'll be in the Olympic qualifiers in Spain in June), so I can't wait to see her play.

Get down off the cross, we could use the wood

Today's post is going to be loooong, as I've been reading and collecting things to post, but I just haven't done it. So let's get to it.

The Suns
Wasn't yesterday's game just what the doctor ordered? Let alone the beautiful +1 in the win column and the fact that it was against the evil Spurs, it made me so happy to see hustle like this:


Game recaps: Associated Press, East Valley Tribune, Arizona Republic.

Suns.com gives us the secret to beating the Spurs in five easy pieces.

Don't expect D'Antoni to go any deeper in his rotation. There's a surprise.

Bell isn't against the trade, but he thinks the team was doing fine before it. And just in case you were wondering--yes, Bell is still a good defender.

Old news, but the Suns did, in fact, sign Giricek. And apparently he has something to prove.

Kevin Johnson is running for mayor of Sacramento. From everything that I know about him (which, admittedly, isn't a ton), I think he'd do a good job. Let's go, KJ!

Other NBA News
Anderson Varejao's parents both had to have surgery this past summer, making his time even more stressful and up in the air.

Gilbert Arenas and Etan Thomas are back to practicing with the Wizards. Caron Butler hopes to return to practice this week, maybe as soon as today.

Sam Cassell did sign with the Celtics, making them a better team and probably limiting House's minutes all at the same time. I don't know if he's starting for them or coming off the bench behind the much younger Rondo.

First Isiah Thomas intimated that Marbury was going to need to find a new job next year. Then he refused to talk about his player, multiple times. Then Marbury sounded sad. Now there are hugs and trade rumors. The last one is poorly timed, as any way that he managed to get to another team right now, he'd be exempt from being able to play in the playoffs. Such a toxic organization.

Apparently there were a lot of ejections in the Spurs v Pacers game last week. Including one on Indiana's David Harrison, who earlier in the quarter had taken an elbow from Bonner, turned to an official and declared, "I'm going to (expletive) kill him." Crazy.

Last week Dirk got suspended for a flagrant-2 against Andre Kirilenko. Want to see it? Here:


FIBA and Other International Stuff
Since I expressed interest in how they're picking the host country of the 2014 FIBA World Championship, here's the press release. Speaking of that, Russia has officially become a candidate.

Yao Ming expects to be recovered from his season-ending foot surgery in time to play for China in the Olympics. I wonder if that would be true if the Olympics were not in Beijing.

Lisa Leslie is looking forward to playing for Team USA this summer. And I'm looking forward to seeing how well she plays after having a year off (and y'know--having a baby).

The WNBA
Shannon "Peewee" Johnson is heading to the Comets. That's a big (if unheralded) move. Much like Sheryl Swoopes, she's a great motivator and teacher. The Comets are lucky to have her.

Emotional fuckwits!

I just woke up early from a dream that had me posting reasons that I'm angry at Barbosa. About how he's been lost and unable to connect on anything. Which is all true. And I am angry, but I think I'd rather not post about that.

I want to post asking why in a game like last night's, we played without Jalen Rose or Marcus Banks. A shooter like Rose with fresh legs? A player who has purportedly good D like Banks? Get them out there when we still had a lead. Rest the guys who looked so sloppy in the fourth.

I was so giddy and elated in the first half. It was like the team that I fell in love with last year in the playoffs was back. No one plays basketball like they did last year, not even this year's team. Last year everyone counted them out and they got so far playing such amazing and beautiful ball. They had so much to prove. This game was shades of that, and I really was excited to see them come out and do it again.

And then midway through the third they started getting tired. They started losing that beautiful lead. In the fourth when it was all gone, I thought I'd cry.

I don't know if I'm on the conspiracy bandwagon, that this was fixed by the NBA, but I can tell you that I think that it was an unfair ruling that did benefit the team that perpetrated the flagrant. I know that if Duncan and Bowen walked on that court following the Elson and Jones incident, they should have been suspended too. There is some bias in that, even if it's not intended to be game-fixing bias. If rules are rules and we should suck that up as Suns fans, then rules should be rules for everyone.

The latest I've heard about that (and this hasn't been confirmed, just word of mouth) is that Stu Jackson (NBA exec vp of basketball operations) said that Stoudemire and Diaw got their suspensions as a result of leaving the bench to participate in the near brawl, but that Duncan seemed to get up out of concern for Elson, and therefore wasn't suspended.

Do I really need to address that asshattery? No I didn't think so. (It does briefly bear mentioning that that's been Diaw's story about why he left the bench from the get go. He was worried about Nash.)

Whatever. I feel robbed by fate, frustrated by the outcome, and angry at Barbosa.

Tomorrow's game had better be awesome.

A few articles and some talk of the Suns v Spurs

First of all, I'm linking to a few Barbosa articles that made my day yesterday (regardless of the outcome of the Spurs game).

This article is about the "race" for 6th Man of the Year. Mostly it's a nothing article, but the head to head stats at the end are kinda interesting. I didn't see anything too surprising or notable in them though. Just kinda interesting.

This one is also about the 6th Man of the Year award, but it has nice little details about Barbosa's path in the NBA as well as a kind of discussion about the difference between a bench player and a 6th man.

Basically, Suns coach Mike D'Antoni does not consider either Barbosa or Ginobili "bench players." A true sixth man, D'Antoni said, is just as valuable as any starter.

I had been arguing that for awhile, well at least to my former roommate and to my sister, but this article says it much better. I'm not sure anyone really would argue differently, but I get tired of there being such emphasis on being a starter.

This is basically Paul Coro saying, "I think Barbosa is great, you should love him too!" I do, Paul. Thanks. (There's not a lot more that can be said about that one, but it's still worth a read, IMHO.)

I also found a blog entry tonight about Raja Bell being a vegetarian from the time he was two and Boris Diaw being difficult.

Speaking of Bell and the Spurs game on Thursday, it struck me as odd that he was the highest rebounder (with 13) in the entire game. He's not a big guy like Duncan and Stat, and he's much more of a perimeter player than those guys. No other Suns player was even in double digits. I have no answer as to why or what it means, but it was weird.

Nash also didn't do as well as usual with his assists (7, which isn't shabby in general), and he had a bunch of turnovers (well, 6). I think it's because of the amazing Spurs defense. I mean, they kept us to 38% shooting. Obviously, if the team can't make the shots, then the passes for the shots don't count as assists.

I wish Amare had caught that beautiful would-be pass between Duncan's legs, though.

Sometimes when I look at box scores I get irritated with announcers. They kept saying things like, "and another Phoenix turnover..." Which lead me to think that the Suns must be doing really poorly in that regard compared to the Spurs. But no, it was about the same for both teams.