Thoughts 11/7/04

“Spanning the Globe to bring you a constant variety of sports………., blah, blah, blah……..”

1) The Lakers – With basketball season upon us, I think the main topic is the break up of Shaq and Kobe. Being here in Socal I believe Laker Nation is living in denial (and I’m not talking about the river in Africa….) about how well they’re going to do. As I see it, the Lakers have 2 main problems. One, they can’t score consistently in the paint. They have no low post presence. Mihm is nice up tempo, running the floor, but beyond that, useless. Brian Grant? It’s hard to get an offensive rebound with a fork sticking out of your back…… Because of this, the Lakers are a jump shooting team, which in the NBA, means a 3pt shooting team. And we all know the saying, “Live by the 3, Die by the 3”. The second problem they have, and this is the bigger one, is they can’t defend the paint…… Any team that has a strong low post presence is going to kill them. Any time a team needs a basket, they kick it down low and score an easy 2. We’ve already seen it happen in the first week, with both Tim Duncan (26pts, 16rbs) and Carlos Boozer, YES, CARLOS BOOZER (27pts, 11rbs) killing them. Because of this I see them winning 48 games with Kobe jacking up 27-35 shots a night, and battling for the 8th playoff spot in the Western Conference. I’ll discuss the Heat and Shaq next week along with my NBA predictions.

2) Hot Stove Heater – With the World Series over, we can get to the fun part of baseball, and predict how big the Skankee’s payroll will get to be (I’m going out on a limb and say $200 million), as they try to sign Carlos Beltran, the big 3 Boston free agents (Pedro, Varitek, Lowe), and trade for Randy Johnson. My prediction is they’ll sign Beltran, package Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams for minor league talent someplace, turn around and trade that talent to the Diamondbacks for Johnson, and sign Varitek. They’ll get in discussion with Pedro to try to jack up Boston’s price to resign him, but in the end, he’ll resign with Boston for a 3yr, 36 million dollar deal (I can live with that, but anymore I think is over paying). Lowe will sign with Detroit (He’s from Michigan and grew up watching the Tigers). I also think the Red Sox and Yankees will both go after Carl Pavano hard. He’s a kid from Connecticut, and still has all his family there and would like to come back home. He came up through the Red Sox organization (they traded him to the Expos for Pedro back in 99), and because of the trade, harbors some bad feelings toward them. If the Yankees are able to sign Johnson, they’ll back off on Pavano, where in turn, he’ll sign with the Phillies, Mets or Orioles. I’d love to see him come to the west coast and sign with the Angels, but the early word is he wants to be closer to his family. What about Nomah? My prediction is he’ll resign (for one year), with the Cubs, as teams want to see how his wrist continues to heal, keeping them away from offering him a big multi year contract. Another Boston free agent is Orlando Cabrera. Apparently he’s good friends with Vladimir Guerrero (they played together in Montreal), and has said he’d love to play for Anaheim. To me this is a no brainer. The Angels decide to not resign Adam Kennedy, move Eckstein to second base and sign Cabrera to be their shortstop. Then you have The OC in OC…….. This has to happen! Concerning the Angels, they’ve decided to not resign Glaus and Percival (going with Dallas McPherson and KRod). As I said I think they’ll go after Cabrera and try to get a pitcher. They’ll inquire about Pedro and Pavano, but will eventually sign someone like Eric Milton. They’ll also trade Jose Gullien to anyone who offers them a six pack of Dos XX’s. The Dodgers? Rumors flying around about a Green/Sosa swap which makes sense for both teams, so in other words, won’t happen. We’ll touch on this more after the meetings this week.


3) Tiger Woods – Well Tiger, welcome to the real world, and dealing with real problems, like keeping a significant other happy! There are a bunch of different theories out there as to why he’s struggling (parted ways with his coach David Leadbetter, his driving accuracy has plummeted, too many endorsements, not playing enough golf). My personal feeling is it’s a combination of all these things……… He’s not a 21 year old kid anymore, without any concerns except to hit the practice range and play golf. He’s 27, has a wife (who I’m sure is pestering him with comments like “when are we going to start a family Eldrick?”, is the CEO of Tiger Inc., and has more money than he’s every going to need. For 12 years now, the public has been following him and hearing him say “I want to own Nicholas records of most Majors, Wins, etc….”. If he doesn’t turn things around soon, that’s all out the window. By the way, what’s the over /under on Tigers marriage, 2 years, 3 years??????? I wish Vegas took bets on this stuff.


4) Football – Couple of big stories going on right now. The Steelers, with B-Roe (I’m not going to try to spell Rothleisberger for the next 10 years….), playing great ball and knocking off both the Patriots and Eagles in back to back weeks. They look unbeatable right now, HOW EVVVVVAAAAAAA (That was my Stephen A. Smith imitation), it’s still early, both those games were at Heinz field and New England was missing both their starting cornerbacks (plus a nickel back), and their starting running back (NE only attempted a run 5 times for the whole game……). Let’s see how Pittsburgh does when they go on the road. When NE gets back healthy, if they have home field against the Steelers, I see the Pats handling Pittsburgh easily. Another big story is the Chargers. For a team that did everything they could to get rid of Drew Brees in the off season, they now have the highest scoring team in the league and an MVP candidate. They’re tied for the lead in the AFC West, and they’re a young talented team that is hard to match up against. They can score like Kansas City and Indianapolis, but they actually have a defense, imagine that……….. In the NFC, I think the 2 biggest surprises are who’s doing badly. Carolina and Dallas. Carolina has been decimated by injuries on both the offensive and defensive side, and that’s tough to overcome. In Dallas, the only thing I’ve got to say is “when does the Drew Henson era start?” I don’t care how good a coach Parcells is, you’re not going to win with a 65 year old quarterback in there (not to mention a bust of a pick in Julius Jones at running back). Maybe I’ll hear from Mike “Not So” Priddy in Texas to give me an update on what’s going on with “The Boys”. By the way, my Super Bowl prediction is still Pats vs. Iggles.



5) Love Em/ Hate Em – Here’s a fun game. I mention an athlete and you let me know whether you love them or hate. There is no in between, you have to decide whether you love them or hate them. I’ll keep track during the week, and update you on the results next week. Example from the entertainment world is Angelina Jolie. My assessment of her is this – cute face, amazing figure, kind of psychotic……… Love Her! Another example… Heather Locklear. Good actress, cute, personable, but just doesn’t hold my interest………… Hate her! (Remember no in between).

First Athlete up – Terrell Owens. – Let me know, do you love him or hate him. I’ll go with ………….. Love him. I like people who talk a lot and can back it up…….. I don’t always agree with his comments/actions, but I always stay tuned in when an interview is coming up with him.


Finally, I’ll give you my link of the week. This week I’m going with a co-worker of mine:

www.tinyurl.com/6kdpq



Next week, I’ll hit college football, NBA predictions and maybe some soccer (always entertaining following Becks and Posh….).


Till next time,


Bill