The 2006 NBA Draft

Well yesterday the NBA draft took place and the Warriors drafted themselves a pair of centers. With the ninth pick they chose Patrick O’ Bryant out of Bradley University. He is listed as 7’0” and 260 lbs. He was an interesting contrast to the midget commissioner David Stern when he went up to shake his hand. With the 38th pick the Warriors drafted Kosta Perovic out of Croatia. He is listed at 7’2” and 240 lbs.


I think I am happy with the picks. O’Bryant has a lot of potential and I think he will get a decent amount of playing time this year. The Warriors need help at Center more then anything and that is what they addressed. With Perovic I imagine he will be left over seas for another year or brought to the Development League. I don’t see him being ready to produce yet, but with a second round pick it was worth the gamble. He could turn out to be good in the long run.

A Brief Mention

This is a quick update. On the NBA show podcast, following the one I was on, they made a reference to something I said in the previous show regarding the Kings coaching position. Take a listen if you are interested. The show can be found in the same place as last time. Show number 31.

Greatest Game of the World Cup!!!

I haven’t written a blog in a while, mainly because I don’t have anything to talk about, but now I have something. I watched the greatest game of the World Cup so far the other day and I just had to mention it. Why was it so great? Was it because of great goals, or great plays or a determination by both teams not to lose? No!!! It was because I watched two teams with no discipline build up an animosity for each other that ended in a final score of 9-7. Ha ha ha, no that wasn’t the goals scored that was the yellow cards issued to each team, with Portugal winning that edge over the Netherlands. In case you were wondering the final score of the game was 1-0 in favor of Portugal, but that was the boring part. I enjoyed watching the players hit, kick and do everything they shouldn’t have done in order to see who could end up with the least players on the field. Two players from each team also accumulated two yellow cards in the match prompting the referee to issue them red cards. Yes folks this game ended 9 on 9.

Some people may say that this was the fault of the official or that he may have been card happy as many officials have been in this tournament, but that wasn’t the case. The official was giving out the cards to warn the players that their actions wouldn’t be tolerated, but they didn’t seem to care. In my opinion, all the cards issued were warranted. In fact, I believe there were a few cards that weren’t issued that should have been. Anyway, the game entertained me as I watched chaos on my TV screen. My only hope is that the World cup has more games like this so I can laugh my way through the entire 90 minutes.

No More Suns

Well unfortunately the Suns just didn’t have enough in them to win game 6 against the Mavericks. They lost by the score of 102-93. The Suns run has ended unfortunately, but I had a lot of fun watching it. Nash gave it his all finishing with 19 points, 6 rebounds and 9 assists. Dirk, on the other side, finished with 24 points, 10 rebounds and 3 assists.

Now I will show how my predictions went in comparison to actual events. Of course Keep in mind that I was incorrect in the pick that San Antonio would be in the Western Finals, instead it was Dallas, so not sure that the prediction makes any sense. As usual my predictions will be on the left and the actual record will be on the right.

Conference Finals
(3-4) [1] San Antonio Spurs (Reality Dallas Mavericks) vs. [2] Phoenix Suns (4-2)

Eastern Conference

Conference Finals
(4-1) [1] Detroit Pistons vs. [2] Miami Heat (2-4)

Clearly I wanted the Suns to be in the finals, but it wasn’t to be. I am not sure how interested in this series I am. It should still be fun to watch though. Both teams are making their finals debut as neither team has gotten this far before. I give the edge to Miami in this one, but I like Dirk and he can carry the team. There are reasons why I don’t want either team to win though. For Miami, I don’t want Gary Payton or Antoine Walker to ever win a championship. Walker just because he is an idiot, but Payton I used to like, but his flocking to Shaq to try to win him a championship bugs me and I hope he doesn’t. With Dallas I hate Mark Cuban the owner and hope that he never lifts the finals trophy because he is a jackass and Erick Dampier doesn’t deserve it either because he was good in a contract year with the Warriors and got a huge payday with Dallas where he does…absolutely nothing. He doesn’t even start anymore. He hasn’t even been playing for them much this playoffs. I do expect him to be playing in this series though since Dallas will need the big bodies to bang around with Shaq. So I guess we just have to see which evil prevails now.

Not sure that I will be posting updates on every game of the finals because I just don't care as much with the Suns being gone. So if you don't see posts don't b surprised.

What? Not Basketball?

Now for my award-winning in depth blog to be revealed and it is about…Soccer? Yes folks your favorite basketball godfather is taking a look at a different sport. Why do you ask? That is because the 2006 World Cup in Germany is going to take place beginning on June 9th, only a week from today. But the World Cup is not the topic of my in depth piece. I referenced an article from the Washington Post by Sarah Delaney for my info. The topic is the controversy that has been disclosed taking place in Italy. Trust me you will understand how I tie this all in to me by the end. Now let me explain what’s happening.


The Italian league the past couple of years has seen a couple of teams fall on hard times where they are unable to make the payments on the money they owe their players, this doesn’t ultimately tie to what I am going to explain, but it just shows that some of these Italian teams are already questionable to begin with. At the forefront of the Italian league is the team Juventus of Turin. This team can be considered the New York Yankees of Italian Soccer. They buy expensive players and so they tend to be favorites to win championships year after year. The General Director of that team is Luciano Moggi, who is also known as “Lucky Luciano.” The fact that was also the nickname of Charles Luciano a former Mob Boss and at one point in time the Chairman of “the Commission” that organized the crime families during the Mafia’s heyday doesn’t go beyond my notice. Mr. Moggi has been accused of being the mastermind behind corruption that includes; having favorable referees working specific games as well as influencing the transfers and sale of players. Juventus won their 29th Championship this year, but Moggi resigned a couple of weeks back due to the controversy and Juventus will be stripped of its two most recent titles.


There are also three other teams in the Italian league that are under investigation at this point, those teams being Lazio of Rome, Fiorentina of Florence and AC Milan from Milan. They are under investigation for game-fixing during the season of 2004-05 as well as betting on games, coercion, threats and even kidnapping. Now does this sound like Soccer or more like the Mafia connection I made earlier. This doesn’t stop at the teams though. The top two people in the Italian Soccer Federation also stepped down, as well as two of the officials (referees). Gianluigi Buffon is the starting goalkeeper for the Italian National team and he is accused of wagering over 2 million Euros on sports, but reportedly not soccer, but still a violation of the player agreements under the league. Here is a World Cup tie-in.


Now back to Moggi. He has a son by the name of Alessandro who is the runs the player agency GEA. Supposedly this is where the coercion and threats come in as they used these tactics to bring in and retain many of the Italian soccer players. Juventus is in for some potentially some harsh retribution for the alleged actions. Should they be found guilty will be sent down from the first division to the second division which is usually for the last place teams in the division. Of course criminal action will also be applied to the individuals should they be found of any wrong doing. There are 41 people in total that have been asked to come in for questioning in this matter, so there is a long investigation that will be taking place in the days to come.


So how does this tie into me now? That is easy. I am an American and therefore I am going to be supporting the United States of America in their quest for their first World Cup Championship. In their group is none other then… Italy. Yes Italy, the same country that is under investigation. Why does this matter to the USA? It will either be beneficial to the United States or detrimental. Italy is a soccer power and with this controversy they could get so wrapped up in it that the team underperforms and the U.S. could steal some very valuable points that allow them to move to the next round. On the other hand, the Italians could become very angry with the situation and come out with something to prove to the world and be more focused then ever. So this is a very important idea going into the Cup. The U.S. already has it hard as I believe they have the toughest group of the 8 groups with Ghana and the Czech Republic also being a part of the group. This should be an interesting subplot to watch going into the cup. Consider yourself informed.

Suns at brink of Elimination

Tonight the Phoenix Suns could not get themselves the series lead, but instead place themselves one loss away from elimination. The Phoenix Suns fell to the Dallas Mavericks by the score of 101-117. Once again the Suns had three 20 or more point scorers with Tim Thomas (26), Shawn Marion (20 points and 10 rebounds) and Steve Nash (20 points and 11 assists), but they were trumped by Josh Howard (23 points) and Dirk Nowitzki who busted out for 50 points and 12 rebounds. This puts the Suns in the position of having to win two games and therefore going to a third game 7 of the playoffs if they are to advance to the NBA Finals. The fight begins on Saturday in Phoenix. Good luck Suns.