Day Off

Como esta, bitches.

I must apologize for my lack of posting yesterday, the first day i haven't posted since i started this site. I was working during the day, and what was supposed to be a leisurely trek up a mountain to go camping turned into a four hour ordeal involving the changing of an RV tire and many, many swear words. In the end, it also resulted in us being stuck in a campground with no wi-fi access, hence the lack of posts. But today, i am back and better than ever. Or just back...

Ahh, the NBA Draft. So many possibilities, so many disappointments. Where was the KG trade? Where was the Amare' trade (thank god they didn't do that), where was the Kurt Thomas for cap space trade? Where was moving up into the top ten? In the end the Suns ended up with Rudy Fernandez with the 24 pick, whom they promptly traded along with James Jones to the Blazers for $3 million and cap relief. They also picked up Alando Tucker with the 29 pick, which i think might be good. I've been watching Tucker absolutely torch my Iowa Hawkeyes the last few years while he was at Wisconsin. What i like about Tucker the most, and what the Suns needed, was the fact that he can get to the rim and he can create his own shot. He could become a valuable contributor off the bench this year.

I do like that the Suns didn't give up Kurt Thomas. But i think the only reason they didn't give him up is because they couldn't pull off a trade to get KG. If KG gets here, Thomas is gone. No offense KT, i still like you. But in the end we kept him, and for all intents and purposes the rest of the team, minus Junior Jones. Who i will also miss, but i don't think it will affect the Suns in any meaningful way.

In other news, the Dbacks laid an egg against the Dodgers in the 4th game of their series, once again falling behind LA and San Diego for 1st in the NL West by a half game. They dropped three of four to LA, which qualifies as a slump. Good thing they have the lifeless Giants coming to town for their next series. While the Dodgers and Padres (hopefully) beat each other up over the weekend, Arizona should be able to sweep the Giants and reclaim their rightful spot atop the standings.

Moving on to the hockey.... ha ha ha, yeah right.

My illustrious brother wrote a fairly lengthy post a couple of days ago, and it was even pretty good for once. Though i wish he would run ideas past me, or even just mention them to me, before he goes posting them on here (Posts on every NFL team? What army of whipping boys do we have doing the research on that?). Also there will soon be another poster on this site, a certified girl. I know, seems a little strange having a girl post about sports, but trust me, she's pretty knowledgeable. Plus, she knows things about other sports and teams neither my brother nor myself give two craps about (See: Nascar, Pitt Panther athletics, Notre Dame).

I'm off to camp some more, but i'll check in later. In the meantime, do us all a favor and post some comments, click on our links, check out our advertising, and generally just spend some time looking around. We'd appreciate it...

D Day, as in a disappointing day!

Well that was a massively crappy day! I will weigh in on both the Suns and Dback’s and several unnecessary topics.

First the Dback’s get drilled, for both the game and the series. The Dodgers were on fire and just simply demolished the home team 9 this week. Normally not a big deal, but considering that LA has beaten us all but 2 times in 9 tries it tends to get a bit alarming. The question remains: are the Dback’s a good team or just one that beats the bad teams and loses to the good teams. They have struggled against any good team since the end of May. The Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers all embarrassed Arizona. They have done a nice job of beating up on the bad teams, Baltimore twice and Tampa Bay. So who is this team and how good are they? That is the million dollar question and I will soon try to answer that in a baseball post, but that is for another day.

I might be one of the biggest draftniks in the world. I love the art of the draft, NFL or NBA. Hockey no longer exists and baseball is cool, but only the first several picks. 50 damn rounds in the MLB draft! Wow, how in the hell can I keep up with 1500 players? I am the one guy that looks forward to the NFL draft 364 days of the year. I believe it is one of the top 10 sporting events of the year. I am the one watching all 17 hours of ESPN and NFL Network coverage. I could continue on but why bore all 3 of you!

My thoughts today are with the Suns and what the hell they are doing. They are single handedly ruining the draft for me. I know, I know, they are keeping together a team that is the second best team in the NBA and only slightly behind the Spurs, if at all. You could argue that they were the better team and if not for several ill timed Steve Nash stitches in the nose and several steps away from the bench for Amare' and Diaw, we might be the Champions. But seriously did you have to trade two players (Rudy Fernandez and James Jones) for $3 million bucks? Why not just trade Jr and keep RF, who could go on to become the back up point guard that we need. In the past 4 years we have passed or traded on Luol Deng, Marcus Williams, Rajon Rondo, Sergio Rodriquez and now Rudy Fernandez, and spent $25 million on Marcus F’n Banks. Brilliant. I would have loved to have Luol Deng (or Andre Igoudala) and Tayshaun Prince on the Suns instead of Casey “I love playing for 2 mil in Germany instead of the NBA” Jacobsen. I am a Big Ten guy, so I like Tucker, a hell of a player in college and I wish him the best in the NBA. I understand the rational of keeping this team together and making one last run at the title. But the excitement of the past 3 years draft is equal to watching a Spurs/ Cavs Finals, in other words nonexistent.

Lastly, since I am out camping (TV, cell phone, internet, stove, microwave, gas grill, coolers full of beer and a foam mattress on top of the bed), I did not get to see the US Soccer team play vs. Argentina (only on Telemundo and I cant speak Spanish despite 6 semesters, Spanish Uno, four times). The 4 – 1 loss seems pretty standard. A young team playing against a world power on the road, what did you expect? I just figured it was a crappy way to finish D Day.

That’s all for right now, need to go tend to my beer…, uh I mean cooler, it seems to be getting lighter and I need to make sure everything is alright. Later from Mingus Mountain and highs in the low 80’s. Smitty

6/28, the best sports day until football!

Ahh, what a day! Dbacks vs Dodgers for first in the NL West, with Randy vs Randy, Johnson making his return vs Wolf. The bullpens were spent after Tuesday's extra innings game, but Webb and Lowe produced a gem of a pitching match up tonight, with a huge Dbacks win. I am a lover of fundamental baseball, so I was pissed in the eight inning when you get a triple to lead off by O' dog and he never scores, come on! I have several other things that piss me off about the Dbacks but I will wait until they are struggling to bitch my way through another blog, I mean it is hard when they have the best record in the NL.

The NBA draft; is any more drama possible for the Suns? I have heard 7624 trade possibilities. I do not think any of them are coming true, except 29 and Kurt Thomas to the Bobcats for ..... nothing. Uh, I mean 16 million in saving for Sarver (Suns Owner and rich guy). I know for a fact that I am excited as hell to have Sarver sell the best defender we have against Duncan for money in his pocket. This is a crappy move and pisses me off. So many other opportunities to improve this team and yet we get rid of our Duncan kryptonite, brilliant! Can't wait to sit through another NBA draft where the Suns get nothing, sell one pick and then pick a Euro that we will not see for a year or two (maybe). Question, will they bring out Amare' and tell the draft crowd that he is the first round pick for the second straight year? I hope something better happens but I have my doubts at this juncture, 10:30 pm Wednesday night.

Lastly, if you can't tell we are big US Men's National Futbol fans, soccer to most of you schleps. Good luck to a very young team in South America. Playing against some of the best in the world, they are clearly bringing a very young and inexperienced team. The team will need lots of playing time together to create a real threat at the 2010 World Cup. I applaud Bob Bradley for his stance on playing the young players in this tournament and hope that they find lighting in a bottle and play well, learn to play together, and lastly find out who will be ready to play for the USA the next several years. PS- Congratulations on Winning the Gold Cup vs Mexico in a great game and good tourney. The goal by Benny Feilhaber was magnificent, the best goal I have seen in years for the USA.

Damn, only 67 days until the first big weekend in College Football and 72 until NFL. I could talk football 24/7/365, but have to survive the other seasons, NBA and Baseball. Starting in July, Lite and myself will start having blogs for every NFL teams and most major college football teams to get ready for the season. I am already starting to contemplate several of my fantasy football teams. We will be more than ready to give you all of the information that matters. Thanks and please add some comments to rile me up, I love a great debate!

The NBA Draft!

Is anyone else as excited for the next 24 hours as i am? (This is slowly devolving into a Suns blog...). The Suns are rumored to be in about, oh, i don't know, 473 different trade possibilities. Most of them involving KG, and some of those might even be feasible.

The most common theme it seems is the Suns attempts to get into the top ten in the draft. Hence their working out of even more lottery players today (UNC's Brandan Wright and FSU's Al Thornton). Most talks are now centering around Charlotte's number 8 pick, with the Celtic's Danny Ainge saying today they are not dealing their number 5 pick.

That news also kills the the three team trade rumors with the T'Wolves, as Minnesota would most certainly be asking for the 5 pick if they were to give up KG to the Suns. However, as the day has gone on, another three team trade rumor has emerged involving the Hawks again. Once again though the Hawks are asking for Amare', and i still don't think the Suns are willing to part with the young big man.

As for me? Well, i say bring on KG. I would hate to lose Amare', but i think in the short-term you give yourself the best possible chance to win the Championship. Amare' is going to be a great player, but i don't even think you hinder the team too much long-term by trading him. You have KG for probably 5 years, which is plenty of time to draft and develop, or through free agency get another great player.

The goal of every professional sports franchise is to win a championship (Well, except for the Cardinals apparently. Oh, and the Clippers.) By getting KG, the Suns give themselves the best possible chance to achieve that goal.

The Great Suns Debate

In case you didn't notice, we now have two contributors to this illustrious site, yours truly (Smitty Lite) and my older, less intelligent brother (Smitty). I apologize in advance for his lack of writing skills, like i said he isn't as intelligent as myself. Then again, who is...

Anyway, in a surefire tactic to get him riled up and spark another debate between us, i thought i'd talk about the Suns some more, and their apparent recent attempts to move into the top ten in the upcoming NBA Draft.

It seems as though talks with the T-Wolves has cooled as of late, presumably because they want Amare' and Steve Kerr is sticking a giant finger at them (As i would also). As such, the Suns brought in several highly regarded prospects for workouts today in Phoenix, including Corey Brewer, Alando Tucker, Joakim Noah, Jeff Green, and Finland's Petteri Koponen. Also, yesterday Kerr and a couple of other Suns officials travelled to LA for a multi-team workout by China's Yi Jianlian.

All of this fuels much rumor that instead of trading for a top name player, a la Kevin Garnett, the Suns may be looking instead to trade for a high draft pick, possibly in a move to help their salary cap. While in theory this all sounds good, i still think it is a mistake.

The Suns are close, one of two or three teams set to contend for a championship each of the next two to three years. They are one piece, most likely a stud interior defender/scorer, away from being able to hold off San Antonio, and thus dispose of whatever team du jour the LEastern Conference manages to sputter out the next few years.

So why then would they turn to the draft, where in all reality no one is completely ready to play in the NBA, let alone have a major role on a contending team? Why not go after someone of KG's ilk, possibly even Zach Randolph or Jermaine O'Neal, to shore up their one hole? Yes, they may be over the salary cap (by a lot. A LOT). But, a championship more than pays off the taxes we would be forced to pay. Plus, it's a championship! How do you not go after it right now, instead of drafting a rookie and waiting for them to develop?! It makes no sense!

The Suns have gotten basically nothing out of the last two drafts, yet somehow that hasn't seemed to affect them one bit. I am fine getting nothing out of this draft as well, if we can land a big time player to bolster our interior. I think that gives us the best shot at a championship in the next three years.

And isn't that what it's all about? Winning Championships?