Better Late Than Never

First, congratulations to Dallas for persevering and finally winning the NBA Championship. I am not a Mark Cuban fan, but he didn’t blow it up after several failures. He kept tinkering until he found the right combination. Most owners get impatient and blow it up if they level off at 50+ wins a season.

It helped facing a team with no interior scoring, a squad that lives off jumpers and minimal shot blocking inside. That allowed the Mavs to continually take the ball to the basket in crunch time without fear of being knocked down or getting shots blocked.

As for Dirk, we have ridden him and the Mavs hard for being soft in the past – and with good reason, but they finally started to shed that label. They added three players in the last couple years to help them get rid of that label – Tyson Chandler – a defensive minded post player, Jason Kidd, a gritty veteran and good defender and Caron Butler, a physical/talented wing player, who actually missed most of the season to an injury. Again, it helped playing the Heat – a soft team themselves with a superstar with mush for toughness.

Regardless, the Heat win the series if LeBron James shows up. Period. As for his disappearing act, don’t ask me to analyze it – I am not a psychologist. I have no idea why he wilted – again. I do know it’s in his head and not his body. His elbow was fine this time – I think. And no, I don’t feel sorry for him.

I found it interesting that the talking head postgame analysis focused on LeBron needing to get in the gym and work on his main weak over the summer – developing a post game. You think? We’ve been on that kick since 2004! Once again, it’s nice to see the rest of the planet coming around – once it’s so obvious even a child can figure it out. Yes, he does need to play without the ball and he needs to work on his jumper more, but the lack of doing the dirty work inside has kept him from reaching a special level as a player. Something tells me he’ll be out with JZ just as much as in the gym alone in July. Old habits die hard.

Can we now FINALLY stop the Michael Jordan comparisons, please? Even when we had LBJ pegged as the best player in the world as early as four years ago, we also stated that until he started winning multiple wins rings, you can’t compare him to MJ. Of all people, I wonder how Scottie Pippen, MJ’s running mate feels today after saying LBJ was in MJ’s league a few weeks ago.

This is why I can’t work in PR at the highest level – pro sports. Someone needed to tell Dan Gilbert, before the series ended, to keep his mouth shut if the Mavs won. Instead, he tweeted “there are no shortcuts to winning!” Like we didn’t know Dan. Had I been working for the Cavs, I would have taken his laptop away months ago. But then again, I would never have been offered the job following the initial interview – too blunt!


Ad for the Tribe, yes they are finally coming back down to earth. A 162-game season will do that to you – it eventually shows all your warts. However, if they can somehow weather the storm, they can still have a very competitive season. We’ll see how they handle themselves. Bottom line – it’s hard to win when your 3 & 4 hitters (Choo & Santana) are hitting .240. The good news during this stretch, if there is any, is the fact that the pitching hasn’t totally gone south.


The problem is as follows – this ownership is not likely to go add a piece or two via trade that will help stop the bleeding. That costs money. The players will likely be on their own.


And while we are on giving credit where credit is due, it’s finally good to see Travis Hafner , who we have blasted time and time again, earning some of that salary. He’s still on the DL way too much, but at least he’s not a physical liability any more when in the line-up. I hope he keeps it up – they need his bat, especially since several other key figures in the line-up are having off years offensively (fill in the blank with your choice of player this side of the SS).

By the way, my favorite storyline on the Tribe this year took place when Hafner recently came off the DL and a short rehab stint. He played on a Friday night then they sat him/rested him on Saturday before putting back in the DH spot on Sunday. What? He’s a F%$#@ing DH, how the hell was he not able to swing the bat 4x in back-to-back games after one day back up from Akron/Canton?

And no, I have no idea who the Cavaliers should draft. I simply haven’t seen enough of these collegiate players. I do know I would prefer to trade one of their two first round picks for an established outstanding player – preferably a wing player who can get buckets at will (aka: 18-20 a night). You simply can’t win in this league with all kids.

I do know one thing - their strongest position is point guard with Davis and Sessions. If they take T. Irving out of Duke, he’d better be a perennial All-Star, or it's a bad pick. I assume if Irving is their choice, a trade should be forthcoming soon after with one of their other guards. Again, I have not seen enough of these kids to give an opinion at this point. However, their GM and scouting staff get paid to get this right. There is little margin for error. And remember my approach – I would rather have a proven commodity than a rookie with potential.


As for their needs – an athletic small forward who can consistently score the basketball, a legitimate, physical center who can board, block shots and rebound, and a two-guard with size and athleticism. Notice the athleticism label coming up twice.

Why the hell would any established coach take the OSU job right now? The sharks will wait until OSU is about to come off probation before being serious about wanting that gig. That’s why they gave it to a guy in his 30s, who has never been a head coach before. I actually want to see this guy succeed. Trust me, the powers that be at OSU were forced to go this route. They want a shark in there as soon as possible. That’s why I hope he screws up their plan and wins.

And someone explain to me why the GEEK Gee and Smith, the AD, still have jobs? I mocked them after their press conference months ago, saying I would have fired them on the spot back then. Remember that moron Gee going to the “I hope coach Tressel doesn’t fire me” card? Nice. That’s a classic case of a guy with a high IQ having absolutely no common sense. I knew this guy was “off” when I realized he had a WEEKLY radio gig on the OSU football pre-game radio schedule. We hammered him then and were right on the money. Again, he was part of the problem.

By the way, next time, I will explain in detail why paying college athletes will do absolutely nothing to stem cheating. I am tired of hearing morons going to “let’s pay these kids.” They get paid – what the hell do you call a $100,000+ free education?

Be good.