Warriors in June

Two Junes ago, my wife and I were traveling through France, Venice, and Corsica (!), and I was tracking the NBA Finals in the middle of the nights via my Kindle. The Warriors won on June 16, which I discovered at about 6 a.m. while lying in bed in Ajaccio. It was the Warriors first championship in my lifetime. It was the first championship win by an Oakland team since the A’s in 1989. Curry, Igoudala, Klay, Draymond, Harrison Barnes, Leandro Barbosa, Shaun Livingston, Festus Ezeli, David Lee, Andrew Bogut, Mo Speights, Justin Holiday, and James Michael McAdoo, thank you. Don Nelson couldn’t do it with the Run TMC teams of the early 1990s or with the We Believe roster in 2007.

Fever Pitch (book review)

Back in the early and mid-2000s, I did not know much about soccer/football/fútbol. I knew a few people who had played it, and my friend Mike was obsessed with it–he had long been a Manchester United fan because back in the day, that was pretty much the only international team that made its way into the U.S. papers.

David Lee in 87 Seconds

I am a David Lee fan. I liked him at Florida (and I don’t like Florida teams), I loved him with the Knicks, and I was thrilled when the Knicks signed-and-traded him to the Warriors.

Lee missed out on Florida’s championships, finishing his career there in 2005. The team never advanced past the second round in his four seasons, subsequently winning the 2006 and 2007 national championships. The Knicks drafted him with the last pick of the first round in the 2005 draft. (the Warriors, meanwhile, spent the No. 9 pick on Ike Diogu)

Lee spent his first five years with dysfunctional Knicks’ teams, racking up double-doubles. He was a strong shooter and a good passer. He averaged 20.2 points and 11.7 rebounds in his final year with the team. He never shot below 54%. In 2010, his last year with the team, he became their first All Star in a decade.

His percentages and rebounding numbers have gone down with the Warriors, but he is still a constant double-double threat. Unfortunately, the team has not been very good since he arrived. A recurring theme?

Florida only won two NCAA Tournament games with him. The Knicks never made it to .500 or reached the playoffs. But this year, the Warriors did. For the first time since the glorious 2007 team, they made it to the playoffs.

But let’s put this in a little more perspective. From 1986-87 to 1993-94, the Warriors made the playoffs five times in eight years, winning three series. Then a 12-year break during which the team never finished higher than fifth in the Pacific. In 2006-07, they stunned the top-seeded Mavericks in Nelly’s Revenge. And five more years of nothing since then.

Now Stephen Curry is turning into the star we hoped he would be. Andrew Bogut is finally making the Monta Ellis trade seem worthwhile. Jarrett Jack is the backup point guard of whom dreams are made (and he’s from Georgia Tech and that glorious 2004 team!). Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes, and And David Lee goes out and, in his first playoff game ever, tears his hip flexor. Warriors lose Game 1.

So what do the Warriors do next? They turn around and win three straight. Then they lose Game 5 in Denver, setting up Game 6 back in Oakland. Warmups begin. And this happens.

He only played 87 seconds, grabbed one rebound, and missed his only shot. But he showed up and played. His numbers might not have demonstrated his influence and effect on the team. But now he’s got at least one series win. Here’s hoping he comes back healthy and strong and has many more good years ahead of him.

An Ode to Monta Ellis

Monta Ellis was one of my favorite Warriors. He was electric, and he was a homegrown talent. And yet, when he was traded, it was not devastating, because it had to happen. He and Stephen Curry didn’t work together, and Curry was the keeper. Even though the trade has pretty much been a failure for the Warriors, it made them Curry’s team. It was addition by subtraction.

If only they could have coexisted

Nonetheless, I still love Monta. He was a lightning rod. Ellis was drafted by the Warriors in the second round (40th overall) in the 2005 NBA Draft. He was part of the memorable 2007 playoff team. Sadly, the team was quickly broken up, in part to get Monta more playing time. Losing Jason Richardson, the heart of that team, was something that took the Warriors several years to recover from. Then Baron Davis took the money and ran. In the midst of this, management and ownership was a disaster.

But now it was Monta’s team, and his numbers in 2009 and 2010 were insane. His moves were lightning fast, beautiful…

Sigh.

… and occasionally impossible (although this is post-Warriors, but whatever, it was a great shot).

But ownership was a joke, management was a mess, and while the fans loved Monta, the team did not seem to know what to do with him.

This Grantland article gives some background on Monta’s childhood and motivations. It is pretty interesting. It will also be interesting to see what Milwaukee does with Monta after the season; if he becomes a free agent, he could definitely have an impact somewhere. I would love to see him make his way to a good team–like the Spurs or Heat–that understood his game but had the veteran and coaching presence to reign him in and channel his abilities. He turns 28 in October. He might not have even reached the glorious part of his career yet.

And in some worlds, Monta remains a Warrior.

Apologies for another hiatus

To all three (maybe? optimistically) of my loyal readers, wherever you may be, and however (accidentally) you may have found your way here, I apologies for another long blogging break. My last entry was nearly four months ago. Since then…

The 49ers had one of the most unexpected runs to a conference title game in recent memory. For the first time since the 49ers fired Steve Mariucci after the 2002 season, I (and many, many others) were actually exited to watch 49ers games again.

I remember getting to San Diego in 1998 for college: the 49ers were still good, although past their peak, and their games were still nationally televised. Even by the time I finished college in 2002, they were still relevant. And then began the decline. By the time I moved to New York in 2005, I could not have cared less that the 49ers game were not televised on the east coast. Same feelings when I returned to San Diego in 2007. I moved back to San Francisco after the 2009-10 season, and I did not go out of my way to watch the team in 2010-11.

But then something happened. The Harbaugh magic. I went to bars to watch games. The Saints-49ers divisional matchup was one of the best games I have ever seen–mind you, I grew up watching the 49ers destroy everyone, so there were not too many actual good “games” so much as excellent results. My girlfriend actually talked me into going to a bar to watch the Saints game instead of going hiking, and suffice to say, it was a good call on her part. Then I went to another bar for the NFC championship, this time with my roommate, and while the end was less than desirable, we made several new friends and drank far too excessively for a Sunday afternoon.

Even better, the New York Giants beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl! If the 49ers had lost, and then the Patriots had won, my take on the season would be much less sunny. Thank you, New York Giants.

Next up, basketball began almost immediately after I wrote about its demise. And, well, yeah. The Warriors are the Warriors. I am not sure anyone still cares about the NBA–unlike with the NFL or MLB, I do not have friends who casually talk about basketball outside of college and the soon-to-arrive March Madness. Several of us play fantasy basketball, but no one has been as invested this season. And thus, not much shall be written about it.

NASCAR has restarted. Last year, I was interning and joining fantasy NASCAR leagues. I was paying more attention to racing than ever before (that is, I was paying attention, period). And this year, I have to admit, I signed up for another fantasy league, because–while I won’t be watching the races–more stats are more stats.

Baseball is on its way. The season starts in less than a month. Spring-training games have begun. That will be for another post, since I have no clue what to write about. Other than: Ryan Braun, forever stained. Maybe that will be another article. My completely uninformed, all-my-information-comes-from-the-Internet, layman’s take on things.

In Lieu of Basketball

I do not miss NBA games right now, for various reasons.

1) The NBA has always been my third favorite of baseball-football-basketball. Now, it has probably dropped to fourth below English Premier League. And that is not counting college sports.

2) The games just are not that interesting to me. That might seem absurd, considering my love for baseball, but the joy of baseball is partly in the numbers. Meanwhile, football is Romanesque: gladiators beat the shit out of each other. There is timeless appeal. But basketball. Actually, let me rephrase: but NBA basketball. Which leads me to a third reason why I do not miss the NBA:

3) College basketball. The NBA is full of spineless coaches who can’t control selfish players. And that does not even take into account the current battle of -illionaires. Players get huge contracts and then tank the rest of the season or their career (Baron Davis, Eddy Curry, etc.). Really makes you want to root for them. Then again, it happens in other sports (Albert Haynesworth, come on down), but the epically bad contracts seem to happen frequently in basketball. Thus the Allan Houston clause, and the future Rashard Lewis clause. In baseball, you deal with Barry Zito, because you can’t just package up a bad contract to someone else.

Back to the college/NBA comparison. If you turn on a random, midseason NBA game, odds are you will change the channel quickly. The Minnesota Timberwolves are facing the Charlotte Bobcats! Charlotte has a basketball team, but it’s not the Hornets, because the Hornets are in New Orleans. (On an unrelated note, it would be awesome if NBA team names made any sense whatsoever. Then again, maybe there are lots of hornets in New Orleans.)

College basketball, meanwhile, is awesome. Millionaire players are not dogging it. The preseason tournaments rock. Random games between random teams on random weeknights rock. The conference matchups rock. Sleeper players and sleeper teams win everyone’s attention. The NCAA tournament, while totally driven by television and media, is brilliant, and everything that the NBA (and the BCS, for that matter) is not.

Why should anyone care about the NBA when college basketball is going on?

(Tangent: I might be more bothered by this if I was still watching SportsCenter on a regular basis, but I gave up. SportsCenter has jumped the shark. Or maybe ESPN just needs to rotate out all the current talking heads, except for Scott Van Pelt. All ESPNers, past and present, have shelf lives… and all the current ESPNers have expired. Please go away, John Clayton and Adam Schefter and sideline reporters.)

Back to college basketball: it is not perfect. College coaches get into their fair share of mischief (or overlook it), and many are grossly overpaid. Lots of teams concentrate more on postseason glory than graduation rates, but that goes for all college sports, it seems. It doesn’t matter. The NCAA Tournament is an event.

Meanwhile, the NBA playoffs seem like they last longer than the regular season. The Mavericks won last year. Heartwarming. Now people can stop arguing about whether Dirk is an all-time great. Except people were mostly happy that the Heat did not win. Meanwhile, Baylor made the NCAA championship game for the second straight year, something that could never, ever happen in the NBA. The best teams are stacked. The lesser teams are not. There is little parity. Actually, now there is really no parity, because there is no NBA. Zing!

Yes, every so often the Warriors beat the Mavericks or the Grizzlies beat the Spurs in the playoffs… in the first round. The non-division winners in basketball, unlike those in other sports, rarely make the finals. They rarely even make things interesting, for that matter. Wild cards rarely make it to, let alone win, the championship. In baseball, that happens every few years.

Now then. On to the one reason I do miss the NBA: fantasy basketball.

Fantasy basketball is my second-favorite fantasy sport, behind baseball and ahead of football. Baseball is every day for six months. Basketball is every day for four months. And the numbers! I miss the numbers. I miss Kevin Love’s 30-30s with insane shooting percentages. I miss Monta dropping 40+ points. I miss trying to trade for an actual point guard while hoping Andre Miller keeps getting assists. I miss free agent finds like Marcin Gortat. I miss the draft. I miss mid-day updates in the standings.

It is football season, so sports are not completely dead, but fantasy sports are on life support. Thankfully, the football season has reached the point of Thursday games, so the Tuesday-Friday stretch is not completely devoid of sports. But this is another reason it is easier for me to not watch SportsCenter… other than weekend football, what else is there to cover? Scandals and child molesting and plane crashes… i.e., NEWS. I do not want to go to the sports channel to watch news. There is a reason I stopped watching most television news years ago. First, it is usually depressing. Second, the people presenting it are usually no-talent ass clowns.

Fantasy football is fine. Actually, it is probably in my best interests that the NBA is on hold, since it means less distraction and has given me time to get to all the schoolwork. Fantasy football takes very little effort and far less attention compared to the other fantasy sports. During an internship earlier this year, I interviewed several fantasy football players. One of the main reasons they liked playing fantasy football was because it did not take much time. One avid fantasy gamer actually complained that his problem with fantasy football was that it did not give him enough to do. And that is exactly my problem with it. There is only so much to read during non-game and non-post-game days. Only so many articles. Only so many sleepers or free-agent finds after Week 5 or so. There are not as many starting spots, unless the league does individual defensive players (which I love because of MORE NUMBERS).

Once fantasy football ends in December? Then I will really, really miss basketball, because there will still be more than three months before baseball starts.

49ers, Postseason Awards, and No Warriors

It has been awhile.

Let’s see. Since my last writing, the baseball season has ended (the Giants did not reach the playoffs, but the American League did not win, so all is well).

The St. Louis Cardinals won their second World Series in five years (and thus the Giants were officially dethroned), which would have again made me rich had I actually bet before the Series began (on the bright side, my brilliant 2006 betting spree–thank you, Jeff Weaver!–returned to the limelight).

On a neat-if-you-are-not-from-Texas note, the Rangers joined the illustrious list of back-to-back-championship losers, alongside (most recently) NCAA basketball’s Butler Bulldogs. And the National League claimed its second consecutive World Series, silencing the American League advocates for at least one more season.

The football season has reached its midpoint plus one, and the 49ers are 8-1 and in first place. It is awesome. Jim Harbaugh is a genius. Management does not completely suck at its job… actually, I don’t know about the last one.

I do find it interesting that it took management nearly a decade to make up for its decision to fire Steve Mariucci, and in the end they went back to hiring a college coach. I wish they had thought of this before Mike Nolan, Mike Singletary, and various others whom I have thankfully forgotten… and before they so brilliantly began things with the Dennis Erickson era. That was a fun one.

But: accentuate the positive! The 49ers have the second-best record in the NFL! It is not quite the 1980s and 1990s all over again, but it is far from the 2000s. It is odd to actually think of the 49ers as a winning team. But that is the spoiled brat in me speaking, since there are plenty of fans out there who would do unheard-of things to root for a team with the history of the 49ers, last decade and all.

And then there is (not) basketball. Rich owners versus rich players. May both sides lose.

I will be honest: I miss fantasy basketball. I miss the stats. I miss daily box scores. I miss my keeper league. I miss Monta Ellis going berserk and scoring 40+ points, Kevin Love angling for another 30-30, late-round stars (Marc Gasol, Andre Miller), and free-agent wonders (Marcin Gortat!).

Sadly (for the rich owners and rich players), I (along with a lot of other people) do not actually miss the NBA. Because, hey, the 49ers are 8-1! And college basketball has begun! And college football and EPL are in full swing, and Champions League is in the group stage, and shoot, even NASCAR is entertaining!

Yes, NASCAR. My internship earlier this year had me sign up for several fantasy NASCAR leagues. This has not led me to watch racing. However, I have maintained those fantasy leagues–or one of them, at least. After an anemic first third of the year, I rode the Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski trains through the middle of the season. I had a few rough patches in the Sprint Cup (last year at this time I might not have been able to identify which sport had the Sprint Cup), but I have come on strong in recent weeks thanks to the one-two punch of Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart.

Last, but not least, and returning to baseball: the postseason award-giving has begun. I’ll come back soon to review to evaluate just how awful my fearless predictions were in the end .