Sunday, July 01, 2007

Sunday 07/01 A.M. (Very) Quickie

MLB Stud: Carlos Beltran, who had his second 2-HR game...in a row.

Study of the Week: Southern-born pitchers more likely to plunk batters.

(Rare) kudos to Scott Boras: I think you'll hear a lot about his plan for a best-of-9 World Series, including a first-weekend bonanza of awards, Hall of Fame and Games 1/2 at a neutral site.

NBA Free Agency: The Rockets want Rashard Lewis... Vince Carter opted out of his Nets deal, but it still looks like he'll re-sign with the team (ugh)... Grant Hill to the Suns? Great match.

NBA Draft, Cont'd: I like Kevin Durant, too, but what all the Durant-slurpers tend to NOT mention while they are doing said slurping is this:

If Durant is so transcendentally talented, why couldn't he lead his Texas team out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament against a merely good USC team?

I have yet to hear from Durant's fans in the media any sort of explanation of the startling discrepancy between Durant's presumptive ability to lead his NBA team to an NBA title and his actual inability to lead his college team merely into college hoops' Sweet 16.

After all: Carmelo didn't just score and rebound prolifically as a freshman, but he led his team to the national title. And it's not like Melo has been able to replicate that in the pros. (And he's got a better team around him than Durant will have...and likely will have for YEARS.)

Durant will be a great pro, in the same way he was a great college player. But it's a huge difference between being a great player and being a champion -- at either level.

So: Anyone get an iPhone? Or know anyone who did? Any early reviews?

-- D.S.

13 comments:

LoganAvatar said...

Regarding the iphone: looks like Apple really did a great job on making sure there was enough stock to meet demand. The apple iphone finder will show you if your local store has any in stock, and as of last night, most stores still had them.

As far as it being good or bad, HowardForums has a list of iphone disappointments, and it really looks like if you are a casual user, you will be happy, but if you are a gadget geek, you will yearn for the features that the top smartphones have, yet the iphone lacks.

Matt T said...


Study of the Week: Southern-born pitchers more likely to plunk batters.


So much for Southern hospitality

Chaddogg said...

Two words on Durant: Rick. Barnes.

Melo had arguably one of the greatest college coaches of all time in Boeheim drawing up plays FOR him, whereas Durant was cursed with Barnes, who couldn't figure out that Texas' only hope for winning was to draw up as many plays as possible for Durant. Durant arguably would have been MORE impressive had he been coached by someone with a brain.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that Seattle needs to hire an excellent coach.

starkweather said...

Carmelo Anthony winning the title as a freshman was a freak occurence. How many titles or Final 4's did Tim Duncan make in 4 years at Wake Forest? Does that mean he came to the NBA and "learned" to be a winner? No, he came to a great situation and won a title right away. I would guess Oden has the better chance to win right away and, perhaps, going into the future because Portland seems to have a better nucleus. But who knows? Maybe Oden and Brandon Roy won't play well together. Neither one of these guys will win a title next year. If one of them makes the playoffs he's the odds-on favorite for ROY.

Unknown said...

9 game series?! Are you serious?! 7 game series do not hold the fans attention anymore. Look at the ratings for the NBA, MLB and NHL, they are all on the decline. The championships with the biggest ratings are the Super Bowl, college football and college basketball. Why, because the format is one and done. Baseball will be committing suicide if it goes to a 9 game World Series, because it has been eclipsed by football as America's sport and sports fans now have a short attention span.

WuzUpG said...

BONDS STARTS IN LEFTFIELD FOR THE ALL STAR GAME! WOOHOO! Now, they have to let Haren start, the other Bay Area guy

Nelvis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nelvis said...

"After all: Carmelo didn't just score and rebound prolifically as a freshman, but he led his team to the national title"

Wow just ignore that Melo had Gerry McNamara (who hit 7 3s in the title game), Hakim Warrick (who was a monster in the tourney), and Billy Edelin.

Why didn't Texas make it to the second round? Maybe becuase the team without Durant would struggle to make the NIT. Like other Texas fans, I thought this would be a rebuilding year until Kevin decided to come to Texas. He carried a average UT team to a nice season.

Also, It might sound petty, but its hard for me to ignore that Ohio St should've been gone in Round 2 if the refs would've called the flagrant on Oden

marcomarco said...

Early reports 'speculate' that Benoit used the Crippler Crossface on his kid.

Hopefully it's only speculation.

link

Geo B said...

Yes we got my wife an iPhone - she loves it, I will agree with the first poster that since we don't have blackberries or treos if you are used to one of those the iPhone might not be your bag - but it works very well for someone upgrading from "just a phone" and it's scoring very high on the geek buzz factor.

Just FYI supposedly according to the Houston paper all the AT&T stores sold out Friday night, we were at the only one that was still open at 8:30 p.m. and they had two left after we got ours.

jhawkjjm said...

About Carmelo... if Kansas doesn't shoot 35% from the free throw line, Kansas is nation champs.

Greg said...

I do love the Rick Barnes bashing. How many titles did LSU win with Shaq (who also had Chris Jackson and Stanley Roberts)? Duncan at Wake Forest (who had Randolph Childress)? Chauncey Billups at Colorado?

Rick Barnes is an excellent coach, and his career numbers are: 17 years 343-192 (.641) 157-119 (.569) 12 NCAAs, 3 NITs and he has won everywhere he has gone. For those of you that are not aware, his returning players with experience this year were AJ Abrams (5'10" soph who averaged 21 minutes a game and Connor Atchley at just under 8 minutes a game). So they weren't reloading, they were completely rebuilding. They lost 6 of their top seven players (Aldridge, Gibson and Tucker to the NBA draft, Buckman and Paulino to graduation and Mike Williams to transfer). So Barnes takes a team that starts 4 freshman and a sophomore and leads them to a 12-4 conference mark, and 25-10 overall record, and they lose in the 2nd round of the NCAA tourney. If anyone can name me a team that had such a lack of experience go farther in a tourney, please do.

And any comparision to Syracuse in 2003 isn't really fair. That Syracuse team had a few upperclassman who contributed, and Keith Duany was the lockerroom leader on that team. Texas didn't have any upperclassman who played any significant minutes all year.

Unknown said...

It's not like Tim Duncan or Shaq led their teams deep into the NCAA tournament either... you can't extrapolate Durant's future on one bad game (and Barnes' inability to get his best player open).