Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Wednesday 06/10 A.M. Quickie:
Magic, Floyd, Strasburg, Red Sox, More

I am surely overrating (no!), but it seems like a pretty big moment in the short history of Twitter's impact on sports media that Shaq's tweet immediately after last night's game framed the story:

"By george I think we have a series."

This may seem self-serving from someone whose career hinged on the notion that you could fill a column with 30-word blurbs on lots of topics, rather than 750-word (or 2,500-word) columns on a specific topic, but columnists in Orlando and LA and online will churn out tens of thousands of words about last night's game -- but Shaq did more to make sense with his 8 words than all those other words combined. (And he did it faster.)

That said, Game 3 led today's SN column: Wow, the Magic shot the lights out. Wow, they locked down on Kobe after his 1st quarter promised a crazy epic performance from him. Wow, they seemed like a totally different -- entirely confident -- team playing at home (and the Lakers have lost 7 straight Finals games on the road). I don't think the Magic leaving Orlando up 3-2 is a crazy notion.

*Meanwhile, let's get real: Who didn't see Tim Floyd's resignation coming? Frankly, the guy probably should have been fired years ago. But beyond that, the whole "recruitment" of OJ Mayo was so sketchy -- right from its odd start! -- that you knew things were going to go badly for Floyd. That USC coaching job is toxic -- although I'm sure the NCAA won't do anything to the program...certainly now that Floyd is out.

*Don't be fooled: The Vikings "dropping" interest in Favre is complete b.s. He could show up in late July saying "I'm here," and they'd drop whatever plan they had in place to make it work.

*The Nationals finally have some cachet: Stephen Strasburg. Now, they just have to get him signed, up to the big leagues and pitching -- ideally at home, where they could use the attendance boost -- ASAP.

Lots more in today's column. See the whole thing here. More later.

-- D.S.

1 comment:

Michael W said...

The Magic shot lights out at home and still barely won. When you set a Finals record for best shooting night, you're supposed to win by more than 4. This series won't get back to LA if they don't slow Kobe down.