07/06 (Friday) Quickie

Still totally comfortable with Steve Nash on the Lakers...

Wimbledon: With a handful of exceptions (notably Tebow), I tend to underappreciate the truly awesome athletes until their careers are in twilight. That's why I am really paying attention to Serena at Wimbledon right now...

Knicks/Lin Watch: I like Jeremy Lin in New York -- although I'm not a Knicks fan and find their disregard of salary restraints to be competitively unfair. The Knicks are going to match the Rockets' offer sheet to Lin -- Lin is too good (and too marketable). I honestly wonder, though, whether Lin would rather be playing for Houston -- playing with Carmelo can't possibly be ideal for a point guard like Lin. (Also: How will Lin enjoy playing with future Hall of Famer Jason Kidd as his back-up? How does THAT work?)


Brandon Roy to the T'wolves? Sounds great. It's a good risk for Minnesota, which needs a shooting guard to go with Rubio and Love. (They aren't going to get Nicholas Batum, but it was worth a try, because they need a small forward, too.)


MLB Final Vote: I'm surprised that David Freese got more votes than Bryce Harper -- it's a testament to the vitality of Cardinals fans (versus Nats fans, who are still trying to figure this whole thing out). I think that a year from now, Harper is voted into the starting lineup anyway. (Yu winning the AL Final Vote wasn't a surprise. The entire vote-by-Twitter thing gets points for being innovative, but was really annoying for users.)

This NCAA-AAU scandal begs a simple but important question: Isn't AAU hoops, as a whole, assumed to be corrupt to the core? So four teams are nicked? How about all of them?

The solution isn't easy: Basically, AAU needs to be disrupted by a start-up grassroots league that is "clean" (or, maybe, cleaner). Then, college coaches need to say to recruits "I will not recruit you -- I don't care how good you are -- if you are playing AAU. You need to play in this league." I'm not saying the NCAA has to create a HS development pipeline, but it is absolutely in the NCAA's (and NBA's) best interest to fund a competitor to AAU that is nothing less than an existential threat.


Should be a fun weekend ahead. It's been a weird week, between the DC storms that knocked out our power from Friday through Wednesday and the mid-week holiday break. Enjoy your weekend, folks. More updates here each morning -- and on Quickish all weekend.

-- D.S.