Catching up with a busy weekend

But first, more pics of Isiah Thomas in his new roll as Milton Waddams for the Knicks...


Stupid is as stupid does...

So, the Rocket is back in the news, this time for an alleged 10-year extramarital affair that started when he was 28 and the other woman was 15. Roger Clemens' attorney released a statement, not denying a relationship with the now washed up 32-year old country singer, but denying that the relationship was of a sexual nature.

Clemens might be telling the truth here, however, there are a number of things that just don't pass the smell test here.

I want to address some of those things.

First - I spent five years as a teacher at the high school level, and in the 22 years I have spent as a martial arts instructor, I have been friendly with a number of teenagers. I have mentored several of them, but have spent no time with any of them outside of a classroom setting (except in the very rare case in which I am friends with the child's parents - which has always been the case before I had the child as a student). I would not call any of them a sustained relationship over a ten year period, no matter what my age.

Second - What ended the "platonic" relationship after ten years? Sure, I have friends, going back to elementary school, whom I don't talk to or see as often as I once did. But I would not describe those relationships as ended at the time we stopped talking as often.

Some of those friends I talk to once a year, sometimes less, and see those people even less frequently, but they're still people I consider to have a relationship with. The relationship hasn't ended. Just changed.

As for women with which I had physical or romantic relationships - yeah, most of those had definitive endings complete with hostilities and cessation of interaction. Some I can pinpoint the dates on, if I really went back to think about it. None of those were platonic.

What I have to ask at this point, would any of this have hit had it not been for The Mitchell Report?

Two by Two

The Celtics stomped on the Atlanta Hawks in the first two games of the playoffs, winning by an average of 21 points in those two games. The Hawks have been slightly better than the Celtics for the last two in Atlanta, averaging a seven point margin in their wins.

I mention this for the following - the series returns to Boston for game five.

A basic fact about the two teams -

Through the season and including the playoffs, the Celtics are 37-6 at home and 31-12 away. Atlanta, is a respectable 27-16 at home. In 43 road games the Hawks have only won 12 - or to put it another way; Atlanta has won a little better than one in every four road games while the Celtics have lost a little less than once in every six games at the Garden.

Unless the Hawks can rise to the occasion and steal one in Boston, the best Atlanta will do is make a respectable showing by forcing the series to seven games. I just have a hard time seeing the Hawks taking one on the road.

Panic attack

The Sox have lost five in a row to slip into second place, mere percentage points behind the Rays and Orioles. The skid coincides with a flu that has run through the Sox clubhouse, forcing the team to start Jon Lester on three days rest (for everyone knocking him - yes it wasn't a great start, but he still gave the team an opportunity to win, giving up four earned in five innings - the same number of runs the team put up over the same number of innings). The bullpen screwed the pooch, and the offense went away.

A pretty good description of what has happened with the team during the skid.

In the next game, rookie Justin Masterson spun a six inning gem, giving up one run. The offense was decent, scoring five runs over the course of the game, but the bullpen gave up six over the final three innings.

Even Tim Wakefield qualified for a quality start, making it through six innings and giving up only three earned runs against the Rays, Clay Buchholz gave up two runs in eight, and Beckett only one earned in seven. Even when the Sox put runs on the board, the hitting failed in the clutch.

All that noted, it's way too early to panic. Sure, JD Drew has reverted to 2007 Drew, but he's not the only one to have disappeared at the plate. For the most part, David Ortiz hasn't shown up yet, and only Julio Lugo and Dustin Pedroia got hits in the Sunday night game that made the Rays' James Shields look like the second coming of Nolan Ryan. The night before only Drew, Coco Crisp, Jed Lowrie, and Jacoby Ellsbury hit the ball. This won't last.

It's the end of April. It is way too early to panic.

Monday observations

After what has felt like a decade of futility at Madison Square Garden, Isiah Thomas got the heave-ho...sort of.

Thomas is a man of no authority now in the NBA.

After managing the Knicks past the point of irrelevance with horrendous coaching and personnel decisions, so far past the point of irrelevance that the team was so bad they were relevant only as a cautionary tale to the rest of the NBA, Thomas was finally axed as the coach of the Knicks. For some reason the team kept Thomas on the payroll.

I have a theory about that.

Thomas has (to call it single-handedly would absolve James Dolan of his culpability, and let's face it, Dolan has just been as culpable as Thomas) pretty well annihilated the New York basketball franchise, making it the laughingstock of professional sports. He is to the NBA what the Ragnarok is to Norse Mythology. He is the Destroyer, and he has done it to them both on and off the court.

As such, I think David Stern asked the Knicks to keep him on the payroll to keep him from doing this to any other franchise.

He currently has a position with no title, no one reports to him, and he apparently has no responsibilities in this position (as yet). Sounds like someone the NBA wants kept out of the way.

Like I said, just a theory. But I know if I'm Stern, I'm trying to keep him from doing this to any other franchise.

Props...

To Danica Patrick for putting to rest the comparisons to Anna Kournikova with an outright win in the 50th open-wheel race of her career. After taking the flag at the Japan 300, Patrick has become the first woman to win one of the major races in the sport's circuit. While not a fan of racing, I thought this deserved a mention.

To Vikings' defensive end Kenechi Udeze for the fact that his leukemia is in remission and that he has found a bone marrow donor in his fight against this form of cancer. Now let's hear some good news on Joe Andruzzi who is engaged in his own battle with cancer, having been diagnosed (according to a January update from Sports Illustrated) with Burkitt's Lymphoma. That particular form of lymphoma is rare, but aggressive wherein a cancerous mass can double in size in just 24 hours.

To Big Papi who seems to be working his way out of his slump. It's nothing short of amazing that the Red Sox have led the American League in run production (and are third overall) in spite of Ortiz's struggles at the plate. Currently, with Ortiz only barely within spitting distance of the Mendoza Line (.160, up from a low in the double digits), the team leads the AL in run production with 104 (as of Monday morning), RBI's with 99, slugging percentage at .446, and the majors in batting average at .295, and on base percentage at .367. What does this mean for the rest of the league when Ortiz really begins hitting?

A Raiders GM, A Lions GM, and a Knicks GM walk into a bar...

Once these people were at the top of their respective games.

Al Davis was Jerry Jones long before Jerry Jones was even a blip on the NFL radar. The maverick owner of the Raiders liked to cultivate his outsider's personae, often flipping a metaphorical finger at collectively bargained NFL deals.

The difference was that Davis was a football guy rather than a businessman like Jones.

He wasn't just any football guy, either. He was, once, highly respected both as a coach and a talent evaluator. After working his way up through the college ranks, he took over a Raiders franchise that had only nine wins in its first 42 games. That translates to a pitiful winning percentage of .214.

In Davis' first year at the helm the team went 10-4 and was unanimously voted AFL Coach of the Year for his efforts. In three seasons as a coach he put together a respectable 23-16-3 record, an increase of .333 over the team's previous winning percentage.

For roughly two decades (ending 1985), the Raiders, under Davis, won the division 13 times, and have for Championship rings (one AFL, three Super Bowls). Like him or hate him, he was once one of the foremost football minds in the NFL.

Matt Millen, picked in the second round of the 1980 draft by the aforementioned Davis, was among the best inside linebackers during a 12 year career in the 1980's and early '90's, mostly with the Oakland Raiders. He made the Pro-Bowl once (1988), was a two-time All-Pro('84, '85), and walked away from the game with four Super Bowl rings. Of the 180 games that he appeared in, he started 166. Not quite Hall of Fame, but it was good enough for people to remember who he was years after he retired.

From 1981 until his retirement in 1994, Isiah Thomas was one of the best point guards in the business. The leader of the Detroit Pistons, Thomas was as good as they come, being named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history when the league celebrated its 50th anniversary.

The point guard was an integral piece to the puzzle in Detroit, making the All-Star Game 12 straight years while donning two championship rings and being named MVP of the Championship Series in 1990. Among his other honors is Olympic Gold and enshrinement in the NBA Hall of Fame.

Pundits speak of him as being part of a Golden Age of basketball, along with peers Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Larry Bird.

Now, all three of these people are both joke and punchline.

While Matt Millen might finally be showing some signs of growth as a general manager, a hint of learning, he now owns a record that no football insider believes will ever be approached - he has more seasons of double digit losses than any GM in the history of the sport.

The reason it's believed that Millen will always have that dubious honor? None of the insiders around the sport believe that anyone else can last this long without getting fired.

Since Millen's hiring, the Lions have compiled a 31-81 record, worst in the NFL. Last season was the team's best showing with him selecting the players and coaches. They won seven games. Previous to last season, his teams averaged a paltry four wins per season.

Since the Raiders loss in the 2002 Super Bowl to the Buccaneers, Davis has played musical coaches and made questionable player moves...at best.

The amazing thing about Davis' personnel moves is that they were questionable when he made them. With the exception of the acquisition of Randy Moss, there were virtually no moves that Davis made that weren't followed by the phrase, "what's he thinking, giving that guy that sort of contract?"

And he appears to have done it again, committing an obscene amount of money...the money you spend on difference makers, on middle of the road sort of talent - has beens and never will be's.

The result? Nineteen wins over the last five seasons. Less than four per season.

Thomas? Since coming to New York, he's been an absolute train wreck of an executive.

Twenty years after being presented the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award, Thomas was found guilty of sexual harassment, and did nothing to help his image with his testimony in the case, and subsequent comments to the press. During the course of the trial, it was also testified that Thomas made racist comments on more than one occasion in regards to white people.

He has finished with 42 or fewer wins in five of his six full seasons as a coach, and has put together a brutally bad Knicks team with the highest payroll in the NBA. That team has gone a combined 52-100, with only 19 of the wins coming this season. They are on a pace for 22 wins and 60 losses. Only Miami is on pace for fewer wins in the East.

If the entire NBA finishes on the current pace, that will be the highest payroll in the league with fourth worst record, and average of only 27.5 wins per season for Thomas as GM and coach.

While a joke, even a pitiful punchline to fans of other teams around the respective leagues, these guys have been nothing more than nightmares to fans of the Raiders, Lions, and Knicks.

Scraping the bottom

Sometimes in professional sports, scraping bottom isn't about finishing last. Sometimes its about the fact that the franchise is run into the ground for so long that employees feel like they go to work in a cave somewhere far below the level of the rest of the respective league - bad drafting, bad coaching, bad free agent signings, bad executive decisions (budget, contracts, etc.).

Some teams are so bad in a given season that they become a benchmark against which other teams are measured - the 1962 New York Mets won only 40 games; in the team's first season the Buccaneers lost all 14 regular season games, becoming the first NFL team to do so in the Super Bowl era; the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers won nine while losing 73.

Sometimes, as I said, it's less about the single season then it is about sustained periods of putrescence. Some teams just historically have issues - the Cubs, Browns, and Clippers have been the sad sacks of their respective leagues for years.

But who are the teams scraping bottom now?

Let's start with the worst of the worst -

The New York Knicks - The Isiah Years. Not including the partial season of 2003 - 2004 that Isiah Thomas has presided over this team as team president/GM and/or coach, and not including this season's sterling start, Isiah Thomas has managed to pad his resume with the following facts -

• The team has an aggregate record of 89 -157. Currently the team is on pace for roughly a 25 win season.
• Thomas himself has been embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal, found guilty by a jury of his peers.
• He has put together a team of individuals with the highest payroll in the league, but has never been able to get the team to .500.
• He has publicly feuded with his team's biggest star, Stephon Marbury, who claims he has the goods on Thomas and also admitted to sleeping with a team intern.
• Owner James Dolan has publicly supported Thomas, going as far as to say that he believed that Thomas was doing a good job and had the team headed in the right direction.

Sure, there are other teams that have finished below the Knicks in the standings (last year's Celtics for one), but none have had the combination of futility on the court, in front office, and in the court rooms as the Knicks have had.

The Knicks were, at one point, one the NBA's most storied franchises. Now they're the punchline.

A close second? The Matt Millen Detroit Lions - Like the Dolan owned Knicks, the ownership of the Lions is in serious denial about their general manager, Matt Millen. Millen has drafted poorly, made poor hirings of coaches, and has played the free-agent market like a neophyte stock broker on Wall Street. Like the Knicks, there have been teams that finished behind them, but no other team has been as consistently bad.

To wit, under Millen,

• Detroit had an assistant coach arrested for indecent exposure. Said coach faced no significant consequences from the team.
• The team has set a record for futility with six straight seasons of double digit losses, and are sitting at 6-6 this season after a four game losing streak (no general manager in NFL history has presided over any team with as many 10+ losses per season). With games remaining against Dallas, San Diego, Kansas City, and Green Bay, a seventh straight season isn't out of the question.
• Has gone through at least three head coaches.
• Repeatedly drafted wide receivers with a top ten pick when the team had glaring needs at other places like offensive and defensive line.

Number three is, of course, the Miami Dolphins - Since 1998, this might be a team with some of the worst personnel decisions in the NFL. Consider that starters tend to hit their stride in their third or fourth year - particularly the later round picks.

And the result of their drafting futility?

• In the six drafts from 1998 to 2003, Miami had 59 choices. It exercised 46 of those picks and used 13 other choices in trades to acquire veteran players. Only Ricky Williams, acquired in a draft day deal as one of those 13 other choices, is on the current Dolphins roster (with thanks to Peter King for these numbers).
• They weathered the Nick Saban experiment.
• And while the jury is out, picking a glorified and injured kick returner with their first rounder just goes against conventional wisdom from a personnel standpoint.

Amazing for a team that once was a perennial power in the AFC East.

Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and the Baltimore Orioles - Sure, I'm grouping these three together because these three teams prove that it doesn't matter how big or small a team's budget is when ownership has no idea what it's doing. Continuing a recent history of futility, the Pirates and Devil Rays have become nothing more than glorified triple A teams cultivating talent for the rest of the league. The Orioles and George Steinbrenner wannabe, Peter Angelos has shown that a team can go out and spend money and still suck.

Were it not for the fact that the Marlins have established a pattern of binging and purging in order to win championships, they would make this list as well.

Welcome to the old boy network...

Ah...the NBA. Providing a woman a place where she can be called "bitch," or "ho" without any ramifications for the man.

Yup.

You heard right.

A jury found Isiah Thomas guilty of sexual harassment and the league says that it won't discipline Thomas because its system does not account for civil matters. Women of America, welcome to a great place to work...if you're a guy.

This is just another black-eye for a league that has been steadily declining in popularity since the mid-Nineties. Does anyone think Roger Goodell would claim impotence under the rules if Tom Heckert in Philadelphia, or even Scott Pioli in New England were convicted of the same? Paul Tagliabue would have had to deal with the 49ers and their "training tape" were it not for the fact that 49ers ownership acted swiftly and decisively in canning the man responsible for the tape.

Thank you, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. Don't collect $200.00.

There's the rub.

No matter what Thomas does, he's James Dolan's golden boy. He can do no wrong.

Never mind the fact that he has put together some of the worst teams the NBA has ever seen and completely destroyed viewership in the nation's largest television market (and Dolan supposedly fired the plaintiff for incompetence? HAH!). Never mind the fact that Thomas has spent a record amount of money in putting these putrescent teams together (her incompetence had to do with budget management? And Thomas has shown such a gift for this?). And now, never mind the fact that a jury unanimously found him guilty of creating a hostile work environment for this woman.

Dolan will stand by his man and David Stern will stand by and do nothing.

Dolan will stand by, inarguably, the worst executive in professional sports right now (and that includes Matt Millen).

Dolan's loyalty is an admirable quality in an employer...when the employee has shown that he/she is worthy of such loyalty. But there are two problems with Dolan's loyalty - he has put it in a man whose every action has destroyed the Knick reputation, and in an effort to defend his delinquent team president, accused another employee of almost everything that Thomas is guilty of - incompetence, and an inability to manage a budget. The only thing Dolan didn't accuse her of was sexual harassment.

Yup...welcome to the old boy network.

Our Stupid Weekend...

As I sit watching the Monday Night game I decided that I would pre-empt my analysis of this past weekend's playoff race to reflect on the stupidity that was professional athletics this past weekend.

In no particular order of stupidity...

Hitting the Chicago papers on the 16th - Tank Johnson, the Chicago defensive tackle who has already had several run ins with the law is likely done in Chicago. The second round pick (47th overall) from the 2004 draft was more active in the Illinois court system than he was on the grid-iron during his time at Soldier Field. This latest incident with his childhood friend and supposed body guard shot and killed (with him reportedly present) is probably the beginning of the end.
It's possible that some team will give him another chance (I'm thinking you Cincinatti), but underachieving nose tackles are a dime a dozen.

Jim Mora the younger...what were you thinking? You're a 40+ year old man coaching a team fighting for its playoff life and you tell a radio station in Seattle that you would if the head coaching job came available at your alma mater, the University of Washington, that you would hope your resume was right at the top of the pile for consideration? And your excuse is that you were kidding around? You are officially on the idiot list.

Terrell Owens spitting in the face, of DeAngelo Hall because he was "getting in my face"? How long have you been playing football? That was completely classless. I can't wait for the time when the winning teams realize that his problems and his divisiveness far outweigh his talent and potential.
I have a hunch Parcells has figured it out, and realizes that if they don't win that ring this year, it's not going to happen next year, not with T.O.

Speaking of classless. How about that Isaiah Thomas and the Knicks. If reports are accurate that Thomas told Carmello Anthony to stay out of the paint about 30 seconds ahead of the flagrant foul by New York's Mardy Collins (who got nine games fewer than Mello), then Thomas, who is also the Knicks general manager, and as such should be held to a higher standard than a coach, needs to be fined and suspended for a significant period.
Additionally, Collins, who isn't even a regular in the Knicks rotation, was put in one other time recently and committed, guess what? A flagrant foul. A Technical. The guy is a thug that only gets playing time when Thomas wants someone taken down hard. Stern missed the boat.
And as for Isaiah - Denver wasn't embarassing you and your Knicks....you're doing it quite well on your own.