Letters to the Editor
michaeljb
Published Letters: 10 Editor's Choice: 3
-
Fire Joe Morgan
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Check out the "Fire Joe Morgan" site for a detailing of some of Cowherd's idiocies. I really didn't know much about the guy, but this site has a detailing of a 12 minute section of a broadcast on the Hall of Fame and the positions he's taking are simply jawdroppingly dumb. Just a taste? That Jose Canseco belongs in the Hall not because of his baseball accomplishments, but because he's...well, famous, and it is the Hall of "Fame" after all. And that's one of the more coherent things this clown says. He also displays an appalling antipathy towards sabremetrics (which is why he's being ridiculed in the "Fire Joe..." site in the first place) that shows all the reasoning power and common sense of Ann Coulter trying to mount her latest anti-whatever diatribe. I know Sports Radio generally constitutes a cacophony of blowhards and self-righteous dipwads (Jim Rose anyone?), but even by those thin standards, Cowherd seems appallingly stupid.
-
NHL and beyond
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I understand NHL is an acronym of some sort, but I'm having trouble placing it.
And I've never understood why someone would bitch about a rule that makes a game more competitive. Basketball often comes down to 3-6 seconds left, down two or three, and if the team can't advance the ball to half-court, the game is over. So the rule makes the game much more exciting, why would anyone be against that? And like the other writer pointed out, comparing football and basketball in terms of field/court position is idiotic to the extreme. Football is about time of possession and field position, basketball is...uh...not.
-
Canucks on bball
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jesus, you Canucks should just refrain from commenting on basketball; I avoid saying anything about your sport, with the toothless yahoos, the glove tossing and the haymakers and the puck that no one can follow on TV. Even the most cursory glance at the NBA, especially during the playoffs, shows what everyone has known since at least the late 80s Pistons -- defense wins championships. And just as I'm sure there are plays and strategy in hockey (though it remains mostly invisible to me and often seems like a rugby scrum on ice), basketball is an ever evolving series of set plays, defensive adjustments, and offensive counter-adjustments (the league is largely one of matchups and adjustments to offensive and defensive schemes). Not so many dunks, especially during the playoffs. I find it all beautiful and often impossibly graceful, though I can also appreciate the speed and grace of hockey, even if I find the messy way people score (flailing with pucks accidently careening off skates and such) a little deflating.
-
Bowen, hockey and other stuff
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Man, the hockey fans here sure are a defensive bunch; doesn't seem to matter what Kaufman writes about, if it's not hockey, someone gets on to give him hell.
Hard to believe people think Nash was faking it, he takes a solid knee to the groin and he's faking it? You want to see faking it, look at Derek Fisher going down like he was shot near the end of last night's Warriors/Jazz game. True, Baron Davis gave him a shot, but it was just a little shot, and Fisher went down and stayed down, clearly trying to call the ref's attention to it.
Whether Bowen meant to knee Nash, well, probably not in the balls, but I think he's developed a style that uses that knee to clear space (Christ, Karl Malone spent an entire career shooting layups by putting out his leg and essentially kicking the defender away -- don't think you need to get kicked by Malone more than once before you're thinking about it on the next layup opportunity). For me, the worse offense is undercutting a player. I've played pickup bb for 35 years and I've turned a lot of ankles and seen a lot of ankles turned and even broken by people coming down on someone else's foot. Most of the time, it's a lousy accident. But in my experience, nothing starts a fist fight quicker in a pickup game than a defender who gets under a jump shooter because it always feels like the defender is trying to hurt the shooter and it's completely unnecessary since the shot is already away.
But in a way, I can't blame Bowen. He's doing whatever he can and he can argue (like a defense lawyer) that it's not his job to protect the other side, that's the ref's job. It's his job to defend and if that jump shooter thinks twice the next time he elevates over Bowen, he's done his job. I'm not excusing Bowen, I'm saying the league needs to keep a better eye on these things. And they probably need to add another ref, particularly in the playoffs.
-
LBJ and the grassy kno...er open layup
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One thing few people have mentioned about LeBron's passing on the layup is the possibility of him being fouled and having to go to the line. There's been a lot of whispering around the league in the last half season or so that LeBron gets passive at the end of games, settling for jumpers and dishing, because he doesn't want to have to shoot free throws with the game on the line, a situation where he's really struggled. Ask Nick Anderson who famously missed four straight free throws in the 95 finals, costing (he figured) Orlando game 1. Anderson never regained his aggressiveness because he became so afraid of driving, getting fouled and having to shoot free throws.
To some extent, James has put this to rest with a strong showing in the playoffs this year, but I can't help but think that this was on his mind a bit too when he whipped that pass to Marshall.