Blogrolling Is J-Lo To You

Not since the start of the Kyle Lohse Era in Philadelphia have I been more entranced by a pitcher coming to a new team...

“Why did I sign with the Nationals? When you go to a club at 4 in the morning, and you’re just waiting, waiting, a 600-pounder looks like J-Lo. And to me this is Jennifer Lopez right here. It’s 4 in the morning. Too much to drink. So, Nationals: Jennifer Lopez to me.” - Julian Tavarez

It's March, folks, and we already have the Quote of the Year in MLB. Golf clap, Julian, golf clap.

Major League Jerk on why arm length matters for an offensive tackle, and how the NFL Combine is more than the Mike Mamula Memorial Mistake. Personally, I read this while thinking of the scene in "300" when Massively Roided King Leonidas tells Treacherous Malformed Dwarf Ephialtes how he can't use him in battle...

Moondog tries to fix the NCAAs, which are not in any way broken. As I commented over at his site, the NCAA basketball tournament isn't for determining the best team in college basketball; if you wanted to do that, you'd have a best of 3 series in the first round between the same two teams, leading to best of 5's for the survivors, and finally a best of seven for the championship. You know, like what the NBA does.

What the NCAA is for, and why it's the most popular basketball championship on pure viewership and gambling excitement, is wildly random events and excitement. That's why no one ever complains about a boring Finals, and how low seeds make it to the Sweet 16 and Final 4. Personally, I think the NCAA goes too far to the random, and that the NBA goes too far to the predictable crucible, but it's not like anyone is ever going to go to nothing but best of 3's for each playoff round, given that each has evolved to what it is for the money. Anyway, moving on.

“[Owens] thanks the Cowboys organization for releasing him and adding to his bank account.” -T.O.’s agent Drew Rosenhaus, as reported in the Dallas Morning News

And yes, that one goes to the remaining 12 Terrible Apologists on the planet, all of whom have him on their fantasy league team but not their real one. Just on the off chance that you were wondering what the man was really all about, or whether his fine sense of personal judgment was limited to just the occasional harmless mistake. Nothing but class.

SportsRubbish with the police blotter details on the latest NBA arrest..."Your policy may be I need an ID, but my policy is I get what I want when I want." - NJ Nets forward Sean Williams at an Apple store in Denver, CO, prior to an arrest

Repeat the quote above while speaking in the voice of Eric Cartman. You're welcome. And yes, one tends to think that the Sean Williams Era is about to have the curtain fall in the Izod Center. At least it's ending easier than the Jayson Williams Era.

And finally, please note that there is not one, but two Bastardo prospects right now; the Dodgers and Phillies are having a Bastardo-Off. Not since the days of Jung Bong have I awaited SportsCenter highlights with such anticipation...

Sideshow Robin and the Jersey Tank Job

I was going to take a full miss on the NBA Draft this year, but then the sports blogosphere alerts came and made this image available, and who am I to turn a gift Sideshow in the mouth?

This is Robin Lopez, who has definite Juwanna Mann potential, and as that's my third WNBA reference in the past five days, I will now check to see if my nuts are still on my body.

Yup.

But only just.

For anyone who doubts the power of the Association as a top 3 league, I give you this fact... between Anderson Varaejo, Yannick Noah and Lopez, you have over a 10% chance in any NBA game of seeing a live-action Simpsons villain getting rotation minutes. What more could you want, really?

(Why a miss on the Draft? Because it honestly seemed like there's not much here this time. Color me unimpressed when the world thinks that several of the players in the lottery will be career back-ups. Even the top 2 picks of Rose and Beasley have obvious and startling holes. Rose can't shoot threes or free throws, which makes him Rajon Rondo, who was drafted in the 20s a few years ago. Beasley has the ever popular character issues, was listed three inches taller than reality, and will be a defensive sieve. Yum! I should have definitely written another 1500 words on this to make the site's long-suffering non-Association fans scroll furiously. Or, well, not.)

There is also this... I hate, hate, hate it when a team announces to its fans that it is tanking the year before the year even begins. And that is the only way that you can spin New Jersey trading a genuinely good player (Richard Jefferson, who admittedly will never put up his Playing With Jason Kidd numbers again) for two guys (Yi Jianlin and Bobby Simmons) who can't play, won't stay healthy, and will both be out of the Association in 3 years or less.

It's clear that the Nets are just clearing cap space to go after LeBron James, not that this ever works -- seriously, Nets fans, you do know that you're just getting suckered into a multiple year wait for a free agent signing that isn't going to happen. When a fan base is told, before the year even starts, that there is no hope for the year, and that assets are being sold off just to have cap space, that's reprehensible. It's fraud to charge full price for the tickets. As a Sixers fan, I feel very strongly about this: every fan base deserves to have the potential for hope before a season begins. What is your hope if you are a Nets fan -- that Devin Harris is somehow going to become Chris Paul? That Jianlin will somehow not be horrible? That Nenad Krstic will come again to exact Gandhi II-like justice?

Maybe I'm overstating the case here, and that Marcus and Sean Williams will emerge to give the team an exciting young nucleus, or that Vince Carter will decide to care and be the elder leader of the team. (Chance of this happening: Zero.) But in the meantime, the Nets should cut ticket prices. (Chance of this happening: Zero.)

NBA Playoffs To Be Euthanized

(Roiders) In a decision that seems sure to spark a national controversy, ESPN and TNT have announced a joint plan to euthanize the NBA Playoffs.

The patient was, up until a week ago, a vibrant and attractive member of the playoff sports community. “She just had this spark, you know?” said ESPN columnist Bill Simmons, fighting to hold back tears. “The way she moved, the funny things she said, the memories she made … I’ll never forget her. I guess I’m still in shock that it all ended so quickly. I have not been this depressed since a half dozen friends that I’m contractually obligated to mention every fifteen seconds and I realized the New England Patriots were not going to win the Super Bowl last year.”

Many observers feel that the Playoffs were fatally compromised by the league’s decision to suspend two Phoenix Suns players, Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw, for a minor rules infraction before last night’s pivotal Game Five in Phoenix. The Spurs won despite the absence of their own suspended player, Robert Horry, after not having the lead for most of the game, but the outcome of the game will always bear the stigma of the league’s decision.

“You see how the NBA decided to suspend three black men, even though a white man, Steve Nash, was at the center of the controversy?” said religious leader Al Sharpton, who was passing by the press conference at the time and attracted by the bright lights. “I’m not saying the NBA is racist, or that you can lose fifteen pounds in ten days with my new diet book, ‘Al Sharpton Drops The Truth And Weight.’ But I am saying that my morning drive-time radio show is a great way to start your day, and can be heard five days a week on many fine radio stations all over the country. Check your local listings.”

Others, however, feel that the cause of death lies deeper than the marquee series. “The New Jersey Nets won a road playoff game last night where they scored six points in the fourth quarter,” said assisting TNT physician Charles Barkley. “That puts a team that is just at .500 for the year just two wins away from reaching the conference finals. We felt that, in the best interests of the quality of life and simple human dignity, that it was just time to turn the page.”

The decision to terminate life is strongly opposed by many of the league’s eight surviving local fan bases. “We have a culture of playoff life in this country,” said Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, a leading basketball fundamentalist. “Even if that means a terminal case of Spurs-Pistons, accompanied by the grueling day-in, day-out challenges that are always present when watching your league’s finals brings on late stage Alzheimer’s, we feel that only God and David Stern has the right to terminate life. We will appeal to a higher court.”