Top 10 reasons why the Nets are trying to trade for Joe Johnson

10) Getting an aging shooting guard is totally how Boston won a championship

9) By trading off all of their expiring contracts they get to stop having all of those annoying possibilities of getting better

8) Didn't want to go away from the off-season empty-handed, regardless of what winds up in the hand

7) Keeps him from Mark Cuban, also known as the only other dumb money billionaire in the Association

6) Trying to establish themselves as true Brooklyn hipsters by overpaying for mostly useless retro artifacts

5) Would rather not have the experience of dealing for Dwight Howard, then having him ask for a trade in 18 to 24 months

4) Johnson has the biggest contract in the league (no, seriously), which must make him the best player

4) By making this trade, the Nets can prove to Deron Williams that they are absolutely committed to making him the centerpiece of a team that never really contends, which is what he wants most of all

3) With Gerald Wallace joining Johnson and Williams, they are building a great open court team for 2008

2) Think that by making this move, and then matching whatever offer comes Brook Lopez's way, that they can construct that super-thin injury-prone team that's all the rage these days

1) Haven't actually watched Johnson play basketball for several years, and haven't checked out what happens to 31-year-old shooting guards that rely on athleticism

On Brien Taylor, Flashes and Walls

A career in sports is only a flash in time, whether it’s a 15 season run or a 15 day run. When it all finally ends, you have to face yourself — it’s as if you are both on the mound and in the batter’s box. And it’s a standstill. Then, the reality that you cannot play anymore shocks you back to life. You hope you have saved enough money, you hope divorce doesn’t await you; you certainly don’t expect that a jail cell door might close on your freedom. - Doug Glanville

I direct you today to a lovely, downright poetic post along the lines of there but for the grace go I, by ex-everybody outfielder Doug Glanville in the NY Times. Glanville was a first round pick out of UPenn who had seasons of fantasy league relevance for Chicago and Philadelphia, and he's clearly got his way with a keyboard. The whole thing is worth a read, especially if you aren't familiar with the sad saga of Brien Taylor, the flameout flamethrower and #1 overall pick for the Yankees who, after an injury created in a fight, lost the fastball for good. Taylor, now 40, is also now facing a world of legal trouble from a world of bad decisions. Anyway, go, read.

What struck me about the piece is how Glanville gets that what seems inevitable, which is to say our own personal success and development, based on the faith that we hold inside -- is gossamer-thin in its fragility. And as always when you hear such thing, you think about how you might have behaved, if you were in someone else's shoes.

At the age of 30 in my own personal life, I got married for the second time, agreed and then backed out of buying a home, prompting legal action, conceived my first child, moved across the country, lost a job, gained and lost 25 pounds, moved twice, racked up massive debt, cashed out my 401K, consulted for a half dozen businesses and started a 2-year period in which I listed five different employers...

And when all of that finally cleared, had jumped my salary by 250%, had a beautiful and healthy baby girl that has now grown up to one of the best people I know, and made the connections and started the career path that I've followed for the last 11+ years.

This is not, by the way, a Yay Me realization or thought process. At the time, it was simply a crisis mode where my spouse supported me throughout with unshakable but not unquestioning faith, and I drew on a similarly ridiculous period of my time when I frog-marched my way through college. Then, it was my mother providing the support, but in both cases, the same thought process predominated...

I have no other options, so there are no distractions.

My course is clear.

There's a wall ahead of me, and I'm going through it.

Sucks to be the wall.

Now, Glanville is absolutely correct on the flash in time bit. The only injuries that threaten a writer / ad guy are the same injuries that threaten our day to day existence; sanity and cognitive abilities that I'm hoping will be with me until the next plane. There's nothing that I do today that I shouldn't be able to do for a very long time, unlike the ability to throw a ball very fast, or hit said thrown ball. But the greater reality is that every career is only a flash in time, since that's all every life is.

About an hour south of here, there were a raft of violent thunderstorms that knocked down some trees the other day, killing a couple of people in a tent. That's far-fetched and dramatic, of course, but all we have is time, and no one knows how much of it there is.

Brien Taylor's life as a successful person ended in a similar flash, thunderclap, instant. A bad decision that was never overcome, a monumental but understandable lapse of judgment that led to the premature death of a dream. He had no other dream to take its place, and no better support system to make him understand that dreams are things that are made, over and over again, with only the dreamer capable of bringing to life.

And that, of course, is just the dream that I tell to myself, and in no way assured, and if things go very badly for me in the future, my ability to dream something new will be severely tested.

I'm hoping, as well all do, that the big tests are over, and that the new problems will be ones I haven't had before.

I'm also hoping, because life is just too difficult in any other way, that you are also living your dream. And if not, that you do soon. For any number of reasons, the least of which is that tragedies are all around us.

And no one should ever root for the wall.

All Star Snubs Do Not Actually Exist

So the MLB All Star Game rosters were announced today, and we now go to one of the great annual traditions in sports and Blogfrica: puling about who didn't get to go.

You might think, after a lifetime of this, that we'd be over the Snub Story.

You might think that, after the ever-growing number of interleague games, Internet and sports channel coverage, that everyone in every market who wants to see a player, well, can.

You might think that, for heaven's sake, sports is not tabloid nonsense, and we really care more about the scoreboard than the hurt feelings.

You would be wrong.

Aaron Hill has hit for cycles! Zack Greinke's got numbers and a burning need to come back to the only well-attended game this century in Kansas City! Jake Peavy's got fWAR and a grudge against the new Yankee Stadium that needs national attention! James McDonald would give Pittsburgh its first 2-All Star appearance since the Barry Bonds Era! A.J. Pierzynski hasn't provoked a brawl in an exhibition game! Nothing says All-Star more than the well-traveled Josh Willingham!And so on, and so on, and so on.

Look, folks? The game is in Kansas City. In July. In the middle of one of the hottest summers on record, after weeks of games in inhuman conditions, at a time of ever-increasing airport irritation and so on, and so on. The ratings stink, the sense that this somehow matters because it determines World Series home-field advantage is pathetic, and the only real happiness involved is from getting named, rather than actually going.

So if you have a Snub Candidate, and you actually think he's bent out of shape to not go... you are wrong. And if you think that we're not going to see an absolute epidemic of hangnails, allergies, family emergencies and jury duty notices come out of the woodwork to cycle out six to twelve well-established names from the current list...

Well, I will have grievously underestimated the appeal of Kansas City in July. Or drawn all of the wrong lessons from the last couple of decades of not giving a flying frack at a rolling doughnut about this no account game. Let's all just move along, shall we?

Top 10 reasons why Dwight Howard wants to be traded to Brooklyn

10) Doesn't quite understand that even in a new location, they are still the Nets

9) Didn't quite get the point of signing the option for the final year of his contract on March 15

8) Would do anything to get away from Big Baby Davis and his constant "When I was in Boston" comments

7) The thrill of getting Stan Van Gundy and Otis Smith fired is gone

6) It's been at least four months since his last trade request, so he's pretty much due

5) Thinks that more back surgery would arouse suspicion

4) Pretty sure that the Nets' Russian tycoon owner can get him all kinds of interesting trim

3) Hasn't heard that Deron Williams wants out

2) In love with that new logo, hipster lifestyle, and dream of hanging out with Jay-Z

1) Would really like to lose in an early playoff round while having his teammates blamed in a new town

FTT Off-Topic: Milo Arrives

As always with FTT O-T, this ain't sports and I ain't making you stay, yada yada yada.

In June of 2004, my college dog died, and it took an awful lot out of me. We still had a dog, a sweet beagle that we found in a Delaware parking lot, and that was enough, really. I loved the dog, but didn't *really* love the dog, not the way I did the college guy, not the way I was ever going to love an animal ever again. We had her for four years as a solo dog, moved back from California to New Jersey, and then one day, when she was probably about 10 years old and still in fine shape, she just disappeared. Got out the back door while no one was looking, caught a scent the way beagles do, and was never seen by us again. We put up posters, checked the vets since she had been microchipped; no luck. I held my weeping kids for the better part of a week, told them about all of the other times that she had wandered off, and that was just who she was, and how we got her in the first place. We were dog-free, and for me, it was the first time that I could say this since my freshman year in college, and before that, well, ever. My childhood was a succession of dogs, as they were just something we always had. And now, well, not.

What's happened since is that small commitment animals have come into my life instead. A cat that's been here since 2004, brought in as a stray when he was born under my eldest kid's pre-school. Fish, from a friend's aquarium when they moved out of the area. Guinea pigs, excess from my sister-in-law. A small dog that stayed for two months, did not work out at all, and got ported off to the sister-in-law, who has never stopped reminding us of this fact. A rabbit, beloved by the eldest, and a parakeet, requested by the wife. I kept all of these things out of my basement cave, cleaned up after them but didn't really bond with any of them, and silently ached every time I saw a dog that looked like my college guy.

Two weeks ago, I came to a realization: it was time to try again. My kids are old enough now to do more than play with a dog. My wife has become far more active. I work from home now, which means that I can be there for the dog far more than I did when I was spending 16 to 20 hours a week on the train. Everything was pushing toward this. And today, we found our guy. That's him up there now. He's been with us for about 9 hours now. In that time, he's done what two-month old pups do: eat, void, sleep, play and get driven around... but none of that second activity in a bad place (even whined and held until we got him out of the car), and the bonding has been off the charts. As I write this, Milo sleeps fitfully, twitching with puppy dreams, on the arm rest between my wife and I.

Milo is an Elk Hound / Labrador mix -- the color of my teenage dog, the goofy hopping play walk and upturned tail of my college and 20s guy. He's smart enough to pick up ball games quickly, headstrong enough to not take the leash very well, inquisitive and curious and affectionate and energetic without being, well, exhausting. So he's part ancient Arctic mid-sized hunting dog, part couch potato. It works for who we are, and so long as we exercise him and stay on food discipline, he'll work out just fine.

Yes, he's in the no-pet basement. Yes, we've bonded. Yes, it's time. And I know that he'll get on my nerves, and that he's going to destroy some stuff, and cost me money I don't really have and take up time I don't really have and make me have regrets when the training doesn't go correctly or he reflects my flaws, or the flaws of my family...

But today was great, despite the expense and the worry.

Right now, he's dreaming with his eyes open, puffing like a little steam engine, and I can't stop looking at him, or smiling.

So welcome to the family, Milo. We've been waiting for you for a long time.