In a 4-0 rout, Brazil knocks the US out of the Women’s World Cup in the semifinals. Arg, that’s too bad. Despite the time zone issues, I caught several of the round 1 games (including US-Sweden and US-Nigeria, as well as a few random match-ups like Canada-Ghana and Denmark-NZ) and thought we looked pretty solid, give or take an occasionally lackluster offense. But it sounds like we ran into a brick wall here. At any rate, Brazil will face Germany, who beat Norway 3-0 on Wednesday in the Finals.
Category: Sports
Donaghy Don’ts.
Speaking of the death penalty, it’s a good thing David Stern wasn’t prosecuting this case…Crooked NBA ref Tim Donaghy pleads guilty to two felony charges, and now faces a maximum of 25 years in prison. “Donaghy provided recommendations, called ‘picks,’ to co-conspirators about what team they should bet on, said U.S. District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon. If he was correct, they paid him. The picks included information about games that Donaghy officiated, the government said.” But did he actually fix those games? That’s still an open question…
756*.
It’s official: Notorious slugger and obvious juicer Barry Bonds passes Hammerin’ Hank Aaron as the all-time home run leader. Ho-hum. To be honest, I still haven’t figured out how I come down on the Bonds steroid thing (partly because I am at best only a casual fan of baseball, and thus don’t really care all that much. As I said here, I’d rather watch basketball, soccer, or football on any given night than I would MLB, even before the league gave us Dubya. Take that, George Will.) But, regarding Bonds: On one hand, he seems like a jerk, and it’s painfully obvious he’s a user. On the other, the Baseball Hall of Fame is filled with unlikable people, many people in pro baseball are clearly using, a case could be made against other kinds of enhancements (contacts, for example), and I highly doubt I could hit 756 home runs even if I were ingesting three times the steroids Bonds did. So, it’s a wash.
Adieu Adu.
For MLS, it’s Enter Beckham, Exit Freddy Adu. The young soccer phenom, who signed with MLS in 2003, has decided to play for the Portuguese club Benfica. “‘Freddy, when we signed him, was one of most talented young players in the world. I think, today, he still is one of most young talented players in the world,’ [Deputy MLS Commissioner] Gazidis said. ‘What we’ve struggled with is the expectations, not that we’ve placed on him, but that the media has placed on him.‘”
Beantown and Da Kid?
Lone Timberwolf Kevin Garnett to end up in Boston? (Marc Stein explains the math.) An Allen-Garnett-Pierce starting trifecta for the Celtics might just make Boston the team to beat in the East…for about a season and half. But, I guess the thinking is they weren’t going anywhere anyway, so why not roll the dice on an all-or-nothing championship bid, while the Atlantic remains definitively dismal? Still, it reminds me of the ultimately failed Barkley-Olajuwon-Drexler experiment in Houston. Update: Sportsguy loves the deal, and also cites the Houston precedent. Update 2: It is accomplished — KG is now the Beast of the East. (Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph better up their D…)
Say it ain’t so, Tim.
So, as you may have heard this past week, and as you may long have expected if you’re a fellow pro basketball fan, it turns out several NBA games might well have been fixed by a crooked, desperate ref with mob connections, one Tim Donaghy. I run hot and cold on ESPN Sportsguy Bill Simmons, but his take on this growing scandal thus far is pretty solid: “When news of the scandal broke on Friday…every diehard NBA fan had the same reaction. They weren’t thinking, ‘I can’t believe it!’ or ‘Oh my God, how could this happen?’ They were thinking, ‘Which one was it?’” (Yeah, I did that.) Also, consider this: “Tim Donaghy didn’t just violate the integrity of the league and rig some games. There’s a good chance he altered the course of the 2007 championship.” Sigh…this is not good. Update: Commissioner Stern weighs in.
Court Vision.
Also concerning the NBA (and along the lines of this post last year), friend and colleague Ben of The Oak sent along this noteworthy article on which basketball players are contributing to what 2008 candidates. Supporting fan of the game Barack Obama: NY Knick Stephon Marbury, Shane Battier, Billy King, and Baron Davis. For Edwards (in the past): Charles Barkley, Mike D’Antoni, and Travis Best. For Clinton: many NBA owners, including Paul Allen and the Maloofs. For Mitt Romney: Celtic exec Danny Ainge. For the Dems in general: The Commish, David Stern.
Oden Days | Zach to the Future?
As expected, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant went 1 and 2 respectively at last night’s 2007 NBA Draft. Bigger news on the local scene, however, was the Knicks acquiring Portland’s talented, troubled PF Zach Randolph in exchange for sophomore SF Channing Frye (a good player, but he slumped considerably last year) and veteran “superstar” PG Steve Francis (a wildly overpaid underachiever with an awful, bloated contract — I can’t believe Portland took him, frankly.) All in all, I’m pretty happy with this trade. Randolph’s clearly a bit of a loon, and a cluttered Randolph-Curry frontcourt makes about as much sense as the Marbury-Francis backcourt — it’s a fantasy team line-up with no sense for team chemistry. How are Marbury, Crawford, or Robinson going to drive into the paint with both Curry and Randolph drawing double-teams in the low post, and no real shooters to spread the floor? Still, losing Francis was addition by subtraction, and, while’s Randolph’s contract is also pretty hefty ($61 million over 4 years) at the very least, Randolph is still young. (The move was definitely better than the Celtics’ obvious panic-trade for Ray Allen. I love Jesus Shuttlesworth, but shooting guards over 30 — particularly those who just had two ankle surgeries — age in dog years, and he, like Pierce, has a tendency to disappear sometimes.)
The Duncan Dynasty.
So, the San Antonio Spurs swept the Cleveland Cavaliers last night 83-82 to take their fourth NBA title since 1999 (and their third in five years.) Ho-hum. Not to take anything away from the Spurs: San Antonio was clearly the better team in this series and Cleveland, even with LeBron starting to coming into his own, was hopelessly outmatched. But, while I’m loath to agree with ESPN’s Sportsguy too often, he’s right this time — these Finals were a total dud. Bring on next season already.
Isiah Hearts Kobe.
Spurred by Kobe Bryant’s recent on-again, off-again trade demands (predicted by Ray Allen several years early), Knicks GM and coach Isiah Thomas starts dreaming of a major shake-up in the Knickerbocker lineup. Oof, I really hope Bryant doesn’t end up in New York (not that it’s very likely anyway.) Despite his immense talent, he is easily my least favorite player in the league, and I’d have a hard time rooting for my Knicks with him jacking up shots all the time for the orange-and-blue.