Save the Sonics

Today's Save the Sonics mailbag, courtesy of Bill Simmons, is one of those links I'm posting without even reading the link. Chris, if you're wondering, couldn't think of what to write so he didn't write anything. Luckily, we've heard from him here already. Take the time to peruse what his fellow Seattlites are thinking about this whole thing.

There have been some dubious franchise moves in sports history, but I think this one will rank up there in a tie for first with the Colts leaving Baltimore in the middle of the night. It's that dirty. I don't feel like it's getting enough coverage, so far. Maybe it's still too early.

I (heart) Bill Simmons

In his mailbag last week, Simmons suggested NBA trades that are possible, and should be made. He included this one (a worse version of which Seattle eventually made with Chicago/Cleveland):

TRADE 4A: Seattle trades Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West and Mickael Gelabale to Cleveland for Damon Jones, Donyell Marshall, my illegitimate brother Cedric Simmons and a 2008 No. 2 pick.

Why Seattle does it: Saves the Sonics nearly $5 million over the next two seasons and dumps their two unhappiest guys. Of course, they'd be acquiring three unhappy guys, but who cares? The Sonics need to keep saving Clay Bennett money so he can devote more resources to needlessly destroying basketball in the city of Seattle and ripping the heart out of a loyal fan base that's only supported the NBA for 41 years and counting. Yeah, let's pull their team from them because they don't want to help a billionaire build a new arena that doesn't need to be built. That's an awesome idea. I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how David Stern could care so little about saving basketball in Seattle. It's completely inexplicable and goes against everything he's ever been about. I don't get it. I don't get it.

Yes. Yes. I agree. I also (heart) you, Sports Guy.

Still missing Lundari's brackets

At this point, we're more consistently out than we are consistently in.

Perhaps this is good Bracketology news, but I'm not sure: We're still making the "Last Four Out" list.

Three games to go, then the Big East tourney.

Seattle Sonics

I'm furious. I'm heartbroken. I don't know where to go from here.

The Sonics signed a lease to stay in Seattle through 2010. Now, unhappy that the city won't build a new stadium, instead of playing out their lease, the team is trying to break it. Fuck that. Stern has always supported the need for a new stadium, which is one thing, but now he's supporting the broken lease. That's a whole 'nother. Fuck him. The city is suing to keep the team in Seattle for a last few years. I'm dismayed it has come to this.

The owners of the team offered city officials $26.5 million last week if the city would let the Sonics out of the lease. The city said no. Thankfully. I'm so concerned about this, though, that I personally e-mailed each and every City Council member and the mayor an e-mail that included the following two paragraphs:

As a Seattle resident and a sports fan, the Sonics issue has been difficult for me. Ultimately, I support the city's (and the region's) hesitancy to build a complex for the Sonics. I believe in the morality of such a stance. I'm not asking any of you to support any such plan.

However, there is a vast difference between building an arena and allowing a treasured sports franchise to walk away from its lease. To allow the Sonics to walk away early would be a travesty. I understand that both the team and the league believe the franchise will leave anyway. As my elected officials, however, I implore you not to enable an early and otherwise illegal exit.

Two councilmembers wrote me back saying, essentially, "we agree. But for more money, well, we might not." That's bullshit. But, OK. Whatever. That's happening.

Now, though, GM Presti has traded away every last shred of talent for a pile of late-round draft picks and expiring contracts. Everybody on the team save, like, four players is DEFINITELY going to get dumped in the next two off-seasons. Outside of those four players, do you think any of the players cares about the Sonics?

First of all: Fuck you, Sonics, for tanking like motherfuckers in your final years in Seattle. We appreciate nothing, assholes.

Secondly, don't you think that would have an effect on Kevin Durant and Jeff Green? Watching Green these days is a little painful. The rampant losing is clearly getting to him. What do even those guys have to play for? I mean, not only are they going to have to move their homes in the next two years, but they won't be playing with any of these same guys. Do you think losing 60 games a year will help their development? Ugh.

The trades have gotten us a heap of late-first round draft picks, but we're talking super late round. Phoenix Suns. San Antonio Spurs. I think we've got a Celtics pick. What good will these do Durant? Get him some crappy tall guys without any polish? Get him some flash PGs without any court discipline? Ugh.

I wish I didn't care so much, but I do. I freaking love the Sonics. Without the Glove and the Reign Man and Big Smooth, I'm never a sports fan in the first place. Without Brickowski and the Chef and George Karl, I'm never attending Syracuse University in hopes of becoming a sports reporter. It makes me ridiculously sad that if I were 20 years younger, growing up exactly where I did in exactly the same home attending exactly the same schools, my life would have been radically different. The Sonics were my number one passion. Now, they'll be gone. Ugh.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Back out...

Syracuse dropped from today's Bracketology.

Ugh.

Here's hoping there's still some "up" left in this roller-coaster season.

Tony Gwynn Jr. article

Here's a great story I just read about Tony Gwynn Jr.'s hit off of Trevor Hoffman that marked the beginning of the end of the 2007 Padres. Well done Tom Friend of ESPN The Magazine.

September was pretty incredible last year, wasn't it? The way the Mets lost gave me a funny feeling about it, of course. I didn't get to watch their last two or three games because I was working, and I didn't want to watch the recordings after I heard they lost. So I think I was less crushed then dazed. It was like I was at the movies waiting for my date to arrive, but she never showed, so I went to watch the movie anyway by myself, the whole time wondering what had happened to her.

A personal note: I'm off to St. Louis for the weekend so no posts until Tuesday at the earliest. I've been thinking about taking a stab at a post ranking the NBA teams as the league enters year 2 of its rejuvenated era.

Checking Vitale

Here are the results from the tally on Dick Vitale's comments tonight, an experiment I set up in the Sauna earlier today.

Duke won the game 89-78.

2nd half tally:
pro-Duke: 23
pro-UNC: 18
anti-Duke: 4
anti-UNC: 9

Totals:
pro-Duke: 42
pro-UNC: 38
anti-Duke: 8
anti-UNC: 18

One thing about the negative comments Dick made. None of them were phrased, "they're doing very poorly with____." Only a few were phrased, "they're not_____." For the most part, they were phrased, "they've gotta get_____" or "they need to _____." So even his negative comments were phrased positively. Like I said- positive guy.

I didn't count any of his comments over replays, because any commentator will most likely go with the flow of the replay. If it's three examples of good Duke play, he's going to make three positive comments about Duke.

The biggest trend I noticed in Vitale's comments is he really goes with the flow of the crowd. With UNC losing most of the game, his positive comments came in bunches whenever the Tar Heels seemed to be making a run. The crowd would pick up and Vitale would start shouting acclaim for UNC. The Duke comments, on the other hand, had no discernible flow, as Duke was in control the whole way. It seems that Vitale is especially susceptible to getting caught up in the emotion of the crowd, since he's such an emotional guy himself.

There was one point when Vitale might have sounded anti-UNC to a Tar Heel fan. Around the 12:30 mark, Duke drew a charge. It was the right call, and Vitale noted that even he could see that call. Moments later on the other end, Duke was called for a charge, prompting Vitale to shout, "there's no way that was a charge!" The juxtaposition of the two comments was noticeable to me, and certainly would be noticeable to a peeved UNC fan. The UNC defender was certainly moving later in the play than the Duke defender had been on the obvious charge. Personally, I don't think it was a charge either. So while I can understand why a UNC person might shout, "Shut up Dookie V!" I think Vitale was correct.

Other than that one instance, there was really no reason for UNC fans to think Vitale was pro-Duke. The experiment supports my thesis; Vitale makes more positive statements for the team that's winning.

As for the game itself, I was really impressed with Duke's dominance. Tar Heel fans might argue that Lawson's absence was the difference, but I don't think that's the whole story. One player almost never makes all the difference. In fact, teams like Syracuse and UConn have responded positively, especially over the short run, when key players have left their respective teams. Especially in this rivalry, UNC should have been able to make up for Lawson's absence if they were equal in quality to Duke. Right now, Duke is the better team.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

At halftime its 42-39 Duke. Here's the tally on Dick Vitale's comments:

The pro's are plus or minus 2.5. The anti's are plus or minus 1. My attention waned a tad in the midst of Duke's run.

pro-Duke: 19
pro-UNC: 20
anti-Duke: 4
anti-UNC: 9

Those anti-Duke comments came early on, when UNC was leading. UNC also had the edge in the "pro" category at that point. When Duke went on their run, the anti-UNC comments built up, as did the pro-Duke comments. UNC's run at the end of the half triggered more pro-UNC comments.

In other words, its exactly what you'd expect from any commentator (not named Billy Packer).

I should explain that I've counted as "pro" comments any time he applies one of his trademarks to either of the teams, any time he talks favorably about the coach, and any time he agrees with a foul or other call by the ref in favor of the team. I haven't been counting any of his comments about Lawson's injury as negative (or positive).

One other note. I thought it was hilarious that after the female sideline reporter talked over a "recipe for a rivalry" graphic, Dick Vitale suggested that he thought she was going to supply a "recipe for lasagna." I thought that was hilariously sexist.

All I have to say about the SU game is I hate UConn, and I spent a couple minutes lying face down on the floor after the game ended. Good effort by the lads to bring it back after they gave up the ill-timed run. Just need four more wins to get to twenty. I think they can do it.

"Vitale is Back" or A Long Defense of the Voice of College Basketball"

Time to predict tonight's big games! But first...

As longtime Sweaters* will know, I (heart) Dick Vitale. The voice of college basketball returns tonight to call the Duke-UNC game. He's been gone since having surgery on December 18 to remove lesions on his vocal chords.

What I love about Vitale is all his energy and enthusiasm is real. He actually does get that excited about the game, and goes bonkers over being able to blab about it on television. He's not much more insightful about game tactics than the average color man. But he certainly does live and breath the sport more than perhaps any other human. Plus, because of his personality, everybody knows him, so he's in tune with the pulse of the sport.

I can sympathize with people, like my dad, who find him obnoxious. If your team is getting thumped, the last thing you want to hear is some commentator shouting from the bottom of his throat about how scintillating your opponent is playing. Over time, we've all been on the wrong end of that scenario. But if I turn on a random college basketball game that I don't have much of a stake in, I'm only going to get as excited about the game as the announcers are. CBS's Gus Johnson always sounds excited because he really is excited. He admitted as much on the Sports Guy's podcast a few months ago. I think ESPN's Mike Patrick is good at that too. (He'll be calling tonight's game with Vitale.) If the game itself actually turns out to be exciting, these guys take it to another level. That's why I wish Vitale could call some NCAA tournament games, at least for the first weekend. He was born to call one of those crazy upsets, but CBS never brings him in.

Instead, we're stuck with Billy Packer all the way through the finals. He's the anti-Vitale. Imagine one of those games when your team is getting crushed, and you're about to throw your remote through the TV because Vitale is on the verge of tears worshiping the play of the opposition. How much more annoying is it when Packer is calling one of those games and he starts harping on some random critique that popped into his brain about your team? He keeps bringing it up every time you get scored on, right on through the post game show. That's the difference between the two. Vitale is a vomit-inducing bucket of positivity. Packer is a crotchety old Negative Nancy. I'll take the positivity every single time.

Now, I guess there's still probably some people out there who think of Vitale as "Dukie V." Here's my theory on that: Dick Vitale has been calling games on ESPN since the early eighties, and he's been their number one color commentator for almost as long. The ACC has been the best conference in college basketball since the early nineties, and ESPN has had rights to their games for just about as long. Thus, Vitale has been assigned to a particularly high percentage of ACC games. Acknowledging that North Carolina is right there with them, Duke has been the best team in the ACC since 1990. (They've won the regular season title 10 times since 1991, and the conference championship 8 times in that same span.) Thus, Vitale has been assigned to a particularly high percentage of ACC games. It follows that Mr. Vomit-Bucket-o-Positivity will have said more positive things about Duke than any other team. There WERE more positive things to say. Once you tack on the fact that Coach K is longest serving coach in the ACC right now, and that Vitale is a personal friend of Coach K... Yes, it's reasonable to suggest Vitale is partial to Duke. But I think it's absurd to suggest that his pro-Duke-ness makes him anti-UNC or any other ACC team. It's far more likely that the fans of non-Duke ACC teams have been in the aforementioned scenario of hearing Vitale worshiping Duke after their team just got punched in the gut with a 12-0 run. It makes sense, then, that non-Duke fans in the ACC have a perception of Vitale as being pro-Duke to the point where his objectivity is being questioned.

Furthermore, I think it's against Vitale's personality to be biased against any one team. He likes watching college basketball even more than I do. The only people he's biased against are people who commit what he perceives are sleights against the game, namely the NCAA when it distributes hefty punishments for small infractions or the NCAA selection committee when it leaves out a deserving team. As Jay Bilas once said after a Vitale anti-selection committee rant, "Dick...you'd have 75 teams get into your bracket! Who are you going to leave out?"

But just to prove my point, tonight I'm going to keep a tally of Vitale's comments. One column for pro-Duke, one for pro-UNC, one for anti-Duke, one for anti-UNC. I'll probably be heavily into the game, so it will be highly unscientific, unless I decide to record it and watch it again just to tally the comments. Also, I might just do the first half, in case the second half is too intense. Or maybe I'll get into the experiment and it'll be highly accurate. Heck, I'll even try to update the score at halftime, so check back here towards the end of the half when I've had time to get that post up. In any event, I predict that whoever wins the game (or the half if I only do one half) will win the "pro-" category.

Finally, I'm going to give my completely biased predictions for tonight's games:

Syracuse 74, Connecticut 71 Donte Greene is due for a big game.
Duke 87, North Carolina 85 (OT) Duke bench keys second half rally.



*I've decided to call Sports Sauna readers "Sweaters," as in people who visit a sauna and sweat a lot.

Bracketology

Syracuse climbs into a ninth spot this week, Lunardi says, and at the same time continues to climb "into solid NCAA position." Excellent.

Huge TV night tomorrow: Mexico vs. USA soccer on ESPN2, and UConn vs. Syracuse mbb.

Hell yes, DVR!

Super Bowl Upset Rankings

Here's the definitive top three Super Bowl Upsets of all time, in terms of signficance and shock factor. As far as I'm concerned, this order is indisputable. I won't hear any arguments against this order, and any comments that make points contrary to my order may be eliminated.

1. SB III - Jets 16, Baltimore 7
2. SB XLII - Giants 17, New England 14
3. SB XXXVI - New England 20, St. Louis 17


That's also the top tier of Super Bowl upsets. No other upsets come close.

One comment: I don't think, under the current playoff system, and with the parity of the NFL these days, the Jets-Baltimore upset will ever be topped. The Jets were considered basically a minor league team and the Colts were a dominant franchise. This year was as close as you can possibly come, with a surprise team making the Super Bowl and beating one of the best teams in NFL history.

Another comment: Ignoring SB III, which I slept through, I'm not sure which game was most exciting in this group. The Rams game had some big plays and a great finish, with that Vinaterii FG to win it when everybody thought the game was going into OT. But it was a tad sloppy at points. Last night's game was a quality defensive struggle, obviously, with a great finish. The David Tyree grab was the memorable moment, in my mind. But my mom did comment in the middle of the third quarter that she thought the game was boring. I was in the minority, rooting for the Rams in SB XXXVI, but I think that was the more exciting game. The image below, a cartoon by Kurt Snibbe of ESPN's Page 2 that I have saved on my computer, tips the scales. He could make a similar one for this year...

Super Bowl

DAVID TYREE!!!!!!!

Last Second Super Bowl Pick

I had a whole blog planned with a section on how amazing I think Bill Belichick is. Then I was going to give a bunch of reasons why the Giants will win, but twist it at the end and say that not only will the Patriots win, they'll cover the 12 points spread. I'll have to write a bunch after the game.

There is a reason we've been talking about this team as one of the greatest of all time. They're freakin' good. Yes, they haven't been as dominant in the second half of the season or the playoffs. But their slide came after it was clear they were the best team in the league. They knew they'd be playing in this game a long time ago. They're going to be ready, and they're going to be impressive.

Go Giants, but I just don't see the juggernaut shutting down at the finale.