Kevin Durant

While watching Monday night’s game between the Thunder and the Spurs, I had a thought that was very unlike the thoughts I usually have.  I was watching the Thunder head into the locker room after getting it handed to them in the first half, and I actually had a cohesive moment of clarity where I expressed sympathy for someone who is crazy stupid rich.

I feel kind of bad for Kevin Durant.

Now before you think that I’ve quit SBM to head to my new gig blogging about my feelings over at lifetimemovienetwork.com, hear me out for second.  Kevin Durant does everything that we can expect an athlete to do.  He plays with a freakishly elevated level of consistency compared to the rest of his peers.  He’s polite, smart, and well spoken.  He’s an impeccable dresser and almost never gets technical fouls although he did on the evening I am writing this.  All of these things add up to the fact that Durant is one of the most likable guys in all of sports.  He’s the kind of guy that you could bring over to your grandparents’ house, unless of course your grandfather was Donald Sterling.  Off the court stuff set aside, he’s a beast at playing basketball.  He plays the game with respect and dignity.  And as much as it kills me to say it, I don’t ever think that he’ll win a championship.   

Now that the Donald Sterling Controversy has Died Down, it’s Time to Discuss the Most Overlooked Aspect of that Whole Debacle

It seems like forever ago that TMZ released the tapes of soon-to-be former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling telling his “personal assistant” that her African-American friends were not welcome at Clippers games.  But in all reality it was just a few short weeks ago in which this all transpired.    We have all heard the standard takes:  The most popular one has been the sports radio guys acting like this is the end of the world and pretty much suggesting this asshole be executed in public.  It’s become a content of one-upsmanship to the most disturbing degree, and par for the course in this wonderland of manufactured outrage.

Then there have been those who said that we should have all seen this coming.  This a genuine take (and one that Dubs had in his podcast) that suggests that we all knew Donald Sterling was a racist before we heard this on tape.  He’s been chasing minorities out of his properties for decades, which is almost unthinkable when you consider he’d never set foot in any of those places without a gallon of hand sanitizer in his hand.  (Of course I’m kidding – he’d probably have his “assistant” carrying it…)  Sterling was known to check players out in the locker room and feel their muscles almost as if he was purchasing slaves, and if I listed every other reason why he’s racist this column wouldn’t get finished until we’re done with the great Russian War of 2017.     But throughout all of that, we seem to have been missing what is the most overlooked point of this entire situation.  A point that has been glossed over so much it’s almost hard to believe nobody is talking about, but then again that’s what Sports Blog Movement is for.  And that point is…

Why Old Man Raincloud isn’t a fan of the NFL Draft

 

The NFL Draft has been dominating our television screens over the past few days.  It’s been a cavalcade of dreams come true for so many young men that have finally gotten to this point.  They have worked tirelessly since Pop Warner and finally get the chance to have their moment in the sun.

And at the risk of making it sound as if I’m raining on their parade, I guess that’s why I hate it so much.

In all fairness, it’s not the players’ fault.  It’s more the fault of the league who builds these guys up as if all of them are going to be stars.  The assumed positivity of the ESPN network has almost gotten out of control.  Sure, they’ll mention that a guy had a sub-average 40 time or that he tested positive for marijuana at the combine.  But they’ll also roll over it within seconds and then show one of their ridiculous over the top montages that Michael Jackson would have wanted during the “Dangerous” tour.  Which seems like it’s a little much for a dude that gets taken in the seventh round.   

The Sports Blog Movement Grading Breakdown of Week One of the 2014 NFL Season ‏

The 2014 NFL schedule was released Tuesday, and I had planned on doing a column about which games would be the best on the lineup.  But then I realized two things:  1)  Somebody on this site will probably already be doing that, and 2) That’s not going to be as ruthless as me bagging on some of the other things that were going on in the league.

Thankfully, I never had to do that research.  The reason for that is because week one in the NFL is just about as big of a joke as one can find anywhere.  So without further ado, let’s take a look at just how weak week one is actually going to be.   

I May Have Already Mentioned This, But The Whole Offensive Goaltending Rule Is Stupid‏‏

On Sunday night at the end of a very heated game between the Washington Wizards and my Chicago Bulls, Joakim Noah tapped an errant shot that was going in any way through the hoop and the Wizards’ bench threw up their arms, disgusted at this heinous, earth-shattering crime they had just witnessed. The play was clearly one that could be classified as offensive goaltending, as Noah’s hand and the ball were obviously within the cylinder.

The 2014 NFL Offseason Has Proved That Free Agency Hyperactivity Is At An All Time High, and Two May Soon Be The New Three…

Former Giants Defensive end Justin Tuck looks forward to another explosive sub-.500 season in a different jersey

Now that NFL free agency has kind of slowed down, we’ve really had the opportunity to sit back and let it soak in. We’ve seen franchise guys move around, and with every passing year it seems to surprise us less. As very well that it should, because free agency is crazy these days.

As you very well may know, I am a diehard New York Giants fan. The Giants had their most active offseason in recent history where they made some decent acquisitions, even garnering a B+ rating from their beat writer on NFL.com. They have brought back WR Mario Manningham, signed corner Walter Thurmond from the Seattle Seahawks and acquired a big name in Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie to help him try and repair that less than impenetrable New York Giants secondary amongst several other players. For the first time in as long as I remember, they really impressed me by going out of their way to make bold moves.

But as Dubsism would say…Here’s the $64,000 question: Did the Giants finally decide to make moves based on the way that they are going to run their own franchise for the next ten years; or did they make moves based on the way that they rest of the league seems to be losing their patience with players who do not perform? I personally think this is a case of monkey-see, monkey-do. The New York Giants will never be trendsetters; the franchise is just simply too old and doesn’t have what it takes to stick their neck out and lead the way due to their football-oriented conservative fanbase and ownership. So I believe that they have finally just caught up with the rest of the league, but in their defense the rest of this league has moved really fast. Just think about what’s happened this offseason already…

DeSean Jackson to the Washington Redskins: A Step in the Right Direction or a Match Made in Hell?

It’s official – the word came down late Tuesday evening that former Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson will now join forces with Robert Griffin III in the D.C. area as they will both try to help the Redskins recover from a dismal 3-13 2013 season, and attempt to get them back to the playoffs and atop of the NFC East like they were the year before.

Yeah, about that…

Dez Bryant’s Guidelines and Jerry Jones Telling Him to “Keep His Guard Up”

On Tuesday a story “broke” regarding an interview Jerry Jones did where he said that although he considers Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant to be an established player, he said Bryant still needs to “keep his guard up”. Here’s the article…

http://cowboysblog.dallasnews.com/2014/03/cowboys-owner-jerry-jones-considers-dez-bryant-an-established-player-but-said-he-needs-to-keep-his-guard-up.html/

Here are some of the key guidelines that were set for Dez Bryant back before the 2012 season started:

Why Coach K’s Trip to the Mercer Locker Room Was Unnecessary

By now we all know about Duke getting an early exit in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. And we probably have also heard about head coach Mike Krzyzewski going in the locker room to congratulate the Mercer players. He told them “If we got beaten, at least we got beaten by a hell of a basketball team.” and then wished them the best of luck.

Now, this is the part where the media hops on Coach K’s back and calls him a class act and slurps him for exhibiting respectable behavior. I’m going to take a little bit different angle here: I thought it was bullshit.

Thursday, March 20th in the NFL Free Agency Signings: Two shades of Meh…

Thursday brought us more power-packed news from the fine folks at ESPN, who brought us news regarding two signings that you are supposed to care about but shouldn’t:  Former Chicago Bears kick returner Devin Hester inking a deal with the Atlanta Falcons, and former Minnesota Vikings outdoorsman Jared Allen has all but signed deal with the Seattle Seahawks which might even be done by the time you’re reading this.

Excuse me…(yawns)  It’s going to be a serious challenge for me to get
excited about either one of these signings.

First let’s start with Hester…In an article written by Michael C. Wright, the
author lets us know that Hester is “Known locally as The Windy City
Flyer”.  That’s hilarious because I live in Illinois and I’ve never heard anybody refer to him by that name.  He points out that Hester is still effective because last year he racked up 249 kick return yards against the Minnesota Vikings, which is a bullshit statistic for a couple of reasons:  1) The Minnesota Vikings put the “special” in special teams.  They’re horrible, so bragging about that comes with an asterisk.  2)  Return yardage stats are garbage anyway.  If you take the ball out from 3 yards deep and run it out to the 22 on a kickoff, that’s 25 yards with very little effort involved.  So what?  That’s a less than average runback, and you can easily see how stats like this one could be
inflated.

There’s no doubt that Hester is one of the most electrifying special teams
players of all time.  But he was shopped around like crazy and while no
player in the league gets younger, return guys get old faster than ANY of
them.  This is a pickup that will turn into more jersey and ticket sales
than points, and it’s strange for another reason – in no article involving this
story has it been mentioned how much money he’ll get over that 36 month
period.  That tells me that not only did he not get the ludicrous amount
that he was asking the Bears for, he probably got paid even less than he had
originally expected after the first round of speaking to ownership about the
league.

Now let’s discuss Allen.  He’s 32 years old, and would make an excellent
professional wrestler with his stupid little sack dance that we’re all sick to
death of.  The Seahawks have a need for a guy like J-Rod, because they
released DEs Chris Clemons and Red Bryant.  But let’s be honest, that
position is all about speed off of the end, and at 32 he might be the only one
in the league aging faster than Hester.

Sports Blog Movement fun quiz: Which popular musical is this shot from? If you guessed “NFC West Side Story”, you’ve won a bus ride into a brick wall…

And I hate to harp on the regional / culture thing like I always do, but
Seattle isn’t really a place for a guy like Jared Allen, and Jared Allen isn’t
really a guy for a team like Seattle.  For some reason, I can’t see a city
that liberal welcoming the second coming of Ted Nugent with open arms –
especially if he doesn’t produce which I can see as a legitimate possibility.  And Seattle has a very young squad – they are known for their exceptionally vibrant defense and I can’t help but think for some reason he’s not going to fit in.

Is this a hastily put together assessment of these two signings?  Probably.  Was it nearly as thorough as the Jim Irsay piece I put up yesterday?  Of course not.  But to be honest with you, I don’t really feel comfortable putting forth even this much effort when I don’t think either of these signings will benefit the teams involved.  There’s always a chance, but I highly doubt it.