NBA Finals tonight…

Who ya got?  I’m taking the Celtics in 7.  Home court advantage and the “Boston Three Party” take this one.  Kobe will have solid games, but not “go off” like the Lakers may need him to.  Pau has yet to be on anything close to a big stage so I wonder if he will play well enough and be able to contain KG.  I cant see the Lakers getting a whole lot out of Odom, but perhaps he will surprise me.  The main thing the Lakers have going for them is they have the guys that have “been there” in Kobe and Fisher.  I’m not going to be surprised either way, but I’m going with the Celtics.

Pistons fire Flip

But that isnt the best part of it.  If you saw the presser with Joe Dumars yesterday, he posed a question to himself about whether they were gonna make some drastic changes.  He replied to himself with “You damn right I am.”  Pretty strong statement there from the man in charge.  So what kind of drastic changes are they looking at making.  Obviously another new coach is coming in.  Who will it be?  Avery Johnson?  A pistons assistant like Terry Porter?  With the word drastic my thinking is they will go outside the organization.  Where?  I dont know yet.  Avery Johnson seems like the likely candidate right off, but we never really know what Joe Dumars will do.  I mean, he did bring in a guy who could never get it done in the playoffs in Saunders.  I will never really understand that move, but now it is behind them.

I can’t really foresee major roster changes.  I know that Sheed is getting older, so maybe they are going to try to find a very nice young guy in the post, but that is all I can really think of for them.  There is no way they make the decision to break up Tay, Chauncey, and Rip.  I’ll be watching this one closely.  The right hire could put the Pistons over the top.

Sparks gets DUI

Come on man, what are you thinking? I know you arent the smartest cat, but we’ve gotta know better than that. I actually had a couple of classes with Patrick at UK, and actually, he was barely ever there. When he was there, he never had a notebook with him to take notes or do anything in class. I still wonder whether or not ol’ Patty graduated or not. I mean, he did have 5 years. Not that I should be one to talk, but thats another story. I have tried to find out, but havent heard. I wonder what Pat is doing these days? If anyone knows let me know. Here is Pat in all his glory.

Your newest Wildcat…

Matt Pilgrim.  It’s being reported in various places that the big kid from Hampton is the newest Wildcat.  He has supposedly already enrolled in summer school and moved into the lodge.  The timing would be about right, as the second summer session is about to start back and I believe most of the guys on the team are heading back to Lexington right now. 

This does make you wonder about the plans for recruiting for the rest of the year.  Is Billy G done with this season?  My thinking is that he believes that Liggins will not become eligible after the test this month, so he will bring in one more guard.  That leaves UK with one extra scholarship for next year, which would appear to be needed.  The only outgoing Senior is Jared Carter, and we are already committed to GJ Vilarino and Jon Hood for next year.  John Wall, Derrick Favors, and several others are also on the radar as well.  Maybe there is anticipation of Patrick Patterson going pro next year and opening another, but it should be interesting to watch.  Either way, I would expect Gillispie to only hit the 12 scholarship number this year because of the situation for next year, not to mention the several walk-ons that UK appears to have.

If Pilgrim can live up to his potential, this could be a great move for UK.  There is much talk of the attitude problems that kept him from succeeding at Hampton, but I would anticipate that Billy G would not take on a problem like that if he did not feel things would be under control.  Let’s hope the reward outshines the risk here and we have a solid option to step into the post should Patterson leave after this year.  Welcome to the fold Pilgrim!  You are sure to have many Mayflower jokes and headlines and such heading your way.

 

Joba Chamberlain to make first career start.

How effective can he be.  Most guys that are in the pen will really only have 2 pitches at best.  Joba is supposed to have 3 even though we havent seen a lot of them because he has been throwing gas for the most part in the 8th.  I obviously hope that Joba is a huge success, and I think any Yankees fan would say his best case scenario may be something similar to Curt Schilling.  Schill started out in the pen his first couple years and made a great transition to starting.  Maybe Joba has tried to talk to Schilling and gotten some advice on how to approach it.  Let’s hope so.  I won’t get to watch tonight, but I will definitely be keeping track of it.  A star is born?  I sure hope so…

It’s spelled with a “U”…

Not really sure why, but Roburt Sallie is spelled with a “u” and not an “e” and he appears to be the next big name on the UK recruiting landscape.  He’s been the subject of several posts over at KentuckySportsRadio and mentioned in many other places.  I have never seen the kid play, but have talked to some who have.  From what I can gather, he is something of a combo guard, but more in the 2 guard mold.  Decent ball handler, can score the ball, but not really much of a passer/creator.  However, this could be the kind of guy that UK needs in the backup PG role.  With Galloway more of the long, defensive minded, playmaker type, it would be nice to have a guy to come in at the point that could change things up and be a nice scorer.  I believe Sallie is definitely a better move than McClintock, as he would seem to be able to do more than just distribute.  PG will definitely be a team effort next year, no matter which direction we go from here.

I’ll also throw in the Sallie could be a good addition because he can move to that 2 guard spot more permanently next year with the addition of GJ Vilarino and hopefully John Wall.  With that you get another solid option to back up Meeks.  I’m not fully on board with this kid yet, but he is intriguing.

Jasper officially leaves.

To be honest, I’m glad the whole thing is over.  I know I’m a few days late on this, but I think we already covered that.  It also seems like people’s views are to one extreme or the other with Jasper.  I mean, one side says he was no good and not an impact player anyway, and the other side says that we will be terrible next year without him.  The answer is somewhere in between.

Jasper would have been an experienced point guard who could guard 3 or 4 positions on the floor, rebound, and was a solid distributor.  He had not been much of a scoring threat in his two years at UK, and I think that is where the difference makers are.  His rebounding definitely set him apart from many other guys, but when you are looking at a Kevin Galloway and possibly (not likely) Deandre Liggins, its probably going to be a bit of a mirror image of DJ.  I believe the recruitment of such similar players left DJ a bit miffed at the staff, not to mention the issues with being close to his family and girlfriend.  In all honesty, looking at the PG position as being Galloway and either Liggins or another recruit not named Michael Porter, the loss probaby equates to maybe 2 more losses next year than was expected.  DJ is very replaceable, but his experience would have been a big positive for UK.  DJ was not explosive like UK needs at the point, but solid.

I wish DJ well in his future at what will likely be UNLV.  The fans will miss you, but it wont take long to move on.

Aaaand we’re back…

I had to take a few days away from the blogging world for work related stuff, and I had a friend in town.  Hope I didn’t disappoint the “millions….and millions of the blog’s fans…”  Okay, that’s enough with the flashbacks to high school when I watched WWE.

That does bring me to an interesting point that I have seen tossed back and forth on TV and in the news the last few days.  Should we have been able to see the Kimbo Slice fight on network television the other night?  With as much garbage as there is on TV these days in the forms of reality shows (I wont lie, I still watch The Real World and have been known to watch Rock of Love)it would seem that it really isn’t that big of a deal.  However, some of that stuff was pretty nasty and I don’t believe that a couple of years ago I would have felt that good about my little brother, who is now 13.  What person really did want to see the other guys cauliflower ear flopping around all night?

Honestly, the MMA stuff is probably best served being on pay-per-view or your HBO’s and Showtime’s.  There is a reason that boxing was “banished” there years ago.  It was probably good for this Elite XC to get their name out there, but who really thinks that thing will last.  I don’t think even Kimbo Slice can hold up a 3rd tier MMA league against the big boys.  I think we all know if Kimbo ever feels like he gets to the next level, he move up to fight with the big boys in UFC.

NBA to “punish” for flopping?

How can they do that?  It’s become a part of the game.  There will be some backlash from that, especially once they start fining players for this stuff.  I dont like flopping anymore than the next person, but if you can get away with it then why not?  I don’t think something like this will make it very far.

Zollo’s Mom denying reports.

Don’t know why.  Maybe he is trying to get into Catholic.  No way the kid ends up at Scott Co. with the players they have there right now.  He wouldn’t even start.  We could use a big man at Bell Co…