Taking A Break

I will not be posting on this blog until at least August 12th. My schedule is gonna be pretty hectic for the next couple of weeks.

Sorry :(

Tarik Glenn Retires

The rumors were true. Tarik Glenn and the Indianapolis Colts held a press conference yesterday to announce that Tarik Glenn was retiring from the NFL.

The 31 year old Glenn was a first round pick of the Colts out of California in 1997. He started 154 games in his ten year career, all with the Colts. Tarik was selected to the Pro Bowl 3 times.

I wish Tarik wasn't retiring at the age of 31. The guy definitely had some good football left in him, but if you're burned you're burned out. I just wish he had told the Colts sooner so they could have used the extra salary cap room to go after a decent free agent. Now, they have the money but all the decent guys are already signed elsewhere.

Stern's Press Conference

First off let me just say, "What a guy!"

And now for some random thoughts:

I didn't listen to the whole press conference, but there was one thing I caught that I found interesting. "His Holiness" stated the NBA wasn't informed by the FBI about the investigation until June 20th. The "Little DICKtator" went on to state that the NBA wanted to fire Donaghy immediately upon hearing about the FBI's investigation, but the FBI asked the NBA to keep Donaghy employed so they could gather more info. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me since the NBA season was over by June 20th. Maybe I'm reading too much into this part of the press conference. I don't know. I just find it hard to believe anything that comes out of David Stern's mouth.

I can't help but wonder if any of the FBI investigators that were working on the Donaghy case are basketball fans. If so, I wonder what they were thinking when they were watching that Spurs-Suns game.

Did anyone else notice how careful the "Manipulative Munchkin" chose his words when addressing the question about other referees possibly being involved? It sure seemed like he left the door a little ajar in case other referees do get implicated in this whole mess sometime in the future. I got the distinct impression that he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince everyone else. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but I haven't heard anyone choose their words that carefully since I heard, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

I was really starting to dislike this Donaghy guy until I heard he once punched Joey Crawford. Man, I can't tell you the number of times I wanted to punch Joey Crawford. Now I am actually torn. I don't like Donaghy because he may have fixed basketball games, but I can't help but like the guy a little because he punched Joey Crawford. I think I may be leaning more towards not liking Donaghy because he fixed basketball games. If he had punched David Stern, though, that would be a different story.

Have I mentioned that I think David Stern is an idiot?

Recent Pacer Moves

The Pacers announced yesterday that they have signed reserve point guard Travis Diener. Terms of the contract were not revealed, but it is rumored to be a 3 year deal worth $4.9 million. Diener averaged 3.8 points, 1.0 assists, and 10.9 minutes per game for the Orlando Magic last season.

The Pacers opted not to match Toronto's offer sheet to Maceo Baston. This means that Maceo will leave the Pacers and join the Raptors. Baston averaged 8.6 minutes, 2.9 points, and 1.6 rebounds in 47 games for the Pacers last season.

Earlier this month the Pacers also signed guard Kareem Rush. Rush played 4 years in the NBA before being cut by Charlotte last spring. Over his 4 year NBA career Rush averaged 17 minutes and 6.4 points per game. He most recently played in the Lithuanian League where he earned final four MVP honors last season.

Drew Carey Is The New "Bob Barker"

It was announced today that Drew Carey will become the new host of The Price Is Right. I guess this will finally end all the rumors that are still out there about Dan Patrick replacing Bob Barker on the hit CBS game show.

Good Luck to Drew.

You Gotta Read This

OK. I stumbled on this story about Tim Donaghy and the NBA this morning.

According to this Wall Street Journal story, the NBA was investigating Tim Donaghy's gambling habits over a year ago. That means that the NBA had its suspicions and still let Donaghy officiate games. Are you shitting me?

Just another example of why I think David Stern is an idiot and should resign or be fired! He had his "suspicions," but he continued to let Donaghy officiate NBA games anyway. Hell, he even let Donaghy officiate playoff games after he had his "suspicions." Wow! Talk about incompetence in the Commissioner's office.

I wonder how Roger Goodell would have handled this situation? I don't know, but I bet he would have handled it differently. By differently, I mean better. And by better, I mean not like an idiot. And when I say not like an idiot, I mean not like David Stern.


Bill Simmons also wrote a nice editorial that I think is worth reading. You can get it here.

Its also worth your time to read what Ben Collins of Slam Online had to say about David Stern.

While your at it, check out this post at the Sports Frog. According to Sports Frog, Donaghy led the NBA in technical fouls, was fourth in calling personal fouls, third in ordering free throws, and second for fouling out players . All of those rankings are for the 2006-2007 season. Those numbers sure grab your attention.

Anybody Have David Stern's Email Address?

I thought I would drop the Commish an email note this morning to tell him how I feel about the NBA, but I couldn't find an email address anywhere. Oh, there is a "contact" form on the NBA's website, but it requires the user to register before a message can be sent to the NBA. I broke down the HTML code for the site and discovered that the "contact" form appeared to be emailed to nbaletters@nba.com. The code was set for the email address to be hidden, but it wasn't too hard to find. I used the word "appeared" because there were some dashes in the email address when I found it in their HTML code. I played around with the email address and discovered that all of my test emails were sent back to me as "undeliverable" until I removed the dashes. Then, the email went somewhere and wasn't returned. I'm not sure it was the right email address, but I sent them an email anyway. I figured, "what harm could it do?"

Does anyone know of an actual email address for David Stern? I would love to send him a personal note.

I read a good editorial this morning by Steve Czaban on OnMilwaukee.com. It seems I'm not the only guy that thinks David Stern should resign.

UPDATE I just sent an email to dstern@nba.com that wasn't sent back as undeliverable. Perhaps that is Mr. Stern's email address. Who knows.

Tarik Glenn Retiring?

The Indianapolis Star and ESPN are both reporting that Colts starting offensive tackle Tarik Glenn is planning to announce his retirement before the start of training camp.

WRTV in Indianapolis spoke with Glenn yesterday and Tarik apparently told them he was planning on reporting to training camp on time. He did, however, refuse to discuss his reported retirement with WRTV.

So, I guess the issue is still up in the air. The two obvious scenarios are that Tarik really is planning on retiring, or that Tarik is using his retirement as a ploy to get the Colts to sign him to a more lucrative long term contract. Glenn is only 31 years old. One of Glenn's teammates has apparently told the media that this is not a ploy and that Tarik is "burned out."

If Glenn really does retire this creates an enormous problem for the Colts. They do not have anyone else on the roster who is nearly as competent at left tackle as Glenn. They drafted Tony Ugoh this year to be the eventual replacement for Glenn, but Tony is nowhere near ready for that responsibility this season. Charlie Johnson is probably the best choice that the Colts have on the roster right now to replace Glenn. Charlie is a 6'4" 300 pounder out of Oklahoma State. Charlie did get some playing time last year, but it was mostly at right tackle. The good news is that Charlie did look pretty decent when he got playing time. The bad news is that Charlie isn't Tarik Glenn.

The next best option for the Colts would probably be to move Ryan Diem to left tackle, but this would probably mean that the Colts would have to spend some quality money on a backup quarterback. Why a backup quarterback, you ask? Because Ryan Diem is a piss poor pass blocker, that's why. If Ryan moves to left tackle, Peyton will probably get hurt a lot and Jim Sorgi isn't capable of replacing Peyton on a long term basis.

I have a feeling the Colts are going to start looking at some free agent offensive linemen.

David Stern is an Idiot!

I've said it before and I'll say it again. David Stern is an idiot. How much longer are the NBA owners going to sit back and watch David Stern run the NBA into the ground?

The dwindling NBA fan base has been screaming for years about the poor quality of officiating in the NBA. There isn't a week that goes by where you don't hear someone talking about the horrible officiating in an NBA game. Hell, you've even had some players commenting publicly that they knew their team was going to lose the game as soon as they saw who the referees were going to be for that night's game. What has David Stern done to address this problem? He has fined the players and coaches for making public comments. He has also adopted new rules to penalize a player for reacting negatively to calls made by officials during a game (regardless of how poor the call really was). Are you shitting me?

This problem lies solely in David Stern's lap. He has been an arrogant little bastard every time the subject of poor NBA officiating has come up. He hears what the fans are saying, but he doesn't listen. A recent fan poll on ESPN.com showed that 78% of NBA fans think that NBA officials have too much control over the outcome of the games. Think about that for a minute. Gee, I wonder if that number might have anything to do with the poor television ratings?

When this story broke this morning about the "unnamed referee" fixing the point spreads I thought it would be interesting to see what referee names were coming up the most on the message boards and in internet searches. Guess what? I only saw Donaghy's name come up a couple of times. In fact, 90% of the posts and searches that I found focused their suspicions on Steve Javie, Joe Crawford, Bennet Salvatore, or Dick Bavetta. It seems to me that there are an awful lot of people who think that these four guys shouldn't be officiating NBA games. The NBA suddenly has a huge problem on their hands. How can the NBA regain their fans' trust?

I'm thinking Javie, Crawford, Salvatore, and Bavetta should join Donaghy in never being allowed to officiate another NBA game. I'm not necessarily saying those 4 guys did anything illegal, but I think it is pretty obvious that the fans don't trust them. If you want to win back the fans' trust, you have to get rid of those guys. Then, the NBA owners have to get rid of David Stern. That little egomaniac has worn out his welcome. Stern should apologize publicly for the current state of the game, and then he should resign and go home. The NBA would be better off without David Stern.

NBA official is Tim Donaghy

ESPN is reporting that the NBA official that is under investigation by the FBI is Tim Donaghy. You can read the story here.

I would have have bet a lot of money on it being Javie, Crawford, Bavetta, or Salvatore. Hmmm, maybe those guys just haven't been caught yet.