Gutless Gilbert

Not even worth cutting up:

To All You Jose Calderon Fans and Commenters
You know what, I’m sorry Canadian fans, I didn’t realize you guys do not have a sense of humor. I didn’t realize that you don’t like to laugh up in Canada. And Calderon isn’t even Canadian! I could see if I said something bad about Steve Nash, but Calderon is not a Canadian, he’s a Spaniard. All the comments I got from Spain, that’s OK, I can understand why you were mad at me. But Canada?

You’re loyal fans, but it’s not like I said anything bad, I just said he wasn’t an All-Star. I said he played great basketball. He’s playing great basketball while he’s filling in for T.J. Ford who is the starter. So he is the backup point guard. You know? He’s doing very well for himself, he’s going to get paid money this year.

At the end of the day, the Raptors might not even have him next year, so if I was a Toronto fan I wouldn’t get mad or upset right now. Calderon might be somewhere else.

He’s playing great. Over the years you can see his development as a player, and he’s really playing well. T.J. might lose that spot to him, but I don’t know. Who knows? As a backup or as a starter right now, he’s playing great basketball.

I watched Calderon last week and he had a really good game. You can take him out of being a backup. He’s a starter now, he’s a starter in this league. You know what? With Jason Kidd gone and if Calderon plays how he’s playing next year and they’re winning in Toronto and he’s still the starter? He might have a shot at being an All-Star, he might have a crack at it.

Let's ask a question and then bore ourselves before we can answer it

Too lofty for the grog, this one actually went to print:

Is the West too good?

What an original and insightful question, DS. Maybe you can blue sky on the All-Star game format next. No one's tackled that one yet.

As the balance of power in the NBA shifts even more to the West, it can be fun to play parlour games with the post-season.

It can be. But not in your parlour of inane columns.

Would the prospect of a 50-win team missing the playoffs in the West cause enough consternation to bring about a change in format? What about the chance of a 35-win team in the East qualifying as one of the 16 – ahem – "best" teams in the game?

No. And no.

Would a brilliantly written blog centred around exposing Doug Smith as a brainless hack actually help get Doug Smith fired?
What if he asked rhetorical questions and then redundantly answered them?

No. And no.

But that doesn't mean people aren't thinking about it, and talking about it.

The NBA isn't about to make a knee-jerk reaction to this regular season, even if the West seems stacked with all the good teams and many of the great players.

Right they're not. Here, Doug has engaged the age-old journalistic feat of lighting a match with angry grunt controversy and then putting it out with a fire hose of this-has-no-point.

Shaquille O'Neal moving from Miami to Phoenix and Jason Kidd going from New Jersey to Dallas are the two latest moves that have prompted concerns about the disparity between the two conferences.

Because Shaq was contributing so much to the landscape of dominance in the East lately.

"The West is the West, and as long as I've been in it, it's been like that," Boston's Kevin Garnett, a 12-year veteran of the western wars, was saying around the all-star break.

"Relieved can be an accurate word. It's fun to watch."

I think Kevin was asked if he felt relieved to be out of the West. Why does it feel like I'm writing Coles Notes for this piece of shit?

This year's difference between the two conferences has some thinking of how things could change in a dream world where the league messes around with its playoffs with frequency.

Having just the division winners qualify and then going by record without regard to seeding has been proposed. So has a "cross-over" when it gets down to two teams in each conference.

It's a debate that will rage as long as the West has so many good teams in comparison to the East, but it's also a debate that could have raged years ago.

"No one's remembering the '80s," says Raptor coach Sam Mitchell. "All those years of Boston and L.A. (in the finals)? Well, Boston has to go through Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Chicago, Atlanta. Those were the best teams. The Lakers had a walk compared to them. No one wants to talk about those times."

Because no one remembers anything but the Finals unless you're talking about your home team.

This year's playoffs could be decidedly one-sided where records at concerned. There's a good chance a team like Denver could win 50 games and not qualify in the West while two or maybe three teams with more losses than wins could make it to the post-season in the East.

Sucks for Denver fans. Really does. Unfortunately the NBA feels they need regional representation in order to keep people watching and attending basketball games. Neither Doug Smith nor the NBA nor I know if that is meaningfully true.

Since the NBA changed to its current format of eight teams from each conference qualifying for the playoffs in 1983-84, the 2000-01 Houston Rockets lay claim to being the team to miss the playoffs with the best record. With Hakeem Olajuwon winding down his Rockets career and Rudy Tomjanovich coming to the end of his coaching tenure, Houston went 45-37 and didn't qualify.

I'm sure hardcore Rockets fans care about that perceived slight just as, as a Raptors fan, I know that we lost out on drafting Allen Iverson because of a lame expansion rule. Unfair. Maybe they should take the top 16 across the board. Hell, if all the good teams are in the West, then it's unfair that Portland has to play good teams more often than the Sixers. I'm starting to ramble, but you've yet to make a point, Doug.

Coaches like Mitchell and players like Garnett bristle at the suggestion the East is the junior varsity conference and a playoff system that's been tweaked just once since '83-84 needs changing.

The league knows that things go in cycles – even if they are slow cycles – and Garnett said the depth of talent out West doesn't mean there are teams full of stiffs in the East.

"You don't have the big names or the big international names but there's teams in the East that can give some of the teams in the West the bang for the buck," said Garnett. "I mean, taking it off the top of my head, Toronto, Orlando, Washington, those teams are comparable teams.

Thanks for the mention, Kev. You left out Cleveland and Detroit. Detroit, with strength of schedule taken into account, may be the best team in the league.

"You can't just discount those teams because they don't have the records that are going on in the West. That's what it is."

The NBA is not baseball. There's no Yankee machine gobbling up free agents. There's no farm system developing prospects. There are complicated trades, complicated signings and the draft. Too many teams in the Eastern Conference have made those team-improving decisions terribly.

And it's not enough to change things, as much fun as it is to think about.

That was fun?

I thought we were signing a contract with a "woah trade!" clause

Damien Cox, talking about... well... nothing:

As expected, the final 24 hours of NHL trading did include a couple of dozen trades, and as expected Cliff Fletcher couldn't pull a rabbit out of a hat. Asking him to do so after just over a month on the job was a MLSE fantasy, of course, but it does make you wonder whether John Ferguson, with more preparation time, could have done more.

Probably not. But it was still mostly pointless to fire him mid-season.

Instead, the Leafs still have their five no-trade heroes - Mats Sundin, Darcy Tucker, Pavel Kubina, Bryan McCabe and Tomas Kaberle - and have failed to use the trade deadline to significantly advance their rebuilding needs.

You mean the five dudes who negotiated a no-trade clause so they could ensure they wouldn't be traded when didn't want to be traded? Darn those a-holes! Darn them to heck!

"One thing I can assure you is that the face of the Maple Leaf hockey team will be different come October," said Fletcher.

Hal Gill got the Leafs Pittsburgh's second rounder, which could be helpful. Dumping Wade Belak and Chad Kilger for middle-round picks probably isn't going to mean much, but you never know.

Didn't the Leafs get a 3rd round pick for Kilger? You might get a decent prospect with a 3rd round pick. I know my hockey knowledge is shakier than Michael J. Fox serving drinks on a tilt-a-whirl but isn't every pick past the first ten pretty much a crap shoot in the NHL?

And, oh yeah, they got rid of crappy old overpaid hockey players and their cap-eating salaries for a chance to draft better, cheaper hockey players or maybe trade those picks for other hockey players. I would have traded Hal Gill for one of those informercial ladders that can be folded into any position. Cliff Fletcher got a couple of draft picks for him. He wins.

All of this is nothing, however, that couldn't have been done without Fletcher. The notion that he could somehow recreate the magic of the Doug Gilmour trade for this franchise 16 years after the fact was foolish at best, but that's what the MLSE board tried to sell the public, and now those same board members look foolish again.

It's sad, really, to see such a prominent franchise reduced to playing on the periphery while teams like San Jose, Pittsburgh and Dallas take centre stage. The Pens deal for Marian Hossa, stealing him from under the noses of the Montreal Canadiens, while the Sharks landed Brian Campbell and the Stars added Brad Richards.

It's sad that Montreal didn't have the assets or weren't willing to give up enough for Hossa. They're an original six team. Original, baby! Instead, he went to the Pittsburgh Penguins who I guess are some expansion team who doesn't have the best player in the world and never won back-to-back Stanley Cups with some dude who was not named Mario Lemieux. Did you know there are 30 teams in the league these days?

The Leafs, meanwhile, added four draft picks - and not high ones - and are remained wedded to players they clearly would like to be rid of, like Kubina, Tucker and McCabe. Fletcher had no bold moves to make, and so made three easy, simple ones. He did say one of his Untradeable Five initially agreed to a trade before the Leafs' game against Ottawa on Monday, then changed his mind after the game.

He did not, boldly, go back in time and courageously re-write five contracts so that they would not be heroicly terrible. I heard Pavel Kubina was going to waive his clause but changed his mind after winning a game last night in Ottawa. Pavel Kubina thinks the Leafs are going on some kind of run and are going to march into the playoffs. And if this guy sounds like a moron, remember that he fleeced the Leafs into paying him too much money and negotiating a fucking no trade clause.

"We weren't skating in the same arena as some other teams," said Fletcher. "We're happy with the results of the day based on going in knowing the situation of all our players."

"This is just the first step of the process," said Fletcher. "I did not think we could do more."

Today might have been the first day in the history of the world that someone running the Maple Leafs realized there is a salary cap. So wipe those tears, Damien Cox, it's going to be okay.

The East Coast Kidd Disavowal Continues

This time from some rag called The New York Times:

I thought it was fitting that Thorn mentioned Kidd and Julius Erving, the indomitable Dr. J., in the same breath. The difference between Kidd and Erving was that Dr. J. led the Nets to a pair of championships (both in the A.B.A.). And while rings might not define a career, a player’s legacy is greatly enhanced by championships precisely because so few players ever win one.

Dr. J. led the Nets to a pair of championships in a now-extinct league with seven teams. I'm so happy this trade has gone through so the New York media can go back to reminding us that A-Rod hates winning.

Winners: They Win

From a full on slurpfest at NetsDaily discussing why Devin Harris will be the point guard laureate of Brooklyn:

And there’s one other thing that Nets fans should consider: Harris is a winner. Every team he has played with has won…and big. At Wauwatosa East High School in Wisconsin, at the University of Wisconsin, in Dallas, his teams have succeeded, in some cases surprisingly so. There’s not a lot of point guards who can say they helped take a team to the NBA Finals…at the age of 23. Harris did. Parker did. Wade did.

Because, you know, most NBA players got picked last in pick up ball, toiled on last place high school teams and fought to stay above .500 playing Div-3 college hoops. Let's not forget that Devin Harris was a back up to Jason Terry in their Finals run. Beno Udrih has two rings and he's 25 - must be a winner too. Harris is an outstanding guard, no doubt, but save the "winner" shit for Derek Jeter columns.

Not you too Griffin

From Richard Griffin's blog:

The lineup weaknesses are in the task of finding a legitimate second place batter for the lineup, in finding enough lefthanded bats and in not having the lead-footed Thomas clog the bases by placing him in the top four of the batting order.

Though it is readily apparent to anyone who can think, I will reiterate Fire Joe Morgan's excellent point that there is no such thing as clogging the bases. The very essence of scoring runs involves getting on base (assuming you aren't hitting home runs) and then scoring. If you are good at getting on base, then you are a valuable player. That is the end of the story. Being slow certainly hurts your value but it does not make sense to say that you are clogging the bases. To put it even more explicity, try and think about how many times last season Frank Thomas prevented a player from reaching an extra base because Thomas was too slow (which is the only real way I can think that a player could clog the bases). As far as I remember, the number is definitely fewer than 10 and possibly fewer than 5. It is not something I would be too worried about.

Chances 3rd seed or worse in the Eastern Conference could beat any playoff team in the West?

From Deep in Grange Country:

Is there any point having the Eastern Conference playoffs? Like, if the Spurs are the sixth-place team in the West, I mean, why bother. They just looked big, tough and determined last night, and that’s without Tony Parker running around and screwing opposing defences. I think the East should have a four-team round-robin tournament with the winner getting a spot in the Western conference playoffs. I can see a healthy Boston being in the conversation, and Detroit. Maybe Cleveland and only because of LeBron. But Orlando? Toronto? Washington? Can they really be taken seriously?

Agreed.

EDIT: Jason Kidd was just traded to the Mavs. The first round of the Western Conference playoffs will be more exciting than the Eastern Conference Finals. I love this game.

It's kinda sports-related

So I was reading about this prison in Florida where pretty much every guard was corrupt before the new warden took over. Now, it doesn't surprise me that such a prison existed. However, this was pretty bizarre:

"I cannot explain how big an obsession softball had become," he said. "People were promoted on the spot after a softball game at the drunken party to high positions in the department because they were able to hit a softball out of the park a couple times."

"The connection between the softball and the parties and the corruption and the beatings was greatly intertwined."

The parties and orgies were often carried out at a waterfront ranch house built on prison grounds for a former warden with taxpayer dollars, McDonough said. The house was complete with a bar, pool table and hot tub.

So let me see if I get this straight -  If I worked at this prison, I would get to play softball, get promoted for doing well and then have sex all night at drunken orgies? Sign me up!

Did Matt Bonner get a $4 Chinatown haircut too?

From the beat glog:

Zany times for Matt

Ran into Matt Bonner in the hall before the game, after he glad-handed about everyone in the joint, and he was a tad frenzied. Seems family in Boston and friends in Toronto on a back-to-back just wore him out.

"(Sunday) I forgot to get my ankles taped I was so busy,” he said. “I’m not forgetting tonight. Now, I came out here to do something, what was it? I don’t remember. This is too much.”

Someone get the Rouge Rocket some Adderoll.

But he did have something to look forward to. Spurs stayed the night after the game and Matt, who throws around nickles like they were manhole covers as they used to say, was off to a downtown eatery because he’d kept a couple of gift certificates he got from the radio dudes.

And by downtown eatery he means Mr. Sub.

Gilbert Arenas doesn't know who Jose Calderon is

Gilby might know Jose better by his online poker handle, SpanishFly8.

An excerpt from his award-winning blog:

On the East side, I don’t know if there were any big snubs. I mean, some people wanted Jose Calderon. Jose Calderon? Who? Come on man, this is All-Star, people. When I’ve seen some of the names that are being thrown around on the ticker as snubs, it’s killing me. I understand Calderon has the best assist-turnover ratio in the league, but you know what’s funny? All back-up point guards have the best assist-turnover ratios. Screw it, Kevin Ollie should be an All-Star then! For like five or six years, Ollie was No. 1 in assist-turnover ratio!

Kevin Ollie's best season, in '02-'03 split between the Bulls and Pacers: 6.5 points, 3.5 assists, 0.9 turnovers, .451 FG%, .753 FT% in 23.1 minutes a game.

Jose Calderon in '07-'08: 12.4 points, 8.9 assists, 1.6 turnovers, .533 FG%, .921 FT% in 31.6 minutes a game.

Did I really need to look all this up? Was anyone nodding along when Patient Zero compared Calderon to a guy who's played for 289 different teams? Of course, Gilbert Arenas doesn't value assist/turnover ratio because his is usually hovering around 1:1.

An All-Star is an All-Star! He’s playing at a high level. That means, if you take him off the team, that team should fall down if he’s that one guy. An All-Star means that he is dominating the game of basketball. It’s not even about numbers necessarily, it’s about dominating.

Wages of Wins says Calderon contributes more to wins than Chris Bosh. Without him, they'd kiss a third of their wins goodbye. That sounds like dominatin' to me. Dominatin' the beautiful game of basketball.

I could probably say that Richard Jefferson got snubbed maybe Josh Smith too. His 18 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks puts him at No. 14. Richard Jefferson is No. 13. Turkoglu is No. 15. But, El Calderon? Come on.

It ain't about numbers. Except look at J-Smoove's numbers. And how cool is his nickname? Almost as cool as Tough Juice. Calderon doesn't have a fun nickname. Maybe if he did he would dominate. He's Spanish, right? Let's call him El Calderon! Oh, fuck. Gilbers beat me to it. Think he could find Spain on a map? Or Toronto? Or Australia?

I’ve been loving the way he’s been playing for the last two years. When he first came into the league he was a little timid and scared to shoot the ball, but he’s taking over that team. But All-Star? He’s about 20 years away from being an All-Star.

Taking over the team. But he ain't dominating. Just taking over. But an all-star? A star? And all? He used to not shoot all the time. How you going to play in this league 'less you put it up there every time you get the ball? You ain't if you want to make $11 million. Blogger Zero got to the second round of the playoffs once. He shot .373 from the field and .273 from the arc. Dominating!

This is the difference between Antawn and Caron stepping up with me out and Calderon stepping up with T.J. Ford out: Antawn is second in the league in double-doubles and there’s only five players in the league averaging 20 and 10 – he’s one of them. There’s Dwight Howard, Al Jefferson, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh and Antawn. Four of those five are All-Stars and their teams are winning. Caron is playing at a high level. He’s taking over the game when he’s been playing – All-Star. Calderon is managing a team. If he was up for Rookie All-Star, Sophomore All-Star … BOOM … he’d get in. He might even be MVP! But for the big show? The big game? No.

More numbers. But these are dominating numbers. Double-doubles are important. Lots of assists, low turnovers and efficient shooting are boring. Boring like folding with a pair of 4s. I mean, Calderon might be the MVP of games he is ineligible to play in, but we're talking about the Big Show! There's going to be slamma jamma dunks going on. Women, children and European point guards better get out of the way.

You know what? I’m sorry people. I think I’m biased because my team was fifth in the Eastern Conference and I was averaging 29, five and five and I got snubbed off the All-Star game. So maybe I’m a little biased. I was in that Larry Brown era, so, my fault. You know what? Calderon might have been an All-Star. I can’t look at my situation and judge everybody else’s situation in the All-Star game. I guess my 29, five and five and being in fifth place wasn’t good enough at the time.

Gilbonzo got snubbed once. Larry Brown was to blame. And so is Jose Calderon. He has good numbers. But numbers don't matter. Except they do.

"Bobby Covert" may the worst alias for an undercover cop since "Jimmy Imacopper"

Still, I'd never ever argue a call with Bob Delaney.

You know you've had one too many hits to the head when...

Fred Dean, recent NFL Hall of Fame inductee, upon seeing his name on the list of new members -
"I was stunfounded."

The man actually thinks that dumbfounded is stunfounded. How has Dean not been corrected on that once in 55 years? People are way too polite.

Sorry but no

In honour of the 1000th game in Raptors' history, TSN has decided to compile a list of the best players in the franchise's tumultuous history. While you could argue with some of the picks, a case can be made for all of them - except this one:

Matt Bonner (2004 - 2006): A fan favourite, Bonner could hit the three and always left it all out on the court.

As the title says, I'm sorry but no. The guy is probably on my list of top 5 NBA players I'd like to have over to my house but he averaged 7 points and 3.5 rebounds per game with the Raps. Those numbers do not get you inclusion on this list, even if the Raptors have had some pathetic teams over the year. TSN needs to get their heads out of their asses and do some actual research. They are really a bunch of lazy fuckers (see the Wages of Wins post below for more proof).

So good that no commentary is needed

Q: Doug, please don't take this personally but comparing your work to that of Michael Grange is like comparing the didactic ramblings of Teddy Kaczynski to Moliere™ [emphasis added]. You're welcome.Having said that could you please list some of the more colourful putdowns heard at a basketball game between any of the participants [fans, players, referees, coaches and scribes].
Perhaps you could make this a regular part of your blog, thus shrinking the quality gap between your mailbag and From Deep™. Budda Bing™.
Erik F, Toronto
A: Thanks for lowering your standards to write in. But what papers do that Kaczynski and Moliere write for? I should read them.
There’ve been too many to mention, and too many I’ve forgotten, but I will tell you one of the funniest I heard was in Year 1, Vincenzo Esposito comes in a pre-season game against Atlanta, they play that cheesy music they used to play and the Italian national fans in the crowd go nuts.
Vincenzo wanders up and stands beside Steve Smith, who looks over at him and says, “who the bleep are you?”
Almost spat up my coffee.
Now, I’ve got to go find out about this Moliere dude.
-
Q: Doug, please don't take this personally but comparing your work to that of Michael Grange is like comparing the didactic ramblings of Teddy Kaczynski to Moliere™. You're welcome.Having said that could you please list some of the more colourful putdowns heard at a basketball game between any of the participants [fans, players, referees, coaches and scribes].
Perhaps you could make this a regular part of your blog, thus shrinking the quality gap between your mailbag and From Deep™. Budda Bing™.
Erik F, Toronto
A: Thanks for lowering your standards to write in. But what papers do that Kaczynski and Moliere write for? I should read them.
There’ve been too many to mention, and too many I’ve forgotten, but I will tell you one of the funniest I heard was in Year 1, Vincenzo Esposito comes in a pre-season game against Atlanta, they play that cheesy music they used to play and the Italian national fans in the crowd go nuts.
Vincenzo wanders up and stands beside Steve Smith, who looks over at him and says, “who the bleep are you?”
Almost spat up my coffee.
Now, I’ve got to go find out about this Moliere dude.