Prediction

After watching two difficult Maverick-defeats this week (to the Spurs and today to the Lakers) I’m not feeling very confident about their Playoff chances. They will make the playoffs as maybe a 5th or 6th seed, and I actually believe that they will win the first-round series. But unless they start to mesh better with Kidd, and unless they start closing out games well instead of falling apart, they are going to make an early exit from the playoffs again. I think it will actually be in the second-round this year, but still. This team has so much talent and potential on offense, but they haven’t shown that killer instinct yet and they still don’t have a great defense.

Kidd makes Dampier (and everyone else) a much better player…on offense. But Kidd, Dirk, Damp, Terry…none of them are fantastic defenders. Bass and Howard are great, but they can only do so much.

Because I am a die-hard fan, I will continue to hold out hope that the Mavs can pull it together. But it is obvious that they have a lot of work to do in the next 6-weeks.

Bye Bye #1

Dear Vols,

I hope you enjoyed your 31 hours as the #1 Team in NCAA Men’s Basketball. Your reign won’t technically end until next week when the new polls come out, but tonight’s loss at Vandy guarantees that you will be a one-hit-wonder at #1.

Please use this as a reminder that the real UT with an orange-ish color – that’s BURNT ORANGE BABY! – is in Austin.  HOOK’EM HORNS!

Yours truly,

Bevo

Mavs trade

The Mavericks traded for Jason Kidd this week, giving up several good role players, two future 1st round draft picks as well as a strong young point guard in Devon Harris. I’m against the trade for one main reason – I think giving up two future picks is too much for a 35-year old point guard who is suspect on defense to say the least. I would have been more okay with it had the Mavs only given up one pick, but if it leads to a title this year then I will be happy to admit I was wrong.

The main problem still remains that the Mavericks have no tru presence in the middle to deal with players like Duncan, Stoudamire, and O’Neal. Dampier has flashes of being good, but he can’t carry the load by himself. We’ll just have to see how they respond in the playoffs. As Dirk and JHoward go, so goes the Mavs. 

Slam Dunk Contest

The NBA Slam Dunk Contest was surprisingly entertaining on Saturday night. Dwight Howard is straight out of a video game, and Gerald Green’s creativity on blowing the candle out (a must see vid) was amazing. This is exactly what the NBA needs = youth, excitment, fresh interpretations of things we’ve seen before. Basketball is a great sport, but I think it often struggles because the season is so long and the regular season-games don’t seem to mean that much (but real fans know the importance of every conference or division game, i.e. Dallas vs. San Antonio). The NBA has it tough with it’s first 2+ months being during NFL season, then late February thru March being focused on the NCAA playoff runs and tournament, and then April brings the MLB. The Dunk Contest and other activities this weekend are timed perfectly by the NBA and it’s exciting to see such great talent put on a show like we saw Saturday night.

Senate Hearings on Baseball

The congressional hearing on baseball’s Roger Clemens has sparked several interesting discussions and questions.

-Is this something that Congress should be spending this much time and money on?

-Are the members of congress only interested in this case because they know it will get them some “face-time” on several networks?

-Has there ever been a bigger waste of money than the $60Million that was spent on the Mitchell Report?

I don’t know all of the answers but there is something wrong in my mind about spending this much time and money on digging into the past without spending much (if any) time or money so far on action steps moving forward to both prevent future substance abuse by MLB players, as well as educate the youth (which is the excuse that several congress members have hidden behind so fare) on the reasons that these substances are illegal in our country and/or banned by the MLB.

Super Bowl – crossed off the list

On February 3rd, I was able to cross off a life-long goal 0f attending a Super Bowl. My brother and I made the trip to Phoenix, and had a blast. We lucked out in the fact that we were able to get tickets at face-value (still expensive) and we stayed with a great friends in the area.

Everything was way overpriced, but it’s the Super Bowl! We soaked it up like two kids playing Nintendo for the first time in 1988. So many memories, and such a great game to watch. Being a life-long Cowboys fan, it’s tough to admit that I ended up pulling for the Giants, but I did.

Now I have my sights set on Tampa in ‘09…hopefully the Cowboys do to!

Finally…

…football is here! The bulk of the college teams started this weekend, and NFL begins next week. I am completely excited although my wife may not feel the same way. I’ll try to keep my TV-watching to only teams that I care about, but for the first few weeks I plan on watching as many games as possible. Go Cowboys, Longhorns, Titans, and Mean Green (alma mater – required to cheer for them)!