Sitting in Cleveland, watching the latest blast of snow melting. Waiting for March Madness to begin, and baseball season too. Just wanted to take the time to comment on some stuff going on the world of sports.
Loved Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy’s comments about NBA Commissioner David Stern. And Stern’s reaction basically proved the Magic coach correct.
Van Gundy said the league doesn’t embrace the notion of free speech, which Stern took offensive to, saying the Orlando head man made it personal.
Then, Stern proved the coach correct saying he was going to talk to Magic management, to tell them to get Van Gundy “under control”.
The commish does not like hearing any criticism regarding his league, and loves using his network “partners” to put information out there to support the league. Kind of like, propaganda.
Let’s just say no one is feeling bad about Stern’s feelings being hurt, particularly people is mid to small markets, who are becoming irrelevant in the commissioner’s league.
Too bad about the Heat. With all due respect to Dwyane Wade, when you act like you won a title before the season starts with the smoke and party after the signing of free agents LeBron James and Chris Bosh, people don’t exactly wish you well.
By the way, the Heat will win fewer games than the Cavs did the past two seasons, and could be eliminated in the second round of the playoffs. Will critics of the Cavs then say that Pat Riley didn’t put enough talent around James?
Also, the people saying the Cavs’ roster was terrible (ESPN people) are wrong. While there were no perennial all-stars on the team, the wine and gold roster was deep, going nine or ten deep.
After James, Wade, and Bosh, the Heat roster is basically awful. That’s why they struggle against good teams, their bench gets hammered by deeper rosters. There is no Anderson Varejao there, no Delonte West, no effective Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
That’s what happens in a salary cap sport. You can have three all-star players, but you likely can’t afford anything else.
The NCAA Tournament. This will sound like a campaign for Cleveland State, but the belief here is that if you don’t win half the games in your conference, you don’t belong in the big dance, no matter how tough your league is. You can play the toughest schedule on earth, but if you don’t beat anybody, what difference does it make?
Give the mid majors who have successful seasons a shot. No matter that the Vikings lost to Butler three times, and didn’t have a “signature” win, they were 26-8! That’s a ton of victories, no matter who you play, especially in a top ten league like the Horizon. Do we really need to see some Big East team that went 7-11 within the conference and 19-13 overall get in?
The tournament was expanded to 68 squads this year supposedly to give more mid majors a shot. The guess here is those spots will be given to BCS conference teams. Gary Waters’ team will wind up beating more than a couple of squads that got it the field of 68, they deserve to get there as well.
As for the people at WKNR who diss the Vikes, let us remind them that the two teams in their beloved Mid American Conference finals, Akron and Kent State, were both beaten by CSU this season. That’s not to denigrate the MAC, which usually gets screwed by the selection committee at this time of year too.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 