So much for the invincible Orlando Magic. Eight-and-oh in the playoffs … but against whom? Overmatched Charlotte, which is built around … Steven Jackson? Gerald Wallace? A sweep of those guys, but so what? (And one game was decided by four points and two by nine. Yeah, a butt-kicking.) Then the Atlanta Hawks, nice team […]

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It’s Friday. Metrics of this blog indicate that readership on Friday tails off and stays down for the weekend, then comes back on Monday. What? Are you cheeky monkeys reading this while on company time? How can you live with yourself? Just fine? Hmm. OK. So, today I’m going to ramble a bit on two […]

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I’m on record with my sad decision that the Lakers won’t defend their NBA championship this year. They don’t beat Cleveland in the Finals. But these Lakers are shaky enough that their fans ought to be worried … right now. That is the Oklahoma City Thunder coming to town, and they have the league’s leading […]

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A reality of blogging: It’s bloody difficult to do one item a day, every day, for two blogs. And hold a full-time job. Try it sometime, and a year later let me know how it’s going. The second blog is my quixotic World Cup Countdown blog. And part of that deal is a promise to […]

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If you’re a Lakers fan and you’re not worried about Kobe Bryant … you ought to be. Not because of the way he is performing. Of course not. He’s as good as ever. Three buzzer-beating shots for victories already this season. Which is more than any other team has. A scoring average of 30.6 points […]

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It was a more eventful decade than my initial thoughts indicated. “Wow. I have to come up with 10 good sports events from the 0-somethings? I’m not sure I can do that.” Turns out, a few minutes of cross-referencing years and sports, and it’s no problem finding 10. The trick is limiting it to that […]

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Mostly, I just wanted to see how many “categories” I could have at the top of this item. Now let’s see if I actually mention something about all of them. Some interesting topics playing out in U.S. sports right now and, really, I’m aware of them. Not everyone back home seems to remember we do, […]

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This is one I have not heard. Not even by blue-skying Lakers fantasists. LeBron James … to the Lakers? Yes. The Lakers. LeBron. LeBron to the Lakers, to play with Kobe. Beginning next season. Who says so? Sam Smith says so. And Sam Smith is one of the most highly regarded NBA writers in the […]

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The Ron Artest Experiment is off to a rocky start. Think in terms of Professor Phil Jackson holding vials of unstable substances … and it they have blown up in his face, and his hair is all Einstein-like … as if he were drawn by the guys at Warner Brothers cartoons. After two games, neither […]

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That didn’t take long. Blake Griffin didn’t even make it to Opening Night before he was struck down … by the Clippers Curse. (Cue creepy music, imagine the late Vincent Price reading this to you aloud.) Turns out the Clippers’ blue-chip rookie forward, the top pick in the NBA draft … has a broken knee […]

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