A Sports Quickie: June 23, 2010
The United States advances, a REALLY long Wimbledon match manages to remind us why we love and hate tennis, and Phil Jackson may hang it up after 11 rings. But first things first….
The NBA Draft is coming up tomorrow, and while the second tier of draftees may be… unexciting, the inherent trade drama still manages to make the draft watchable. The Thunder have already moved up, as did Portland. I’ve heard rumblings of the Spurs trying to move up and the Celtics trying to move down. And through it all, the Wizards have been cackling to themselves because they get to take John Wall, one of the few “sure things” in this draft. Draft starts tomorrow at 7 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. I’ll be watching it, and so should you.
In the “Ideas-I-Just-Came-Up-With-Because-I-REALLY-Don’t-Want-Cousins” department, if Joe D. can’t swing a trade and Cousins and Monroe are gone at 7, I have an irrational, irrational idea: take Eric Bledsoe, PG, Kentucky. Stop laughing, I’m serious. We know the Pistons are looking to get tougher, but right now they don’t have a single point guard on the roster (and their closest thing to one is…. Will Bynum). You draft a top point like Bledsoe, it allows you to clear up the 2-guard logjam the Pistons have right now through trades and good-old-fashioned housecleaning.
I have to say, I liked William Wesley a lot better when he was a rumor, a myth, a legend the agents used to tuck the players in at night. Now that I know he’s real, and he’s trying to exert his power over the rest of the league, he seems less like an awesome story, and more like a guy who’s drastically over-estimated how much power he actually has.
Fresh from the “We-Are-All-United-States-Soccer-Fans” department, Landon Donovan is a big time baller/shotcaller. After he scored in extra time (it’s like overtime, but doesn’t make any sense) to defeat Algeria and win Group D for us Yanks, I guarantee an uptick in male children named “Landon”. Now all the USA team has to do is find ways to not get behind early and take advantage of the multiple scoring chances they haven’t capitalized on in the World Cup, and they have a shot to win a game or three.
In Detroit Tigers baseball, I’m already looking ahead to the upcoming series in Minnesota. It’s not a season-breaking series, but coming out of Target Field (it feels SO good to not have to type “The Metrodome”) up a game or tied for first in the Central would mean wonders for this team. Frankly, we don’t know how good this team is because they’ve been beating up on crappy NL teams for the last two weeks. Taking two of three from the Twinkies would certainly let the fans know that this team is ready to compete now.
I’ll be live-blogging the NBA Draft tomorrow, so check back here for up-to-the-draft-pick commentary and analysis of tomorrow’s draft. Until then, go back and listen to “Is This It?” by The Strokes, because it’s still better than anything I’ve heard this decade.
Lazarus Jackson is a writer and connoisseur of pro and college sports, especially Detroit-area pro teams. You can contact him at lazchancemsu@gmail.com or on Twitter at twitter.com/lazchance.
