Listen, I know we weren’t the only group of friends that did this.  Or maybe we were.  It’s 2003, freshman year at college, and we all make a Hot Or Not profile as a competition to see who could get the best rating (and also to see if I could find that cutie from my Intro to Marketing class and rate her a 10 in hopes she would know it was me and fall madly in love with me).  But in retrospect it was bullshit because our one friend looked like Justin Timberlake’s younger brother so all the girls got moist in the right sections at the sight of him and gave him a 10 every time.

I’m going to run with the Hot or Not theme in the NHL in this week’s Sporting Observations, so put on your freshest button-up and your tightest boner pants, here we go:

HOT:

Pittsburgh Penguins/Sidney Crosby – Rating 9.8 (James Franco)

The Pens have won ELEVEN STRAIGHT and chalked up their second longest streak in franchise history.  They have taken over the Atlantic Division lead as well as the point lead in both the Eastern Conference and the NHL.  It hurts me so much to say this because I hate him but the main proponent behind this ridiculous run: Sidney Horseface Crosby.  Sid the Kid has scored points in 17 straight games, putting some serious space between him and Steven Stamkos as the league’s top point scorer (seriously, Stamkos step your game back up, Roenick’s Roughnecks are starting to slide with this point nap you’re taking).

During this run Crosby also notched his career’s first natural hat trick and is making plays like this (about 1:55 in) look like child’s play.  Marc-Andre Fleury has allowed more than two goals in only one game during the streak.  It’s all falling into place in Pittsburgh right now and had it not been for an OT loss to the Rangers back on November 15^th, they’d be at 14 in a row. Shit.

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Ondrej Pavelec – Rating 8.6 (Ryan Gosling)

Since coming back from his frightening on-ice collapse and concussion issue a few weeks back, Pavelec has been an absolute stonewall.  He’s second in both Goals Against Average (1.71) and Save Percentage (.947; behind Boston’s Tim Thomas for both) and if he played for a team with a little more firepower, he’d have even more wins under his belt.

Regardless, he is the reason why the Thrashers are 8-2 over their past 10 games and tied for second in the strangely competitive Southeast Conference.

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Blackhawks vs. Stars (3 Goals In Under a Minute) – 7.9
(Joseph Gordon-Levitt, some people still harbor ill will because of 3rd Rock From the Sun)

Jeremy Morin at 1:36, James Neal at 1:56 and Troy Brouwer at 2:21.  Apparently the goalies stayed in the locker room after first intermission two and a half minutes too long.  This could probably go in the “NOT” category for the two netminders.

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NOT:

Los Angeles Kings – 3.6 (Jabba the Hut)

After starting off the season 12-3, looking like they were the team to beat in the Wild Western Conference, the Kings have hit the skids since, going 3-7 and falling into last place out west.  I get the feeling that no one in the Pacific is going to make much of a run in the playoffs (I  know it’s early for playoff talk) because by the end of the regular season they are all going to be fucking exhausted from beating the shit out of each other all year long.

Every team has a winning record and 30+ points at this point and flip-flop in the standings every week and it looks like it will be a grueling season for the Kings and their conference cohorts.

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Philadelphia Flyers Power Play – 2.9
(Beetlejuice – Michael Keaton or Howard Stern)

There is no way around it; the Flyers Power Play is atrocious.  At the beginning of the season it seemed to be one of their few weaknesses but after a week or so, they seemed to have things sorted out.  Yeah right.  Since scoring on two of four power play chances against the Florida Panthers on November 13^th, the Flyers are a wretched 4-for-51, converting on only 7.8% of their chances (the league average on the season is 17.4%).

They’ve been more deadly short-handed than on the one man advantage (Claude Giroux and Mike Richards are brilliant on the shorty) and it’s been so bad they’ve inspired Holiday poetry dedicated to their glaring inadequacy.

—–

Minnesota Wild – 4.4
(Homely dude, looks good after a few drinks, not so much in the morning)

To be fair, no one expected much from the Wild when the season began so the fact that they played well and started showing up as a “darkhorse contender” was in and of itself a solid feat.  But then the wheels started wobbling and are in the process of falling off as they’ve dropped five straight and are playing like everyone predicted they would.  On the plus side, they have Cal Clutterbuck who leads the NHL in hits and has a super burly name.

Every pick-up game you’ve ever played since you were a kid works the same way.  You get a gaggle of friends, pick the two best or the two fastest players to be opposing captains, someone holds a number behind their back and whoever is closest to that number gets first pick.  The NHL recently announced that their All-Star game will be a schoolyard-esque, captain led, choose your sides melee.  When I first heard the news of this potential format I was stoked and just hoped that it they wouldn’t find a way to muck it up by making some stupid rules about who you have to pick to be on your team to try to keep things “fair”.  Fair is for fucking crybabies.  I want a legitimate battle royale.  My hand-picked team of studs versus yours, where the winner gets bragging rights and the loser goes home crying on their ten-speed.

You’ve got to give credit for NHL Vice President Brendon Shanahan here because the All-Star game and surrounding festivities were on the brink of being canceled altogether and then this strike of genius squirted out of his brain, turning a potentially bad situation into something potentially awesome, while still not making the game implicit with ludicrous playoff implications like they do in the MLB (I’m looking at you Bud Selig).  Currently, the stipulations are that the players will vote on who the team captains will be, while fans will vote for the starting three forwards, two defensemen and goalie for each side.  The pool of players the captains can choose from (which will consist of a 36 player selection pool, plus 12 rookies who will participate in the skills event added to the 12 starters the fans vote in, bringing the total to 54 players) will be selected by the NHL’s Hockey Operations Department and every NHL team will still be represented by at least one player.

Obviously the first question that came to mind for me was do you still feel like a worthless buns-hole if you’re picked last?  I mean, sure, you ARE an All-Star, but nothing is worse than the stigma of being the last pick on the playground.  Take this hypothetical situation, Steven Stamkos and Sidney Crosby as leading point scorers are captains and the last two players are Brad Richards and Evgeni Malkin.  Crosby has second to last pick and Stamkos is waiting to take whoever is left, thinking “Please pick Richards, please…..he smells like cat piss and is always covered in dirt.  Dear Lord, I do not want this piss-ass Canuck on my team,” and then Crosby opts for his Penguin teammate and Stamkos is stuck with the dirty pisspants kid.  Richards will either spend the whole game pouting or bag a fuck-your-face hat trick to spite Crosby for the snubbing.  Either way it’s a win.

If you’re one of the captains, who are you picking first?  I’m hoping the selection process creates some really awkward moments when one of the captains has to pick between a best friend or a countrymen or a teammate and manages to damage a relationship beyond repair.  Patrick Kane gets selected six or seven picks before Duncan Keith and Keith spends the second half of the season deliberately refusing to pass Kane the puck and sabotaging the Blackhawks hopes of repeating along the way.

Another wrinkle in the selection fold is seeing a player’s allegiance to his motherland and fellow countrymen.  Could this lead to a reinvigoration of some Cold War-esque battle?  Ovechkin gets picked as a captain by the players and uses his first slew of picks to snatch up fellow Russkies Alexander Semin, Sergei Gonchar and Evgeni Malkin and ignite another go round at the cocky Americans in the spirit of Yeltsin’s ghost.  You know damn well someone like Ryan Miller isn’t picking any of those puck-slinging, pinko hosers from up north to rep his squad; he’s only picking guys with tattoos of bald eagles, who spend their Friday nights crushing Bud heavy and Marlboros and boast a list of personal heroes that include George Washington and John Wayne.

It would be interesting to see some different ways they could decide the captains, as it could be anywhere from leading point scorers, goal scorers, a fan vote, player/coach vote, or maybe even pick the two “best” goalies to be the backbone of each respective team.  Regardless, I like what they’ve done with this move so kudos to you, Mr. Shananan and the rest of the league as well and here’s to hoping that you pull this off effectively because I’ll certainly be tuning in.  Just make sure to televise the teams getting picked, too.

With the holiday weekend coming up, I’ve got something to be thankful for: Danny McAskill’s insane skills on a bicycle.  I never was huge into any sort of biking.  I used mine to get from place to place during my college years, I had a super sick Huffy growing up (who didn’t) that my Grandpa taught me to ride, I always wanted to borrow my cousin Jake’s Dyno and I taught myself to ride no-handed down the boulevard on my Magna Canyon with Ellsworth back in middle school (his Magna got hit by a train).  Beyond that, I don’t have a real strong background with it.  I can tell you the difference between a mountain bike and penny farthing and we all know that Mishka reps a sick fixed gear squad that the Bloglinites get amped about, but I don’t care what you know or don’t know about bikes of any sort; this video is pure visual poetry.

I could sit here and right a thousand words about Danny MacAskill but it seems a little pointless so here are the basics: He is from Scotland.  He rides for Inspired, DigDeep, Red Bull, POC, Shimano and Hope.  He is a fucking wizard on his bike and all you need to do is watch the video below and then pick your jaw up off the floor at the end.  And then most likely hit play immediately after to watch it all over again.

At times, the tricks come so effortlessly that you almost question the authenticity. No man should be able to do the things he does with such panache without even an ounce of hesitation. The dude fucking rips.  End of story. On top of the rippery, this is one of the most beautifully shot videos, soaking in the epic Scottish landscape from castles to mountains and accompanied by some equally legit audio tracks.

So give thanks, friends, for the simple things in life. Bicycles, rolling hills, Red Bull, turkey legs, boobs, peanut butter and whatever else makes you get all stoked because this video will definitely be one of those things.

#1 overall draft pick.  Atlanta Falcon.  Animal rights activist. Disease vessel. Ex-inmate. Philadelphia Eagle. Michael Vick has been many things at one point or another in his life, but can we throw a new term into the mix? Dare I say…best quarterback in the NFL at this moment?  Look at the bottom line from Monday Night’s blood bath in the Nation’s Capital.  Vick completed 20 passes on 28 attempts for 333 yards and 4 touchdowns.  On top of that, his ground game totaled 80 yards on 8 carries and 2 touchdowns, all while only playing in basically three quarters of the game and finishing with a perfect passer rating (150.7).  This is honestly the type of stat line you amass on Madden while face fucking the computer with the difficulty on Rookie.

The opening play was an 88-yard pinpoint strike (60 of those 88 yards were the football’s in air travel courtesy of Vick’s epic arm cannon) to DeSean Jackson.  It looked like footage from those John Elway Vortex football commercials where Elway threw the ball 3,000 yards on the fly out of Mile High Stadium.  The game was over after the first drive and an absolute nightmare for Washington by the end of the first quarter as they trailed 28-0 and Vick had a hand in three of the four scores.

In the two losses during his starts, the first was courtesy of a stout week one Green Bay defense and the second coming in the initial go-round between Washington in Philadelphia, a game in which he was knocked out of early. I’d say he exacted his revenge on the Redskins Monday.  There was a sense of irony to the beat down as well, as Donovan McNabb, who was one of the main proponents in bringing Michael Vick to the Eagles in 2009, played the role of the exiled anti-hero, essentially run out of town (For what reason? Taking the Eagles to 5 NFC Championship games and a Super Bowl?) in a trade to inter-division rival Washington. I had a conversation about this with Caff in the comments of last week’s post but I was calling for the Vikings to make a run at Vick because you knew that athleticism was still going to be there, Tarvaris Jackson was obviously not the solution and it was so low risk, high-reward, you almost HAD to take a shot.

The idea of a Vick/AP/Syd Rice/Percy Harvin fueled offensive attack had me soiling my whites in the front and back.  Apparently the Vikings couldn’t handle the PR blow that signing Vick would have delivered (along with almost every other team) and they were still reeling from the Love Boat scandal when Bryant McKinnie changed his name to Captain Stabbin’ and ran train on 10 strippers while Fred Grandy navigated their cruise ship around Lake Minnetonka.

If you disagree, tell me which quarterback’s presence on the field makes a bigger impact to their team right now.  Peyton Manning? The ever-consistent elder Manning has been just that, consistent, but he doesn’t seem to be playing at as high of a level this season as he has in year’s past. Philip Rivers? He’s the ugliest dickbag on the field, with no running game to support his offense and is throwing for ridiculous yardage because he plays in a shootout every week. Tom Brady? Dexter’s twin brother doesn’t have the down field weapons he’s used to having in past seasons.

Vick has yet to throw a pick on the year, leads the league in passer rating, has a plethora of talented young players around him, looks more mature with his decision making and has been consistently been making the right plays with his rocket arm and fleet feet. Sorry Kevin Kolb, I guess it’s another year before they can lie to you again and tell you that you are the future QB of the organization.

Ultimately, Eagles fans should be thanking Donovan McNabb one last time for having the fantastic foresight to talk Coach Andy Reid and the rest of the Philadelphia brass into taking a shot on Michael Vick.  Although McNabb managed a coup of his own on the same day of the Monday Night Massacre in the form of a (potentially) lucrative contract extension, despite the fact that in their last game he was benched for Rex Fucking Grossman during the last two minutes of play while trailing the Detroit Lions.

Initial reports stated that it was a 5-year, $79 million dollar extension with $40 million of it guaranteed which would have made Daniel Snyder look like the NFL’s biggest jackass in terms of ridiculous contract negotiation probably since the asshole who signed Albert Haynesworth to his insane deal….oh, right…Snyder did that, too.  It turns out only $3.5 million is guaranteed and the Redskins can cut ties with McNabb at the end of the season, but that doesn’t make the situation any less bleak for Redskins fans this year.

This is huge news. For those of you who follow the Olympics, you might be familiar with track racing. Of course you’ve heard of fixed gears and track bikes but these didn’t originate on the streets, there’s an actual sport behind them. Track racing takes place on a Velodrome. A large, banked, elliptical track meant for one thing: fierce competition. We have a track already in NYC but it’s all the way out in Queens, outdoors and in need of a lot of work. It’s also difficult to get to if you don’t have a car and you don’t want to ride your race wheels on the shitty streets of Queens. All these factors have been raised to the city and there’s talk of a velodrome in Greenpoint. Sick!

The Brooklyn Paper has the scoop:

Greenpoint could get a high-tech bike-racing track to train the next generation of Olympians — if the city and the MTA ever stop spinning their wheels.

Inspired by a $7-million design competition for projects along Newtown Creek, Williamsburg-based Affinity Cycles owner Jason Gallacher and national cycling champion Andrew LaCorte have put together a proposal to construct such a first-class track, called a “velodrome” in some circles, on a city-owned lot on Commercial Street.

The facility would include not only the high-banked racing surface, but paths for BMX racers and a cycling training facility.

Gallacher estimates that constructing an outdoor velodrome on Commercial Street would cost about $500,000 — though it would take another $3 and $4 million to build an enclosed arena to house it for all-year use.

“Our goal is for this to be a center for cycling, not only for track racing, but for casual cycling,” said Gallacher, who makes bikes in his Grand Street shop. “In a perfect world, the project will end up in Greenpoint.”

Check out the rest of this article here.

As I was sifting through the latest news, scores and highlights for the past week or so, trying to decide what mind-blowing analysis I would drop on the Bloglin faithful for my next post…I reached a stalemate.  The baseball post-season was wrapped up, I had taken care of the previews for the NBA and NHL and checked in with multiple college football updates so I wondered where to go next.  Then my good friend Joel sent me a message simply saying:

“DEREK JETER JUST WON A GOLD GLOVE (link).  FOR DEFENSE.  IN 2010.  THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.  Jeter now has more Gold Glove awards than every shortstop in the history of baseball save for Ozzie Smith, Omar Vizquel, Luis Aparicio, and Mark Bellanger.  I hate that asshole.  And it’s mostly because of assholes who still reward him for playing like he’s still the best player.  FUCK.  ANGER OVERLOAD.”

And then it hit me.  There are an ever-growing amount of stories swirling around the sporting world as of late that cause you to have a conversation like the one above (except substitute any player and topic in the place of “Derek Jeter” and “Gold Glove winner”) that end in outright rage.  As the conversation continued, along with my perusal of the world wide internet, like clockwork, I began stumbling across a barrage of articles that upon finishing warranted a “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me” response.  I’m only 26 years old; I can hardly sit back and pontificate about the “good ol’ days” when athletes were loyal to their team and city and tough as nails and not a bunch of arrogant, money-grubbing prima donnas.  Or that they played in leagues that were more laissez-faire than Communist regime and were still respected for some semblance of integrity by the general public.

So I’ve been filling with a sports rage for the past week, my outlook becoming more and more along the lines of Atrocitus (what’s up Caffeine Powered!) with each ridiculous story I’ve read.  The plague is not an isolated incident within one sports league either.  Look first at the NBA where Golden State Warrior guard, and often on the receiving end of a Billy Crystal technical spree, Stephen Jackson was fined $50,000 for talking shit on the officials after a heated game against the Pistons.  Seems like an average day for Stephen Jackson, until I went on to find out that the comments he was fined for were made to himself on the way to the locker room after the game and Jackson and Coach Larry Brown both maintain that the referees gathered the information BY READING JACKSON’S LIPS, then reported the infraction where the fine was handed down from the league shortly after.   This coming from the league that is going to have to put a lot of work into avoiding a lockout or contraction in the near future, as well as the black eye the league’s former most likeable player (LeBron) gave them in the off-season.

But that’s just the NBA, right? I mean they’ve been struggling to stay relevant since the departure of MJ.  Oh, what’s that?  The MLB wants in on the action?  Gold Glove awards came out? Derek Sanderson Jeter won a Gold Glove?  I’m going to get a little nerdy with the stats here, so if you are a sabermetrician, this is the stuff that your pants cream is made of.  According to the advanced defensive metric scales, Derek Jeter ended the season with a -4.7 UZR rating (Ultimate Zone Rating, or the number runs above or below average in both range runs and error runs combine and Jeter had one of the lowest in the AL), a 3.62 range factor per game (his lowest since his rookie year) and -12 DRS (defensive runs saved above average).  This puts him in the same company as players like Yuniesky Betancourt (widely regarded year in and year out as one of the worst shortstops in baseball), not exactly Gold Glove caliber company.  The naked eye makes you say things like, “Oh, Jeter made that great diving play, he’s an outstanding defensive short stop!”  False.  He had to dive for a routine ground ball because in his geriatric state, his lateral range has reduced to a radius of about two and a half feet on each side.  Let’s see what else….Brian Wilson’s cleats are TOO ORANGE so he has to color them in with a black Sharpie.  You can’t take steroids because it makes you better at baseball (still out for debate).  Boo-fucking-hoo, Bud Selig.

And of course the NFL has to get in on the action as well.  Obviously, there is a burgeoning amount of controversy hovering over the enforcement of helmet to helmet hits and protecting the “defenseless receiver” but at what point do they sacrifice the savage passion of the attack and compromise the nature of the game of football for the sake of a player who ends up “defenseless?”

In an abrupt turn around, less than four weeks after making the trade, Brad Childress and the Vikings decide they doesn’t need Randy Moss on the squad anymore and Minnesota outright releases the soft-spoken superstar and crushes hopes of salvaging their season (who was claimed by the Tennessee Titans).  This was after Moss refused to talk to the press after his last game and fined $25,000 for “failure to cooperate with the media.”  Straight cash, homie.

Pile this all on top of the fact that Zenyatta lost her undefeated record at the Breeder’s Cup and it was a week of me fuming about the disappointment and sad state of sports.  But in the end, this is all just a temporary rant. Sure, this stuff pisses me off now but there are also redeeming qualities as well that keep me hooked.

Ending on a positive note (that started as a note of rage) one of my favorite Kansas City Royals players of all time, the consummate under-appreciated working man, David DeJesus, was traded yesterday to the Oakland A’s for Vin Mazzaro and Justin Marks.  I was saddened by the news, while also upset that it seemed like we jumped the gun on a trade that maybe could have gotten more attention come spring when teams new DeJesus would be fully recovered from last year’s wrist injury but then I was directed to this tweet from DDJ’s ex-Royal teammate, Coco Crisp:

“Yeaha!!!! We (A’s) just got my boy David Dejesus from KC. We gotta have the best looking OF in the league lol… No homo.”

Thanks guys.  Now everyone else, shape up or ship out!

Like the cycling dorks we are, when Bilenky Cycles announced the Philly Bike Expo, a few of us decided to ride down to Philly on our bikes. How else do you arrive at a bike expo? By car? No way! You’d get shot (not really, we just wanted a reason to ride).

We met last Friday morning at the PATH station by Ground Zero and took the train to Newark. From there, we took this route to Philadelphia. Now, that’s a simplified version. Our real path tacked on some more hours (our trip total was 110).

The scenery was gorgeous! Except when we had to walk across see-saw paver stones next to 30-degree water in road shoes. Here’s Harry, doing his best not to fall in.

Once we were on the Delaware Raritan Canal, it was smooth sailing. Such a beautiful landscape right? About 60% of our ride was off-road like this.

6 1/2 hours later, we were in Philly. Just as a sunset took over the sky. We all rested up that night after trying to recoup our 16,000 caloric burn by eating burgers and drinking beer. The next morning we headed over to the Philly Bike Expo to geek the fuck out!

This is Ian. He has a mustache and builds insane bicycles under the handle Icarus. His track bike was the show stopper! So nice!

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Here is a phrase you didn’t expect to utter today…Edgar Renteria, World Series MVP. The San Francisco Giants are the 2010 World Series Champions. All of last night’s runs came courtesy of two swings in the 7th inning. Renteria turned a Cliff Lee pitch into a four hundred and four foot, three run lead and it was all the run support needed for Tim Lincecum and Brian Wilson. Lincecum gave up a 7th inning solo shot to Nelson Cruz, but the game was in hand already as he was masterful going 8 IP, giving up the one run on only 3 hits and striking out 10.

But back to Renteria, the 35 year old Colombian makes his 7th post-season appearance and comes up in the clutch once again. Coming into 2010, Renteria was a .246 hitter in the playoffs with ONE home run in 207 at bats. What kind of bat shit crazy, bizarro world do we live in where Edgar Renteria is the World Series MVP and Cody Ross is the NLCS MVP?!?! San Francisco’s main reason for signing Cody Ross was to block San Diego from picking him up when they showed interest in him whilst trying to salvage their decrepit season at the end of August. Go figure the spite pick-up works for San Fran and Ross goes on to be the Phillie Killer in the NLCS.

I’ve got a plateful of crow to eat here. In my inaugural Sporting Observation post I made the nefarious claim that it was irrelevant which team won the NL West, as they would be immediately eliminated. Shit. Look at the Giants offensive roster. A combination of dilapidated veterans and unproven young “talent” (with the exception of Buster Posey) including finely aged Pat Burrell and Aaron Rowand (apparently they like trying to scrape usefulness out of Philadelphia outfielders whose better days have passed), club foot Freddy Sanchez, Juan Uribe and a resurrected Aubrey Huff.

However, regardless of the offensive firepower (or lack thereof), the adage remains true that good pitching beats good hitting. The 2010 World Series is a perfect example of this truth. Texas boasted a potent lineup including four 20+ homerun hitters (Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, Michael Young, and Vladimir Guerrero) as well as being in the top five in almost every major hitting category in the AL as a team during the regular season (1st in hits and batting average, 4th in runs scored and OBP, 5th in HRs, RBIs, and OPS) but when an unstoppable force (Texas offense) meets an immovable object (San Francisco pitching), something’s got to give and in this case it was the Rangers hitters, who were held to a paltry .190 batting average for the entire series.

The season ended the way it had gone all season for the Giants. Start one of your talented young pitchers on the hill like Tim Lincecum, or Baby Dracula according to Brian Wilson, (Did anyone else see Lincecum before the game dapper as hell in a bowtie when he rolled up to the stadium?), or Matt Cain, the most underrated pitcher in the game, without question who also happens to be YOUNGER than Lincecum, or Madison Bumgarner, a 21 year old who dominated AAA, came into his own in the bigs and then proceeded to then dominate Texas in Game 4. Next, get your offense to score you a run or two or three if you’re lucky. Finally, when the 9th comes around, hand the ball of to your crazy, bro-dude, wild man closer, Brian Wilson, who racked up 48 saves during the regular season (and 6 more during the playoffs) and call it a night. And that’s exactly what they did.

Lincecum provided the dominant pitching, Renteria supplied the small handful of necessary runs and Brian Wilson roared like Leonidas when he blew the 3-2 fastball past Nelson Cruz to lock down the championship. The Giants captured their first title since moving from New York to San Francisco in 1958 when the Say Hey Kid was rounding bases at the Polo Grounds.  Congrats to the San Francisco Giants.

Somewhere out there, Barry Bonds is contemplating a comeback.

The NBA off-season was taken over by the free agency of LeBron James and his publicity shit storm known as “The Decision.” With seven words, he severed ties with his hometown team, fans and lovers of tasteful decision making everywhere. Tuesday was the tip-off of the 2010-2011 NBA Season and it was the debut of the Heat’s _________ (insert the adjective describing how you feel about them here) “Big Three” in Boston taking on the Celtics and their big five (Pierce, Garnett, Allen, Shaq, Rondo).

For the first half, Miami looking completely inept and out of sync, prompting questions like, “Would a .500 season make this team the most epic failure in the history of all sports?” Yes, it would. They came alive in the second half and made a game of it, but fell short and negated the possibility of an 82-0 season. Off-season moves made headline news for with LeBron, Amare Stoudemire, David Lee and Carlos Boozer (who is already injured) are among others all finding new homes.

Professional basketball lost a lot of its magic with the dawn of the new millennium. Gone were some the storied rivalries (Jordan-less Bulls, Portland went from classy with Clyde to J.R. and the Jailblazers), the hard-nosed bangers (Bill Laimbeer and Charles Oakley no longer getting T’d up) and the white basketball player (so long to the Eric Piatkowskis of the world). I digress; let me stop pining about the past and how much I miss watching Kendall Gill play. Let’s look to the future.

I admit, my predictions for the NBA won’t be as in depth as they were for the NHL. No matter how hard I try, I find myself struggling to get amped about regular season basketball but I will say that the last few years in the NBA have been a bit revitalizing, for me at least. The 2009 Bulls v. Celtics first round playoff match-up alone gave me reason to want to watch the NBA again: 7 games, 7 OT periods, 1546 points scored and 5 games decided by 3 points or less.

Head after the jump for a division by division preview… so let’s get into it.

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“I try to hurt people.” – James Harrison, Pittsburgh Steelers Linebacker

Ok, maybe that is taken a bit out of context, but he did say it.  He also touched on the difference between the intent to induce physical harm and injuring a player. After the onslaught of brutal hits this season and especially this past weekend, the NFL has decided to step in and make an effort to better protect its players and “will immediately begin suspending players for dangerous and flagrant hits, particularly those involving helmets.”

Harrison managed to take out Cleveland Browns receivers Josh Cribbs and Mohammed Massaquoi in one half on Sunday, which is both savage and impressive.  There was also the massive train wreck between Dunta Robinson and DeSean Jackson, which left both players presumably dead after impact and definitely out of commission for a yet to be determined amount of time.

The big question will be how the NFL will decide to dole out its suspensions and how severe the penalty will be, as each instance will be subject to the discretion of Big Brother to punish as they see fit.  The NFL felt they had to do something to try to not only protect the safety of the players but to also itself against potential trouble down the road with the rash of retired players (both dead and alive) who have been diagnosed with some form of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).

CTE is a progressive degenerative disease found in individuals who have been subjected to multiple concussions and other forms of head injury. CTE has been most commonly found in professional athletes participating in gridiron football,, ice hockey, professional wrestling and other contact sports who have experienced head trauma, resulting in characteristic degeneration of brain tissue and the accumulation of tau protein. Individuals with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy may show such symptoms of dementia such as memory loss, aggression, confusion and depression which may appear within months of the trauma or many decades later.

Unfortunately/fortunately, big hits are not only a part of the game but an aspect that draw people in for the same reason that someone might turn on a NASCAR race to see a crash, a hockey game to see a fight or a golf match to see Tiger Woods bone a pornstar; the American public has a fetish for the barbarian. All of this seems rather grim when you dig deeper into the implications of the “big hit” but damn if it isn’t fantastic to watch when it happens.  With all this controversy surrounding football collisions, I began reminiscing at some of the most memorable hitters in the history of the NFL. I remember growing up and watching dudes like Ronnie Lott, Chuck Cecil and Steve Atwater obliterate opposing players, and Lott once laid a hit so hard that he had to have part of his left pinkie finger amputated after leveling Timmy Newsome. The Chicago Bears, no matter how much I hate them, manage to breed a tough as nails, face of the franchise linebacker every decade or so, starting with Dick Butkus, continuing to Mike Singletary and the Monsters of the Midway in the 80s to today with Brian Urlacher handing out flagrant man-on-man hits every Sunday.

Today’s defensive assassins are absolute freaks of nature and they are carrying the explosive torch from the gridiron destroyers of yonder day (Jack Tatum, Chuck Bednarik, Dick “Night Train” Lane). Bigger. Stronger. Faster. Look at players like Ray Lewis, who has the athleticism of a running back, the size of a silverback gorilla and also does awesome Old Spice commercials in which he blows up Saturn, while putting opposing players in wheelchairs on the reg. Did you see his hit on Dustin Keller on Monday night a few weeks back?

Players get their asses handed to them in games that don’t even matter (except for the paycheck) like the Pro-Bowl. Sean Taylor (R.I.P.) shows no restraint or remorse for Buffalo punter (of all people) Brian Moorman and lays an absolute fucking smack down on the frail fellow. Maybe Moorman was the one who got the last laugh on Taylor…(too soon?)

And how could I do a piece on hard hits without including possibly the most famous one of all-time? Monday, November 18^th, 1985. RFK Stadium, the Washington Redskins host NFC East rival New York Giants. Joe Gibbs calls a flea-flicker in the second quarter and the rest is history:

You knew it was bad when a mean bastard like LT gets up and waves the medical staff over and puts his hands to his helmet in shock. Lawrence Taylor and Joe Theismann both maintain that they have never watched a replay of this incident. Yeah, right.

We’ll see how this pans out over the next few weeks and the rest of the season. James Harrison said today that he was seriously considering retirement because of his inability to effectively play the game with the new structure and more strictly enforced rules and fines in play going forward. For someone who acts the part of the bad-ass on the field, he is doing a great job of playing the bitch off the field. Your move, Mr. Goodell.