Monday Morning Musing, June 15

Can't bring myself to even acknowledge this past weekend's Mile High debacle for the M's, so...

Let me first just say this: I hate Kobe Bryant (and the Lakers, as all Seattle sports fans should), but there was no team preventing his maniacal quest for a fourth NBA championship and his first without the Big Aristotle.

It's a shame. One, because Kobe won another championship. Two, because of what might have been if the Celtics were healthy.

There were only three teams with enough firepower to prevent Kobe from reaching the mountain top: The Magic, Nuggets, Celtics and Lebrons.

The Magic and Nuggets obviously weren't ready and their coaches flat-out failed them. Our old buddy George Karl, who I still stupidly defend as being a good coach (quick question: am I alone as Sonics fan who does this?), by refusing to make adjustments and not having an in-bounds play. Seriously, he didn't have an in-bounds play and it cost him at least two games. Stan Van Gundy, by refusing to play Courtney Lee and Rafer Alston during key stretches.

But aside form the coaching catastophe, really, these teams didn't have the high-pressure experience necessary to deal with Kobe's crew. Both will be back next year.

The Lebrons turned out to be just Lebron, despite all the Mo Williams hyperbole throughout the regular season, which they absolutely dominated. This, by the way, reinforces what we already know about the NBA: the regular season doesn't mean shiite. They were also let down by a coach, Mike Brown, who despite an aesthetic attempt to look smart (his Gucci glasses), failed to make any strategic adjustments throughout the Magic series. He gets the Donald Rumsfeld award for "staying the course" for absolutely no reason.

And, finally, the Celtics, oh my poor Celtics. After treating us to the two best series of the entire playoffs (against the Bulls and Magic), they simply ran out of gas after game 5 of the Magic series. And the yawning void, especially on defense, left by the injury to Kevin Garnett, completely did them in.

So, we're left with a sad "what-if" scenario with the end to this exceedingly disappointing finals. What if Garnett had come back, healthy, midway through the Magic series? What if he had provided an answer and challenge to Dwight Howard? What if the C's took out the Magic and then the Cavs and we were treated to a rematch of the 2008 finals: Lakers-Celtics, the modern version, Round 2?

Last year, the Lakers appeared just happy to be in the finals again, after a three year run of mediocrity and Kobe/Zen Master-inspired drama. Plus, they ran into an on-a-mission Celtics team with three in-their-prime superstars, including our boy Ray-Ray. The Celtics beat them like Brandon Marshall's girlfriend.

Now, to quote Bush (the band of mid-90s brief fame, not the former Idiot-and-Chief): Everyhthing Zen in the city of Angels. And like all of Phil Jackson's championship teams, the Lakers are loaded: Kobe, one of the best guards ever; two 7-footers, Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol, with great all-around skills and Inspector Gadget arms; another 7-footer who isn't terrible, Andrew Bynum; playoff breakout player of the season, Trevor Ariza (aka the new Boris Diaw); gritty playoff vet, the neck-less Derek Fisher; and a bunch of other serviceable NBAers like Jordan Farmar, Luke Walton and Shannon Brown.

The new peaking Lakers vs. the grizzled defending champs would have been great drama for NBA fans and an enormous boost to the league. Think about it for a second.

The Celtics lost Kobe-stopper James Posey, but that's it. They gained an improved Rajondo (my nickname, which I trademarked during the Bulls series while watching games under the influence), and two improved Bigs, in Big Baby Glen Davis and Kendrick Perkins, to go into battle with Garnett against Gasol/Bynum/Odom. There would also be Pierce vs. Kobe. And Ray vs. nobody. (By the way, it would have been incredibly interesting to have seen if Kobe would have continued with his newly adopted chin-jutting, lip-clenching, I'm-going-to-kill-a-small-animal-with-my-bare-hands scowl, which he obviously stole from Garnett.)

Those matchups, combined with the history of four decades of memorable matchups would have pushed the NBA back on top of the American sports scene. Plus, the Sports Guy's head would have exploded.

Instead, we just got Kobe celebrating for himself, on the road, against a crappy, inferior opponent. Did I mention I hate Kobe?

The NBA: where boring, predictable championships happen for self-absorbed, unlikable superstars. I just vomited in my mouth a little. I'd rather watch hockey.

Monday Morning Musings, May 11

The Muse Man spent most of Sunday drinking, hoping the M's would win (but Bedard wouldn't; he was on an opponent's fantasy squad), getting sunburned in several odd places (the inner knee is quite painful), watching a cheap comedy show in Brooklyn (saw the Daily Show's Wyatt Cenac trying out some new material and a duo called the "Boston Boys," one of whom wasn't from Boston, and that was their whole schtick) and then finally watching Glen "Big Baby" Davis sink the Magic on a last-second 17-footer from the corner. Dude looked like a swollen, gravity-bound Keith Smart.

Anyway, like most people on Mondays, I'm starting out the work week exhausted. This must be why our economy stinks and America is fat -- we spend our Sundays drinking, getting sunburned and watching sports. But hey, at least we enjoy ourselves.

Here's what I'm thinking this morning:

-The Celtics-Magic (or as I like to call it, Ray vs. Rashard) and Rockets-Lakers (A Bunch of Scrappy Dudes vs. Bitch-ass Kobe) are both going 7 games. I'm going with the Cs because of experience and because their best player is now a guy named Big Baby. And I'm picking the Rockets, just because I hate Kobe. And Sasha Vujacic. And Jordan Farmar, Luke Walton and Pau Gasol's gaping mouth. And I think Phil Jackson is a self-absorbed jerk who wrongly thinks he's the god-damn Buddha or something. Oh, and all Laker fans are dicks.

But it won't matter. In the end, the Lebrons will win the championship.

Funny, I talked to a Knicks fan the other day (and I'm 98% sure this is how all Knicks fans are thinking right now) who told me he really hopes the Cavs win the title so Lebron and Cavs fans won't feel so bad when he signs with the Knicks after the 2010 season. It's going to happen. Then the NBA will move the Cavs to Seattle. The NBA, where fan suicide happens.

-The Muser is admittedly a glass half-full kind of guy. Which is I have no problem with the M's being .500, 16-16, at this point in the season and still hold on to hope that we can hang around in the West. If anybody had told me in March that the M's would be .500 through mid-May, I'd take it and be happy.

-Positive signs from this weekend: Beltre, Junior and Lopez all starting to swing the bat better. Closer Brandon Morrow is back, albeit a little shaky in his first action.

-Signs of pending doom: Bedard went less than 5 innings. Yuni still swings at every pitch he sees. Branyan looking much more like the player no one was willing to play every day for the first 12 years of his career. Felix hitting the skids. I could go on, but want to continue keeping up the illusion that there's hope is still alive.

-You heard it here first: The Seahawks should sign Michael Vick and make him our starting running back. I will flesh this out later, but think about for a minute. The Hawks need a RB. Vick needs a job. He's probably all buffed up from jailhouse workouts. Prior to incarceration, he was unquestionably the most dynamic runner in the NFL since Barry Sanders. He needs a position switch: his potential as a championship QB was in question even before going to prison. Mora knows Vick than any coach outside of Frank Beamer. Seattle's a very forgiving town. Imagine possibilities.