Get Real and thoughts on baseball....

DJ,

Judging by the title of my post you might see that I have some disagreements with your post. I have an issue with the aspect of the playoffs being "predictable." You refer to the 80's and 90's as the "glory days" of basketball. While I don't disagree with you, I feel like the playoffs were more predictable then. In the 90's, the Bulls went every year that Jordan played (much to my heart break, I hate watching that highlight of Jordan spinning around Starks and dunking on Ewing) In the 80's, the Lakers won 5 championships and the Celtics won 3. Call this year predictable with the Lakers and Cavs being picked by pretty much everyone, but you can't say its any more predictable than at least the 90's. Plus, the 2000's have provided plenty of memories of unpredictable momments, here are some:

-The Nets miracle runs in 2002 and 2003 to the Finals. Outside of Jason Kidd, name one player on that Nets team that has "Star" written on him. With that there was the outstanding Eastern Confrence Finals in 2002 between the Nets and Celtics, including Game 4, where Paul Pierce single handedly brough the Celtics back from down 20 in the fourth to win the game.

-The Pistons miracle finals victory over the Lakers in 2004. This team had Chauncey Billups, Tayshaun Prince and Rip Hamilton. Players who are stars now, but whom no one cared about back then, Billups was on his 6th team at this point and seemed destined to be an NBA journeyman. This team overtook a Kobe and Shaq Lakers who had just one 3 championships with the exact same team plus Gary Payton and Karl Malone.

-While one of our friends would hate these next two. First, there's Dwayne Wade, dominating the Mavericks in Game 3 of the Finals as the Mavs were up in the series 2-0, and up 13 in that game with 6 minutes to go. Closing out that game would have probably meant the end of the series for Miami. Second, there's the 2007 playoffs where the 8 seed Golden State Warriors (who clinched their spot the last day of the season) defeated a 68 win 1 seed and defending Western Confrence Champion Dallas Mavericks, only the 2nd time in NBA history this happened (First was the Knicks in 1999 over the heat).

-Also in the 2007 playoffs, was Lebron's coming of age against the Pistons. I'll let you Youtube Game 5 of the Eastern Confrence Finals that year. Where Lebron scored Clevland's last 25 points on the road and led them to victory in overtime.

These are just some I can think of off the top of my head. I laughed when I saw the Thug Basketball Association, but I still maintain this is a professional athlete problem, rahter than a baksebtall player problem. Last I checked, Rae Carruth, Lenoard Little, Marvin Harrison, Michael Vick, Ray Lewis (debatable), Juan Uribe, Urgeth Urbina, Lawrence Phillips, and Albert Belle have never played a minute in the NBA. Vick apparently isn't a fan of dogs. Belle and Phillips aren't a fan of children (Belle tried to run some down with his car, Phillips assaulted some after playing pickup football with them...unfortunatley, I'm not making this up), and the rest apparently aren't fans of the human race.

After a good conversation with my friend Jake, I agree with you about NBA rivalries. For some reason they have a short shelf-life. They seem to be white hot for about 5 years or so and then dissapear. Knicks-Pacers gave way to Knicks-Heat which gave way to the Knicks being the laughing stock of the NBA. Even the Cavs-Pistons, which had become such a good one in the past few years, has faded as the Pistons start to ride off into the sunset. (Although I will say, Bill Simmons did right an article about the current Bulls-Celtics series developoing into a rilvarly, you should check it out) This does prove that the NBA is much more of an "individualistic" sport, where there's a lot of one on one. Cowboys-Redskins, Yankees-Red Sox, Duke-Carolina, Ohio St.-Michigan, Texas-Oklahoma, and a few others will be blazing hot rilvalries, no matter which players play, or how much time goes on. Finally something we can agree on :)

Enough with the NBA. While I'm not in panic mode yet, there are some areas of the Yankees that have me worried:

1. Chien-Ming Wang pulling a Rick Vaughn at the beginning of Major League 2 and getting smacked around by everyone. A stint in the Minors would do him some good to work on his mechanics.

2. Joba Chamberlin being in the rotation. Here's a guy who's lights out in the bullpen, can hit triple digits in velocity when in the bullpen, and could be groomed to be the closer. As a starter, he's hit or miss, walks a lot of batters, and throws way too many pitches. Put him in the bullpen, let him get that ERA lower than his blood alchohol level and he'll dominate.

3. Brian Bruney. This guy may be one of the most talented releivers the common fan has never heard of. Why? Because he's ALWAYS getting hurt. Just when he was settling in as the setup guy, unbelieveable.

4. Xavier Nady getting hurt. While he's not an outstanding player. He did have 25 HR's and 97 RBI's last year and was in a contract year and he plays well under the pressure of NYC. It's a shame.

I will try to focus on the positive.....

1. The emergence of Nick Swisher. I'll be completley honest, I did not see this one coming. After an off year last year in Chicago, and being a bit of a strikeout king, he is killing the ball into New York, and has already seemed to become a "New York guy" the fans will latch onto this guy quick, they're still trying with A-Rod....

2. A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettite. Outside of yesterday's start agaisnt the Sox, both pitchers had been pretty consistent, Burnett's ERA is a bit inflated after yesterday's start, but through the first 4 innings his stuff looked excellent. If he can maintain that, he'll have a great year. Pettite right now has a 2.53 ERA and is 2-0, lets hope he can keep turning back the clock.

3. The return of A-Rod. This is more for the New York papers, they've gotten bored and need something fun to right about, A-Rod's personal life is good for that. Oh yeah, he's actually not that bad at the plate too.

4. Phillip Hughes? I put a question mark by his name because I'm not sure when we'll see him. Call me crazy, but I still believe he can be a great major league pitcher. He pitched hurt when he got to pitch last year, and the year before, it looked like he had the makings of being the next big thing. I'm looking forward to seeing him again.

These are my confessions, let me know what you think.....