Let me tell you, after months of boredom and little to write about during maybe the worst sports summer on record, it's great to have some exciting things going on in sports.So, instead of hearing about Mike Vick for the 100th time in a single day, we have NFL and college football, playoff races in baseball, trade demands in the NBA and, as if we needed it, more scandals.

- I'm torn about the Kirilenko trade demand. On one hand, I hate it when players who aren't franchise guys get paid max money, and then whine. However, those players are usually whining because their teams aren't doing well, and the reason is because their salary has handcuffed the team (Jermaine O'Neal, for example). That's not the case with AK-47 (which is, btw, the best nickname in the league). He's on a winning team, but he's incredibly frustrated by the fact that Jerry Sloan refuses to utilize his talents. So, despite the fact that I hate seeing highly paid guys demand stuff, I would love to see AK get traded to a team that will utilize him, because he's one of the more unique talents in the league. I've seen a lot of trade scenarios proposed, but I'm not buying the AK for Shawn Marion deal or any trade to Golden State. There's really only one team I see as a good fit who also has the contracts and players to offer in return, and shockingly I haven't seen it proposed anywhere.

Andrei Kirilenko to Memphis for Mike Miller and Stromile Swift: Seriously, who wouldn't want to make this deal? It's an easy call for the Jazz, they get some cap relief in the long term, and they get the perfect complement to the Williams/Boozer pick and roll tandem. Miller is one of the best pure shooters in the NBA, and is far more suited to the standard Jerry Sloan offense than Kirilenko is. For Memphis, they get maybe the most dynamic defender in the NBA, and a guy who is excellent in a transition, international-style offense. Memphis coach Marc Iavaroni comes from the Phoenix group of coaches, and is installing a similar up-tempo offense. Memphis, who is my dark horse pick for next year, would have a lineup of Lowry/Conley, Navarro, AK, Gasol, and Darko. Would you want to face that? This deal needs to happen.

- You know, I've reached the point that nothing Isiah Thomas does would surprise me. If it weren't for OJ, I'd say that Isiah has ruined his reputation more than any other former star athlete. Since he stopped playing, he's manage to destroy the CBA, underachieve as coach of the Pacers, completely destroy the Knicks franchise for the forseeable future, and get mixed up in a sexual harassment scandal that has made he and the Knicks organization look stupid and bigoted. This begs the question, "How does the man still have a job???" Look, I know he's a legend as a player, and yeah, he's a pretty decent evaluator of talent, but he's a complete and total failure as an executive. Isiah, for the sake of basketball fans everywhere and for the sake of your legacy, step down and leave the spotlight before you completely ruin all memory of your playing days.

As a side note, this whole Isiah trial has confirmed what we already know about Stephon Marbury, mainly that he's certifiably crazy. Really, it's been a real breakout summer in the crazy department for Starbury. I can't wait for the season, I have a feeling he's going to end up doing something completely absurd and unheard of. I don't know what, I just feel something coming.

- Moving out of the NBA and into late-season baseball, the AL looks all sown up, but we've still got legitimate races in all 3 divisions and in the wild card in the NL. This is where baseball gets good, because every game matters.

The Mets held off the hard-charging Phillies for at least one game behind a brilliant outing by Oliver Perez. Let me tell you this, Perez has had his problems with inconsistency, but his stuff is as good as anybody in baseball. He was dealing today, and everything was nasty.  He made some hitters just look silly.

The Brewers lost what was probably the most important game of their season, despite a very good outing by their young stud Yovani Gallardo, who has really impressed me with the way he carries himself. He has great composure for a rookie to go along with his nasty stuff. After he gave up a walk and a single in the first inning, he faced Chipper-Teixera-McCann with runners on first and third and managed to get out of it with allowing just one run. In the next 6 innings, he struck out 7 and allowed 2 hits to match John Smoltz's great outing. Despite the extra-innings loss that probably spelled doom for the Brew Crew's playoff hopes, it was an impressive outing by the rookie.

- Switching gears yet again, did you see Matt Flynn over-the-head flip to Colt David on LSU's fake filed goal??? That might be the coolest play all year. Seriously, that was awesome.

-Say what you want about Florida's close call with Old Miss, but I can't get over the line that Tim Tebow put up. 261 yards and 2 TDs through the air, and 166 yards and 2 TDs on the ground (that gives him 17 TDs, 1 INT, 0 FUM through 4 games). Really, I just love this guy, he's totally unique. Typically when you think "running quarterback" you think the Mike Vick-type speed guy who makes quick moves to get some yardage and usually ends up sliding or running out of bounds (Pat White is a good example this year), but that's not Tebow. He doesn't have the mind-blowing speed or tricky moves of those guys, he runs like a fullback. Tebow doesn't avoid contact, he initiates it. Who knows how long he'll last playing that way, but it's a lot of fun to watch a guy who runs like he does.

- I don't know if anyone else caught this, but I watched the very end of the Georgia-Alabama game and was completely dumbfounded by one of the announcers. I don't even know who was calling the game, but near the end of an extremely close, hard-fought game that went into overtime, during a stop in play one of the announcers asked the other completely out of the blue "what do you think Britney should do?" The other announcer, very confused, asked "Britney who?", and got a reply of "Britney Spears". To this he very rightly responded "who cares, we've got a freaking overtime game going on here, pay attention stupid" (ok, so I made that last part up a bit). Seriously though, what the #### was that? It was so absurd and out of place that I wasn't sure I heard it right. Did anyone else catch this?

- Lastly, the NFL. I must say this; I really dislike Terrell Owens. He's cocky, selfish, and acts like a diva. That said, his touchdown celebration and subsequent response to the NFL's fine were absolutely genius. That might never be topped, it was just sheer genius.

- The game I'm watching this week is Packers-Chargers, and I'm torn on who I want to see come out on top. On one hand, I'm a huge LT fan, and I absolutely love my NC State boy Phil Rivers (who had a seriously underrated college career). However, my grandparents are from Wisconsin and my Grandpa taught me to be a Packers fan. I love watching a rejuvenated Favre this year and I'd love to see them do well. I don't know who I'll be rooting for, but I'll definitely be watching that one, should be a good game.

- 35 days and counting until college basketball gets going, I can't wait.

Some interesting stuff happening today.

The deadline for withdrawing from the draft is today, so we get to decide find out if Georgetown will be a final four contender next year, if Georgia Tech will have any hope of winning games, if Cal will threaten the big dogs in the Pac-10, and if Sean Singletary will be first-team All-ACC twice in a row.

Top pitching prospect Yovani Gallardo makes his debut for the Brewers. Scouts are comparing Gallardo to Fransisco Liriano from last year. Reports are he's got a mid-90s fastball and an absolutely devastating curve. More exciting for me is that I've got Gallardo on my strat-o-matic team (for those of you who not familiar with strat-o-matic, I'll probably write a post about my team a little later and explain it), and the faster my elite prospect gets me good starts, the better.

If you haven't seen it yet, go to ESPN.com and check out the video of Prince Fielder's inside the park home run. I don't think I've ever seen a centerfielder misjudge a ball that badly. Fielder, all 260 pounds of him, can't even slow down as he passes home and is still running when he hits the dugout. High comedy.

I'm not a big golf fan, but my friend pointed this out to me today. Tiger Woods is 12 for 12 on majors when he's leading going into the final day. Pretty impressive. However, he's never won one coming from behind on that final day. That's unbelievable to me. For all the hype that Tiger has gotten (deservedly), he's never made a final day comeback at a major.

You know, I thought it was a pretty well-acknowledged point that Tim Duncan is the greatest power forward of all time, but I've been amazed at how many people will vehemently argue that point. I might have to post about this soon.

I love statistics. I'm a basketball statistics nerd, and I've just gotten into it with baseball the last few years. It kills me that no one has come up with a decent defensive statistic in basketball. Blocks and steals are a poor indication of how good a defender somebody is. Hollinger over at ESPN has come up a slightly better statistic (points saved), but even that has huge holes in it. I'd love to see some sort of better defensive statistic. I also wonder why they plus/minus isn't a standard statistic for b-ball, it seems like it would be pretty useful.

Just on a random tangent, I was perusing Chad Ford's top 100 prospect list for the draft, and noticed that Glen Davis has been rising up that list. So, I clicked on Davis to see his profile, and the player similarity they mentioned was Oliver Miller. Now, I'm a big fan of Davis, but how are you a first rounder if your closest comparison is someone I've never heard of? (Just looked him up. Played for 6 different teams and averaged 7 and 5 for his 11 year career. meh)