So for the past few days i've become a little frustrated with the so called sports media.  I have seen numerous articles online, in the paper, and on the news about Barbaro.  Are you kidding me?  I've reached the end of my rope with this one so I had to comment on it.  There is actually a story on foxsports.com, on the front page, that says "Barbaro takes nap, which makes docs smile."  Since when did a horse taking a nap become newsworthy, let alone sportsnews worthy?  Is it because baseball is that boring, and there isn't anything else to write about.  I've actually read 3 different articles by Pat Forde on ESPN.com about the situation.  Sportswriters....get a life.

I was watching the Preakness on Saturday, just like millions of people.  I watched weeks earlier when Barbaro dispatched of all contenders at the Kentucky Derby.  So to say that I hate horses, or horse racing would be untrue.  What is true is that 99% of America did not know who this horse even was a month ago.  Now radio stations, tv news, and websites can't keep from reporting about him.  "He scratched himself today, that's a good sign."  It's just a horse.  He broke his leg.  He probably should have been put down, but the owner has too much money and "love" for the horse to do that.  This story should have been a quick 2 sentence follow up, but it's now lasted almost a week.  Do you think that Barbaro cares.  Let's say Dwayne Wade broke his leg last night in the game against the Pistons.  Do you think he would have gotten flowers from strangers and media attention like the horse?  You can argue that nobody is going to kill D-Wade because of an injury like that, where they would a horse.  But I ask the question, in 3 months wouldn't Barbaro's career be over, and for the most part he be "dead" in the eyes of horse race officianado's?  So what's the big deal?

Can someone please get Steve Nash a headband?  I'm tired of watching him push his hair back behind his ears like a little girl without a hairbrush.  Maybe somebody can get him one of those scrunchy things to pull it back in a ponytail or something.  Or maybe he uses the whirling hair as intimidation.

For the record, Tim Duncan was more like Timmy from the line on Saturday.  62.5% is a lot closer to what he'll shoot the rest of the series.

If the spurs are going to use Bruce Bowen to stop Josh Howard, then they're in for a world of hurt.  Not a chance that Robert Horry can guard Dirk Nowitzki. 

Van Exel, Finley, and Horry are finally showing their age.  You can't use the "spurs had no rest" excuses anymore.  Dallas is the better team and should be up 3-0.

LeBron James is from another planet.  I know that's been said before but he does it in so many ways.  Now if he can just grow a real beard, he'll become a man playing amongst boys.  How many times did you say "WOW" on saturday.

Of course Isiah Thomas is willing to take over the Knicks coaching duties if they decide to let Larry Brown go.  How hard is it to improve on a 23 win season?  Then he looks like a genius.  Even Jim O'Brien could get that team to 30 wins. 

After a game where both teams were held under 100 on friday night did anyone really think that the Suns-Clippers series was going to remain that way.  If Sunday night was any indication, friday's game was an anomaly, not only because the score was so low, but that the suns actually won that low scoring of a game. 

Is there anything more degrading then watching Antoine Walker beat you by bombing away 3's.  After Dwayne's little chat with Shaq after game 1 he's been amazing.  Winning both games in Jersey means that the re-match of last years Eastern Conference Finals is on. 

And Lawrence Frank and Vince Carter still can't win playoff games.  Say what you will about Byron Scott, but he got them to the Finals.

Finally, is it a really bad sign when your team plays better without you.  The cavs got used to playing without Larry Hughes, now maybe they don't need him to come back so quickly.  I call this the Kenyon Martin theory. 

Ok, so i'm sure that i'm not the only one talking about Josh Howard today.  But I have a little different slant on the whole thing.  This guy is everything that is right about basketball.  First off, every GM in the league should be ashamed of themselves for letting him fall all the way to the Mavericks with the 29th pick in the draft.  A lot of people give Don Nelson credit for finding a lot of European talent and bringing it to the league, he was a visionary in that regard.  I now have to applaud Donnie Nelson, with help from his dad, for being the visionary that says "college seniors are actually better then highschool players".  I know it sounds like a wild idea, but it's true.  While the 2003 draft will go down as one of the best ever, you have to look at some of the players taken ahead of Josh Howard.  No one will argue with Lebron, 'Melo, D-Wade, Bosh, Hinrich, and TJ Ford.  Even Luke Ridenour, Boris Diaw, and David West have turned out to be pretty darn good players.  The gambles in the first round are the reasons that some teams are now in the lottery instead of still playing.  How can you pass up Josh Howard, the ACC player of the year.  Yes that ACC.  The one that is traditionally ranked as the best conference in college basketball.  He went to Wake Forest, the last ACC player of the year from Wake turned out to be pretty good (Tim Duncan), and then teams again dissed "the Wake" when they passed on Chris Paul this last year.  So who was better then the best player in the best conference.  Jarvis (is he still in the league) Hayes, Reece (people confused me with the candy) Gaines, Troy (I don't even know who the hell this guy is) Bell, two serbians that I can't even pronounce their names, Dahntay (I went to Duke) Jones.  (As an aside, here is a prime example of my Duke rule, never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever take a Duke player in the draft if he's a senior.  There is a reason this guy stayed there for 4 years, because he's not very good, and Coach K is a genius.  Go ahead, name one Duke senior that ever turned out to be a half way decent NBA player.) Other notables drafted drafted before Howard include Travis (i'll fit in in Portland because my last name is) Outlaw, Carlos (I get confused for the guy on Desperate Housewives) Delfino, Ndudi (this is why Garnett hasn't been in the playoffs) Ebi.  So this brings us to the end of the 1st round where the Mavericks select Josh Howard.

Now the amazing thing to me is that he slipped that far.  What's even more entertaining is that the Mavericks also picked up Marquis Daniels that year as an undrafted Free Agent.  But I digress.  The reason that the Mavs will beat the Spurs in 6 or less games in this series is that they've been able to re-load on talent while staying competitive.  The spurs have just gotten older.  I had originally given the advantage to the spurs because I thought Popovich would outcoach Avery Johnson, I don't think that will matter.  Josh Howard never has a play called for him, he typically guards a teams best player and all he does is produce.  28 points without having a play called for you is pretty good on the road, is better, on the road against the spurs in the playoffs is awesome.  They beat the spurs by 22 points in San Antonio. ( A side note, Duncan was 12-14 from the line.  I have good money that says he doesn't shoot 85% from the line in another game this series.  So the game should have been even more a blowout.)  I know this is only one game for Josh Howard.   I know he's still young, but the mavericks look like they're going to be in good shape for a long long time.

I'm going to borrow a Dickens line to recap this weekends NBA playoff games; "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."  So there were two really great games this weekend, and a bunch of really bad ones.  I'll start with the bad ones because they're more fun, in chronological order.  Kings-Spurs game 6 on friday started out pretty good.  It was competitive, and you have to hand it to the best fans in the NBA.  I can guarantee there weren't any thundersticks in that arena.  But the little engine that could finally ran out of coal.  The kings were just overmatched in the series.  Had it still been a 5 game series they might have been able to steal it, but not 7.  They were this years version of last years Denver Nuggets, way to good to be that low of a seed and scared the living daylights out of San Antonio.  Sacramento will be good next year and should give Phoenix a run for it's money for the Pacific Division title.  By the start of the second half it was obvious that the enevitable was happening and the young Kings wilted under the SA pressure.  Great series for Bonzi Wells, but I don't think he'll be back.  Kevin Martin is a much better shooter, and put some bulk on him, and get the guy a modern day haircut, he could be a very good player. 

Saturday's game 7 between Phoenix and the Lakers was over before it began.  Kobe tried to keep his team in it, but Phil Jackson got outcoached in this series.  I know he'd been out of the game for a year or two, but somebody should have reminded him that the first round is a best of 7 now, not best of 5.  And was there ever a more disinterested or more unliked player then Kobe Bryant in the second half of that game?  Maybe during the offseason he can spend some time with Bill Cartwright and learn how to make all those elbows he throws actually hurt people.  I was actually quite pleased that he finished 4th in the MVP voting, having 1 unbelievable game (81) and another pretty good 3/4ths for a game, doesn't make an MVP. 

The final stink bomb of the weekend was the Cavs-Pistons game 1.  Who would have thought that Detroit would be such an offensive buzzsaw.  Welcome to the real playoffs Mr. James.  The king and his court played less defense then the lawyers for that terrorist guy.  I mean if you can't stop Lindsay Hunter, you have some problems.  All that joy and elation from Damon Jones and Lebron after their win at Washington, was gone with a 30 point halftime deficit.

That leads me into the best games of the weekend.  Dallas-San Antonio game 1 turned out to be all that was advertised.  Although I do miss the free-wheeling scoring that the mavs used to provide.  Bog down half court offense with stifling defense just isn't fun to watch.  Dallas lost this game because they didn't make Tim Duncan run the court. You have to know the other team's weakness and exploit it.  Looking at this series, it's pretty much even, a coin flip.  I give the edge in the end to the Spurs, basically because Avery Johnson isn't quite there yet as a playoff coach.  And that last play, there was a ton of time left why not set a pick for Nowitzki, why not run a play where he gives up the ball and gets it back.  Was Stackhouse trying to be Damon Jones in the corner?  Take it to the hoop and at least give your team a chance. 

The best game of the weekend though was the Cavs-Wizards game 6 friday night.  Gilbert Arenas is unbelievable.  The man is from another planet.  Any GM who didn't think that he was worth the money he asked for as free-agent should be relieved of his duties...oh yeah the one in Denver who passed on Gilbert was let go.  Not only did he constantly keep his team in the game, did you see the shot he made to force overtime?  What was Eric Snow thinking.  "Ok, they're down 3, under 10 seconds to play, he's not going to shoot from way out there?"  Of course he is, that's what superstars do, they make plays that make you say "WOW".  The only problem is that wasn't the last "wow" he had of the game.  Hopefully those two freethrows he missed at the end doesn't discourage him.  I'd hate to have another Nick Anderson in the NBA.  Remember when he missed the FT in the Finals with the Magic.  He was an 80% shooter prior to that, afterwards he finished his career hovering around 59% or so.  And what was with Lebron and his "psyche out".  Ok Lebron that was cute, very sportsmanlike.  Did he get in the guy's head?  Maybe, but is that the image you want to portray, leave that to Kobe and Gary Payton.  You want to be liked in this league don't you?  Finally, Damon Jones shot was huge, coming off the bench cold and knocking it down was amazing.  The perfect end to a great series.  But the celebration was lacking.  It was like Phil Mickelson's first master's victory.  Lebron went all "brokeback mountain" on Jones.  I think he even said "I don't know how to quit you".  Anyway, Lebron act like you've been there, even if you haven't.  Other then that, great series, great game, so/so weekend.

The rumors have been confirmed.  Kiki will not be the nuggets GM any longer.   The man credited with single handedly restoring the nuggets to a playoff caliber team has been shown the door.   It's been said that he was fired.  That is absolutely false.  The truth is his contract expires August 1st  and owner Stan Kroenke has chosen not to offer an extension or a new contract.   So the question is why?  Why wouldn't you offer the man who is so respected by other GM's in the league that they've coined the term "Nuggets Plan", when they start re-building?  The answer is two-fold, money and overall performance.

The money issue is a factor in a lot of decisions that are made in professional sports.  Kiki is going to demand a pretty penny in the open market.  He has a reputation and is well respected in the league, and he's transitioned into a saavy deal maker.  Is he in the same category as Geoff Petrie or Rod Thorn, probably not yet, but he's just getting started.  Truth is, he was going to be very expensive to re-sign and Kroenke chose to not waste his money.

The reason I said "waste" his money, is that Kiki's reputation is built off of smoke and mirrors.  He was in the right place at the right time.  Basically he was given the task of building a championship contender out of a lame duck.  So he looked to the future.  He dumped salaries to sign free agents, they bombed out a season (winning 17 games) in order to build for the future.  His plan was perfect, but things don't always go according to plan.  1st, his plan of wasting an entire season didn't work.  The goal was to get Lebron James, it wasn't a coincidence that he chose that season as the "beginning" of his plan.  He didn't win the lottery, but had a great player fall to him anyway, in what was the deepest draft in years.  Then he began to build.  But here is where things went wrong.  He's credited with drafting Nene, a guy nobody had really heard of before.  But it's been 4 years and while Nene has been decent, he's still got that nagging "potential" tag on him.  He also drafted Nikolas Tskidisvili with their earlier pick in the 1st round.  Needless to say, there were plenty of players from that draft that have turned out better.  He drafted Jameer Nelson the year after Carmelo, but traded him to Orlando.  Nelson has turned out to be a decent pro, and a better shooter then anybody on the Nuggets this season.  His final 2 first round picks were Julius Hodge, a guy who couldn't even shoot the college 3 and plays the same position as his superstar, and Linas Kleiza.  Kleiza was a little bit of a surprise, but the fact is, this is a team that was already 4 deep at power forward, why draft another one.  Needless to say his drafts were pretty much horrible if you take out Carmelo, who was a no-brainer.  

Free agency was supposed to be how they re-built the team.  Dump salaries and then sign great players.  The first significant signee was Andre Miller.  He's been pretty good, but they signed him instead of Gilbert Arenas.  As we all saw Arenas is in a different world when you compare him to Andre Miller.  Imagine Arenas running the Doug Moe style offense with Carmelo.  Now, Kiki can't take all the blame on the Arenas thing.  Word has it that Kroenke thought Arenas was too expensive.  Plus, Kroenke wanted Kobe the next summer.  This is where Kiki failed, he's the basketball guy.  He should have convinced Kroenke that Kobe was never ever ever going to leave LA, and that Gilbert Arenas was going to become who he is today.  Andre has been serviceable, a play maker, but he can't shoot from deep and that has slowed Carmelo's progression into a superstar.  The next summer, they made a run at Kobe, but he never was serious, nor would that have been good for Carmelo.  They flirted with a couple of other free agents, but got who they "wanted".  I'm a huge Kenyon Martin fan, but they gave up way too much for a guy who will never be more then a great role player.  First he got a max contract.  In my opinion only guys who can take over a game at any point and will your team to win should get a max deal.  But Kiki had the money to burn.  Then in order to get K-Mart he traded away more of the future.  Now it's not his fault that K-Mart had knee problems.  But if he really believed in Nene, he shouldn't have ever made that move.  Save your money and buy a shooter the next summer.  The final straw for Stan Kroenke was this last summer, Kiki didn't make any moves to get a shooter or another scorer.  He got another point guard, an undersized one who couldn't shoot.  Didn't the nuggets have enough of those?  This doesn't even take into consideration the debacle with choosing a coach.  I mean Michael Cooper, who are we kidding.  

This coming summer is the start of another transitional period.  The Nuggets are handcuffed with a ton of hustle players, role players and one superstar....and no money.  They'll be trying to move Kenyon Martin, trying to sign Carmelo to a max extension, and trying to find a shooter.  Who do you want making those kind of decisions?  For the money, it's not Kiki.