Sports Update/Thoughts

The A's are off to a not-so-hot start. Moreso than almost any other team, though, this doesn't matter much to the A's because they are a streaky team and baseball is a streaky game. But as one might've been able to predict, their offense is sluggish and pitching looking pretty good. I like their chances to win 85+ games barring big injuries and who knows whether that'll be good enough to get into the playoffs. The thing is...their line up could be good. Kendall is an okay lead off hitter, some combination of Stewart, Bradley, Crosby, Piazza, Chavez, and Swisher as the 2-7 hitters ain't bad and then if you have Ellis and Kotsay or Johnson in as 8-9, they have a fairly strong overall line-up. Problem is, Swisher isn't as good as his numbers last year, Chavez still hasn't had an all star hitting year yet, Piazza is old and will unlikely fill Frank Thomas' shoes. Crosby is injury prone, Stewart is old and pretty mediocre. Bradley, I think, is the best hitter on the team but lacks power and really isn't that big of a threat compared to the average #3 hitter on a major league team. They basically all need to be playing top notch to have a potent line up and I don't think that is likely. Or they'll need someone to have a break out year like Thomas had last year to carry the whole team. I don't think that is likely, either.

Caught some of the Laker-Nugget game last night. Neither of these squads are very good. Carmello is an incredible offensive player. Iverson I like a lot for his energy, drive, ability to create havoc defensively, and his scoring ability. But the Nuggets look flat on offense - basically give it to Iverson to drive and shoot/dish or give to Carmello to score. That's it. It's a two man offense. But it's a pretty good two man offense...not good enough, however, to make up for a sorry looking defense. Marcus Camby can block shots and get rebounds, but how is he going to guard Duncan, Shaq, Nowitski, or Yao? Naraja? He's okay, I guess.

Kobe, for all the dick sucking about what a great player he is, he just isn't a good teammate. Sure, he might get in one of his moods and go for 60 points and carry the Lakers to a victory. But he might also get in one of his moods and score 6 points and try to break an assist record. Without Shaq, what has Kobe accomplished? One playoff series victory? Shit, Dikimbe Mutumbo has led a team to a round 1 playoff upset.

Iverson led a nobody team to the finals and took a game from the Lakers (granted in a weak Eastern Conference). If Kobe can lead his team of nobody's to the Western Conference Finals, I'll take all of it back...but in my player matrix, he's not much more valuable to a team than Tracy McGrady.