July Sports

I was diligently following the daily machinations of the NBA til I was overcome by some household duties. The duties were of the pleasant variety (as opposed to the oh-fuck-emergency kind) but they unfortunately appeared right in the middle of Summer League and the early signing period. I did catch some Summer League but of the signings: I'll do a team by team retrospective of the Summer movement some time in August. Til then I have turned my attention to other things. Like:

FIBA U-19 World Cup: USA 78-71 (OT) Serbia. Oh man, Serbian kid had 2 free throws to win it with under 10 seconds, makes the first, misses the second, USA runs out the clock, then dropkicks the Serbs in the overtime. The Americans probably were the better team but they underperformed from the beginning of the game til that last foul that handed Serbia the match. But give the Yankee kids props for the laying the beatdown in OT and getting it done when the chips were down. That said: feel bad for that Serbian kid, had the whole frickin' Cup on his racket and couldn't sink the game winner. (Those games may still be available on ESPN3, maybe other places)

Women's World Cup: USA 5-2 Japan. Just missed the kick off, USA already up 1-0, up 4-0 before I was even comfy on the couch. Japan made a game of it, way more exciting than most four-nuthin' soccer matches I reckon. Still somehow couldn't shake the feeling that USA underperformed. Germany, England and France were more lackluster than anticipated. Hate to be that guy: I don't much care for the women's game of football. I'm probably gonna regret not watching any rugby this year or not seeing more tennis rather than feel good about watching USA half-heartedly drub all the other countries of the world in a sport that's usually kinda dull to watch. Oh well. Go America!

Wimbledon: Djokovic over Federer, Serena over Muguruza. Totally thought Federer still had enough to take Djokovic...then the match started...oh yeah, Djokovic is a step better than everyone else on the planet. You think you can make that shot and you can't, Djokovich is like Spiderman or some shit, he just seems to teleport to the proper spot, much the way Federer used to. Nadal is the supreme hustle player, dominant on the soft surfaces, game based on pure athleticism, quickness, and a Boris Becker-ish tenacity to return every shot. But Federer and Djokovic (Wawrinka, as well) are mathematicians who know all the angles, the inflection points, all that Beautiful Mind shit that allows them to move with greater efficiency thus saving wear and tear on their bodies. Federer is still better than most everybody else in the world but Djokovic is the best at this point. Didn't see any of the ladies' final though I did watch some of Serena's earlier rounds. Yup Serena is still better than everyone else at tennis.

British Open (St Andrews): Johnson (-15) in a playoff over Leishman and Oosthuizen. Final Sunday got rained out, I watched most all of it on Monday (lucky to be me). Wide open field, lotta sweet final day action. Thought Spieth was gonna sneak in there, just didn't have it down the stretch. Johnson looked more ready for 3 more holes than the other two; dude's won at Augusta and St. Andrews now, pretty rare company.

Gold Cup: Mexico 3-1 Jamaica. (USA loses bronze medal game to Panama (PK's)). I only watched the USA matches (not sure I could've seen the others even if I had made the effort). I was not overwhelmed by USA's 2-1 victory over Honduras, I was even less whelmed by their 1-0 win over Haiti (dude, if Haiti could shoot worth a shit, they would've won comfortably), enthused but still not impressed by the 6-0 thumping of Cuba (teams that lose that bad are always bad, teams that win that good are only good maybe half the time). And I was not at all surprised they got bounced by Jamaica. Jamaica really only had a 10 minute flurry where they punked USA, otherwise USA was maybe the slightly better team but they didn't score. I kinda dug the furious 2nd half action but USA just didn't have enough to get it in the goal til even the furious action devolved into old timey long-ball-and-chase-after-it that USA has never been good at. Suddenly Jurgen Klinnsmann, the golden boy of USA soccer is hearing rumblings about his job. I was disappointed at last summer's World Cup: thought his grasp of our squad was lacking considering his crazed micromanaging of the entire talent pipeline. And honestly the Gold Cup doesn't mean that much to me, any North American competition is basically USA-Mexico with an occasional upset (like this summer). This doesn't prove much of anything going forward, personally I can't imagine Klinnsmann getting das boot.

Pan Am Games (Basketball): Brazil over Canada, USA over Puerto Rico for bronze. I avoided the Pan Am Games because honestly I can't stand the Olympics* (*more below). But I do like watching the up and coming talent. The only two games I watched were Brazil throttling USA in group play and Brazil over Canada in the final. Brazil was better than either of the NorteAmericano squads. Brazil brought not the A team but the B+ team while USA and Canada were rolling with B/B-. I've always thought these kinda of competition should be on an age range or big enough to invite the pros, but this falls in the middle so the squads are weird amalgam of older journeyman vets (like Anthony Randolph) and random NCAA players (I know everyone loves Karaczewski but does anyone think he's in the top 500 USA basketball players out there? So why does he have USA written across his shirt?); Canada's squad was similar. I suspect in Brazil their basketball culture is a bit more unified and the older guys stay in better touch with the places the young kids come from so when fielding a team like this, the vets and youngsters have already played more together. I dunno, maybe not, but they had good talent at every position and better team play than anyone else I saw.  

Pan Am Games (Soccer): Uruguay 1-0 Mexico. Thought the game was evenly matched as any contest I've watched in ages. The only thing separating the squads: Uruguay hit one sparkling free kick and Mexico...did not. Not must watch soccer by any means, but enjoyable enough.

Tour de France (Froome, UK). I watched not even a smidge of a highlight of a second of the Tour this year. Some years I really get into it, other years it glides right by me. This installment apparently even had controversy and shenanigans. But then again, I was already assuming this guy Froome's downfall is imminent.

MLB Trade Deadline. I ought to be buckling back into NBA duties but suddenly the trade deadline is bewitching me like no time in recent memory. I love baseball, it is my first sport and still my favorite. But I spend so much more time with basketball and even soccer or tennis these days that I sometimes forget all about baseball. I can imagine a world where I literally just watch baseball all day every day.

NBA Summer League (Spurs over Suns in the Final). Didn't get to watch much but I was impressed with Okafor, Towns, Porzingis, Aaron Gordon, Seth Curry, Kaminsky and...a bit of a reach but Dakari Johnson (Thunder): I think he was overthinking everything at UK, Calipari howling at him, all the spotlight and none of the playing time, not necessarily the best environment for his game, I think he'll defend just fine, if he can score he might actually be a pretty good baller (think Carlos Boozer but more fun to watch), its early but I was impressed with his flow in the Summer League. Also I was impressed with Becky Hammons, thought she willed the Spurs to the victory in the Final: there was a great moment where the Spurs had a coupla hot dog plays, one successful, one not successful, and we got to see the video of her in the huddle locking the dudes down, I thought it was a brilliant moment, I was totally impressed. The Suns were probably the better team, man, the Suns are gonna score, score, score this year, wave after wave off the bench of dudes that can drop 30 on any given night.

Make no mistake: Summer League is practice basketball. Its about raw talent, athleticism and instinct; its not about winning ball games or developing a team concept, its not a preview of what's to come. Players are "talented" when they are not yet "good". No one thinks of Kobe Bryant as "talented", dude, he's the one of the best to ever play the game, he has long since transcended mere "talent". Summer League is a showcase of "talent" not of the best of all time. So extrapolating anything out of Summer League is a fool's errand, but its fun to watch.

(* Olympics....yeah, I kinda hate the Olympics. I'm actually kinda pleased that the whole thing seems to be financially imploding. Boston made headlines when the Mayor personally removed Boston from contention for the 2022 Olympics. Good for him. I was living in the Bay Area when they were trying to get the 2012 Olympics (went to London) and, dude, nobody--NOBODY--wanted the goddamn Olympics coming to San Francisco. That would've been such a horrible obnoxious nightmare for everyone involved. Now is the time to get rid of this notion that all the athletes have to be competing in the same place: equestrian people can perform in France, cycling activities could be in Brazil, track and field can be at the Rose Bowl, ice hockey can be in Finland and they can be all be scheduled around each other for TV. Break all the games into their own separate Olympic-sanctioned entities and create a steady stream of events that goes on in 4-year cycles. The IOC is corruption personified, get rid of the life-sucking corruption and get everyone all over the world to love sport, to love games, to love international competition that doesn't require tank divisions or jingoistic propaganda campaigns. The Olympics can be useful...they just aren't)