Yup, I still don't care about the Winter Olympics. When I want to see rich white kids play around in the snow, I put on The Magnificent Ambersons.
Showing posts with label olympics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label olympics. Show all posts
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Monday, September 5, 2016
Thoughts About Retirement
This past NBA season was all about Kobe's last hurrah. Kind of a joke but the Lakers had nothing else going on anyway (and were playing to save their top 3 protected draft pick), so letting Kobe run roughshod of everyone one last time seemed fitting. Also fitting was that Tim Duncan did not give us a farewell tour, choosing to ride off into the sunset by issuing a minimal press release in August. Personally I thought Duncan had one year left in him, I thought his decline last year had more to do with changes in Spurs personnel than in his deterioration, but I can't say I'm surprised he decided to move on or that he treated his retirement like an afterthought. Kobe is perhaps the most self-important athlete of my lifetime (at least I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate anyone else being suggested for that title!) and watching him chuck 3 pointers at an embarrassing rate was predictable. Going for 60 in his final game was probably predictable: no one else had anything play for and if Kobe had gone 3-35, 6 turnovers, no assists or rebounds, well...that would've been every bit as fun to watch, so might as well keep feeding the guy who has never fed anyone else in his life. Who was the better NBA player all in all? I'll take Duncan. He was a quiet badass whereas Kobe was the ultimate attention hog. Both had top flight careers so frankly choosing your favorite personality is as good a tiebreaker as any.
Alex Rodriguez, one of the greatest baseball players of all time (whether you like it or not), was summarily drummed out of the Yankee lineup about a month ago and while no one would be shocked if he turned up on a spring training roster next year, his career is pretty much done. 697 home runs, only three other dudes in the history of the game hit that many, clearly ARod was one of the greats, right? Why does everybody hate ARod? He's a cheesy guy that needs to be loved (like Kobe) but is a rather low key personality that doesn't want to do stuff just to be liked (like Duncan). He's not an abrasive personality, he's not a shameless self-promoter, he doesn't endorse every product that comes down the pike, his private life is not something I know anything about, and, yes, he was busted for steroids but a) I couldn't care less and b) so was every other good player of his generation. So why does everybody hate ARod? I dunno but I will say when the career highlights were mentioned, I must confess I totally forgot he won 2 MVPs with the Yankees. I barely remember him with the Yankees though that was the bulk of his career. ARod is a guy that I tuned out so long ago that I didn't remember most of his best moments. Honestly, baseball is still in the steroid phase where its trying to undermine itself and demean its own stars for no real reason. ARod is going to be the face of the self-loathing period longer than the rest. I think he's a pretty good TV personality, we'll see how that changes the perceptions of his career over the next 20-30 years.
Michael Phelps won 14 more gold medals this summer in Rio and capped another brilliant Olympic run by announcing his retirement (for the 3rd time if I'm not mistaken). Yes, he's getting older, and, yes, he's already won 80 (roughly) gold medals, so maybe he's had his fill of guts and glory. But I gotta ask: why should he retire? He swims. That's the best exercise your body can get, why would he stop doing that? Why would his game deteriorate? Allen Iverson took a lot of abuse, you knew he'd wind down eventually; Deion Sanders had the best first step in the history of football and once that left him, you'd knew his game would suffer; Rafael Nadal throws everything he's got into returning every ball, you know these hard courts are going to shred his knees and ankles; even Tiger Woods played a game of repetitive motions that could lead to all kinds of nagging injuries. But why would Phelps ever deteriorate? He doesn't face defenders trying to physically stop him, there aren't any kooky herky jerky motions that might lead to muscle deficiencies or injuries, his body can still grow stronger (or at least not get weaker) for another decade or so (damn, he's not that old). I can understand that kids will come along and be better than him, than can happen. But I think he can still be better than what he's done so far, so why not keep coming back?
Meanwhile, Tim Tebow is trying to play baseball after many years of NOT trying to play football. The guy who never really had a career--and yet never went away--is still trying to be something he's not. And what of Serena Williams? She's at that point where the up-and-comers of women's tennis are lining up to lay beat downs on her, how much of that do you think she'll endure? I suspect her retirement will come quickly and out of the blue probably in the next year.
I'm gonna miss Duncan. I guess I'll even miss Kobe. I'd already forgotten ARod before he left, I never thought twice about Tebow and honestly Serena is probably my all-time least favorite athlete. But I got a feeling Phelps will be back again (and again and again).
Alex Rodriguez, one of the greatest baseball players of all time (whether you like it or not), was summarily drummed out of the Yankee lineup about a month ago and while no one would be shocked if he turned up on a spring training roster next year, his career is pretty much done. 697 home runs, only three other dudes in the history of the game hit that many, clearly ARod was one of the greats, right? Why does everybody hate ARod? He's a cheesy guy that needs to be loved (like Kobe) but is a rather low key personality that doesn't want to do stuff just to be liked (like Duncan). He's not an abrasive personality, he's not a shameless self-promoter, he doesn't endorse every product that comes down the pike, his private life is not something I know anything about, and, yes, he was busted for steroids but a) I couldn't care less and b) so was every other good player of his generation. So why does everybody hate ARod? I dunno but I will say when the career highlights were mentioned, I must confess I totally forgot he won 2 MVPs with the Yankees. I barely remember him with the Yankees though that was the bulk of his career. ARod is a guy that I tuned out so long ago that I didn't remember most of his best moments. Honestly, baseball is still in the steroid phase where its trying to undermine itself and demean its own stars for no real reason. ARod is going to be the face of the self-loathing period longer than the rest. I think he's a pretty good TV personality, we'll see how that changes the perceptions of his career over the next 20-30 years.
Michael Phelps won 14 more gold medals this summer in Rio and capped another brilliant Olympic run by announcing his retirement (for the 3rd time if I'm not mistaken). Yes, he's getting older, and, yes, he's already won 80 (roughly) gold medals, so maybe he's had his fill of guts and glory. But I gotta ask: why should he retire? He swims. That's the best exercise your body can get, why would he stop doing that? Why would his game deteriorate? Allen Iverson took a lot of abuse, you knew he'd wind down eventually; Deion Sanders had the best first step in the history of football and once that left him, you'd knew his game would suffer; Rafael Nadal throws everything he's got into returning every ball, you know these hard courts are going to shred his knees and ankles; even Tiger Woods played a game of repetitive motions that could lead to all kinds of nagging injuries. But why would Phelps ever deteriorate? He doesn't face defenders trying to physically stop him, there aren't any kooky herky jerky motions that might lead to muscle deficiencies or injuries, his body can still grow stronger (or at least not get weaker) for another decade or so (damn, he's not that old). I can understand that kids will come along and be better than him, than can happen. But I think he can still be better than what he's done so far, so why not keep coming back?
Meanwhile, Tim Tebow is trying to play baseball after many years of NOT trying to play football. The guy who never really had a career--and yet never went away--is still trying to be something he's not. And what of Serena Williams? She's at that point where the up-and-comers of women's tennis are lining up to lay beat downs on her, how much of that do you think she'll endure? I suspect her retirement will come quickly and out of the blue probably in the next year.
I'm gonna miss Duncan. I guess I'll even miss Kobe. I'd already forgotten ARod before he left, I never thought twice about Tebow and honestly Serena is probably my all-time least favorite athlete. But I got a feeling Phelps will be back again (and again and again).
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Thursday, July 30, 2015
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)
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)
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