Most Likely Jason Will Go His Way and Devin Will Go Shine

--When asked about his feelings on moving to Dallas to play for the Mavericks, Jason Kidd replied that he looks forward to being able to play with his new teammates, but the biggest perk is “being able to beat my family in a state that is a lot more understanding of this sort of thing.”

--Speaking of big trades, I was perusing foxsports.com this morning and came across Mike Kahn’s analysis of all the wheeling and dealing that is taking place in the NBA right now. I present an excerpt from his breakdown of the Los Angeles Lakers:

“… now if [those] Lakers fans calling for general manager Mitch Kupchak’s head will please step forward, grab your ankles and take your medicine, we can get this over with. Mitch, will you please take the big paddle with the holes in it? And when we’re finished, the knuckleheads in L.A. will have no alternative but to look at you and respond, ‘Thank you sir, may I have another.’”

Can we take a closer look at this?

“…will please step forward, grab your ankles, and take your medicine…”

Okay, I realize that I write a sports blog, so I should not be in a position to dole out advice to anyone who gets paid for their work. Nevertheless, in my humble opinion, I don’t believe that using the term ‘grab your ankles’ is the smartest thing in the world. I realize he ultimately referred to receiving a spanking (which is still a little iffy in the acceptable department), but when I first read this, my initial thought was “where in the hell is he going with this?”

--While we are on the subject of Mitch Kupchak (sans the creepy S&M image provided by Mr. Kahn), I would like to ask a question: is there any way at all that he is not executive of the year? He went against the grain to hold on to Andrew Bynum (which is paying dividends), his draft picks from the past few years are molding into one of the best supporting casts in the NBA, he unloaded Kwame Brown’s contract and got Pau Gasol in return...he has basically gone about his business, quietly assembling a championship contender, all the while being chastised by anyone and everyone. Maybe you give the award to Danny Ainge, but keep in mind, Ainge assembled his team by mortgaging the future to win now. Kupchak has laid out a blueprint to make Los Angeles a contender for (at least) the next five years. So tell me, who is better than who?

--My roommate and I were discussing NASCAR, surprisingly, and we came to a realization: NASCAR could have an “all-star weekend.” Think about it this way, everybody bitches and moans about restrictions and regulations on specs that limit the cars, so why not have a Friday/Saturday/Sunday showcase, throwing the rules aside? You could have a 100 mile, no regulations race for the Busch (or is it Nationwide now?) guys on Friday, have the ten highest guys in the points standings at the time of the event get together on Saturday for a timed obstacle course of sorts, and have the Sprint Cup racers have their own 100 mile no regulations race on Sunday. Some potential safety issues aside, this could be amazing. So much so that even I would be inclined to watch.

…

Okay, maybe not.

--While on the topic of NASCAR, I would like to mention this comical segment that aired on CNN. It showed a myriad of racers defending the idea of racing being a sport. I’m not going to argue the merits of that logic, but I will say that they are kidding themselves if they think they are bigger athletes than football or basketball players. Two of my favorite comments:

“I’d like to see those guys play the entire game in an unbearably hot chamber…” (My personal favorite “NASCAR is a sport” argument. Are you saying that if I turn my car heater all the way up on a 100 degree day that I’m an athlete?)

and

“Yeah, those guys don’t exactly have it easy, and last time I checked, we don’t get to go to the sideline for timeouts…” (What exactly do you call a pit-stop? Oh! I forgot that you don’t get to leave your unbearably hot chamber, so it doesn’t count.)

--I was listening to the Elvis Presley song “In the Ghetto” the other day, and while it is a great song, you could easily make the case that it has very racist undertones. It never mentions skin color, but what do you think the songwriter (Scot Davis) had in mind when he set out to tell the tale of a boy who grows up, starts to fight and steal, and is ultimately shot and killed “in the ghetto?” I’m just saying…

--Okay, bear with me on this next thought. I’d like to make reference to a couple of television shows that I absolutely love. The first comes from an episode of Roseanne. In it, the family is unable to pay the electric bill in time, finds out at the last minute that they will be cut off, and scrambles to gather flashlights and candles in preparation of the darkness. When the lights finally go out, Roseanne looks to her husband, Dan, and, with a shrug, wryly says: “Well, middle class sure was fun.”

The second thought is actually an observation that I came up with while watching yet another rerun of Scrubs a few nights ago. In season one, then-intern Elliot Reid befriends a frequent, and very neurotic, patient, Jill Tracy. Jill is featured in a couple of episodes, the second of which alludes to her growing close to Elliot. In season four, Jill passes away and, while J.D. feels immense guilt about the death, Elliot is alarmingly unaffected. Would you not think that the writers would at least have Elliot acknowledge her death to validate the blossoming friendship as seen is season one? Am I reading way too much into this television show? Are you wondering what I’m talking about because you don’t watch Scrubs? If you answered yes to the either of the two final questions, fear not. I am switching gears back to sports for one more thought.

--I would just like to make it known that the Jason Kidd joke that kicked off this post was initially the centerpiece of an elaborate press conference parody. After a clumsy opening, it dawned on me that it might not be such a great idea to create a 2500 word post based solely around one joke. Here is a taste of what could have been, were I foolish enough to grind the blog entry out:

1) I was going to make Jeff Schwartz (Jason Kidd’s agent) out to be a Drew Rosenhaus-type character. While I have every right to assume that Schwartz is an asshole (he is a sports agent, after all), I can’t assume that his douchiness reaches Rosenhaus levels. Thus, I can’t depict him as a surly moderator at a press conference.

2) Keeping with the “prick agent” stereotype, I initially had Scwhartz use a derogatory term for Keith Van Horn, only to be lectured by a reporter. Schwartz would then have the reporter thoroughly embarrassed and then removed. It would later be discovered that the reporter’s eight year old son was watching the entire incident, because he was “proud to finally see Daddy on T.V.”

3) I was then going to depict Jason Kidd as a lackadaisical half-wit (mainly because it always seems like he just smoked a blunt right before every interview), going so far as to have him analyze Devean George’s trade embargo with a Beastie Boys reference (“he just had to fight for his right to party”), with Scwartz jumping in and explaining that “by party, he meant (legalese pertaining to the trade).”

Boy, was I reaching with this or what? You should all thank me that I decided to scrap the post. Why am I posting some of the details? So you can get some amusement out of my embarrassment.