Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Sports Writing Round-up

Gilbert Arenas has a blog. And it's great.
Growing up, it wasn’t about the money. It wasn’t about the cars. It wasn’t about the bling-blau that it is today.

It was simple.

It was, “How did MJ feel? How did he feel right at this moment after he hit that game-winner?”

That’s what I wanted to know. Like, “What’s going though his mind?” Like, “How does he feel crying, kissing that trophy, with the champagne on his head?”

That’s what I wanted to know about.

Chuck Klosterman on why we look the other way about steroids in the NFL.
Shawne Merriman weighs 272 pounds.

This is six pounds less than Anthony Muñoz, probably the most dominating left tackle of all time. Shawne Merriman also runs the 40-yard dash in 4.61 seconds. When Jerry Rice attended the NFL draft combine in 1985, he reportedly ran a 4.60; Rice would go on to gain more than 23,000 all-purpose yards while scoring 207 career touchdowns...

After the summer of 1964, the Beatles started taking serious drugs, and those drugs altered their musical performance. Though it may not have been their overt intent, the Beatles took performance-enhancing drugs. And this is germane to sports for one reason: Absolutely no one holds it against them.

Brian McCormick on why Kobe should be MVP.
If you took Nowitski off the Mavericks, Dallas makes the play-offs. If you took Nash off the Suns, Phoenix makes the play-offs. If you took Kobe off the Lakers, they would fall to the bottom of the Western Conference along with Memphis...

And, now the most talented player in the League is doing things nobody has done in forty years while in the thick of a play-off race...

4 comments:

Ezzie said...

I love the first one; the second is true and depressing; and the third I disagree with. :)

dbackdad said...

Hibachi! I like Arenas. He seems pretty cool.

On the MVP talk, though I agree that Kobe should definitely be in the running, I disagree with McCormick's assessment of the Suns. When Nash was out this year, the Suns lost 3 straight games. They are a rudderless team without him and would have a very hard time making the playoffs. I'm positive that McCormick has not watched as many Suns games as I have (every game). And despite what he says, Nash would make any team a lot better.

asher said...

This is sports talk right?

Brian McCormick said...

dbackdad:

You really believe a team with a starting line-up of Barbosa, Bell, Diaw, Marion and Stoudamire would miss the play-offs? I don't. I love Steve Nash, but I think the Suns have more talent in its prime on their team than anyone in the league.

Nash makes the team go, but its not like he's playing with average players.