March 17 - My All-Leprechaun Team

In honor of it being St. Patrick’s Day, here is my all-time NBA “all-leprechaun” team. Bob Cousy and Chris Mullin are my guards, Kevin McHale and Tracy McGrady are my forwards, and Bob McAdoo is my center. I come off the bench with Jermaine O’Neil, Xavier Mc Daniel, Antonio McDyess, Calvin Murphy, and Nate McMillian. And with my first pick in this year’s draft, I take Syracuse point guard Gerry MacNamara. The one question I have is whether the Malones are eligible for this squad. If so, Moses and Karl are starters and McHale goes back to doing what he does best: Dominating off the bench.

There are reports out of Dallas that forty something Roy Tarpley is possibly ready to re-enter the NBA after a decade-long absence. Tarpley has been out of the league since 1995 when he flunked out of the league’s substance abuse program, and since that time, the former Mav has been playing overseas and trying to wean himself off the junk. With regard to the latter, Tarps has spent the past year working at John Lucas’ drug rehab facility in Houston. Lucas chimed in on this subject the other night by saying, “He’s doing what he needs to do. He might have the ambition to play basketball again. Skill wise, he absolutely [could play in the NBA.] He could be a nice guy off the bench.” What you talking bout Lucus? I’ll be the first to say that Tarpley was once a damn good player but unfortunately it was when I was a sophomore in college. This guy hasn’t played more then 60 games in the NBA since Reagan left office and he now expects to help someone out off the bench? I think the odds are very long that Tarpley will succeed in this endeavor, but if he becomes a meaningful contributor to an NBA team, that would have to rank up there as one of the greater comebacks in history, right up there with Nixon’s comeback in 1968, John Travolta’s re-emergence in Pulp Fiction and Amber Lynn’s return to porn earlier this decade. Regardless of whether he succeeds, Tarpley is definitely a member of my All “Coke and Booze Ruined My NBA Career” Team. Other players on that team include Sugar Ray Richardson, Phil “Dribbling Under Influence” Ford, Marvin “Bad News” Barnes and of course, Len Bias. I am still trying to figure out whether to put Magic on this list on the grounds that if he hadn’t gotten silly drunk and taken that flight attendant back to his room, he could have perhaps avoided becoming HIV positive.

It’s hard to believe that the Indiana Pacers, having lost Ron Artest for the year and two other key players for lengthy fighting-related suspensions, are still in the hunt for a playoff spot but this is the case with 19 games to go. If things weren’t bad enough in Indiana to begin with, they got worse this week when it began looking like star forward Jermaine O’Neil would miss the balance of the season with a shoulder injury. After winning last night, the Pacers are 32-31, and 10-12 without O’Neil. So can this team hold on to a playoff spot without Jermaine and Artest? I say the answer is yes. The Pacers are in 7th right now, and the real question is whether they can they stay ahead of two of the following three teams: Orlando, Philly and New Jersey. If you assume that 40-42 makes the playoffs, which is a pretty safe assumption given the current status of the Eastern Conference, then the Nets are in real trouble. They would have to finish 12-4 to get there and that isn’t happening. I am not so sure the Sixers can get to forty either. They got a murderous nine game stretch coming up where they would be lucky to win four games. Three is more likely. If they go 3-6, they would begin their stretch drive at 34-39 and you can’t like their chances of getting to forty at that point. So much for Chris Webber putting them over the top – since his arrival, the Sixers are only 5-5. That leaves just the Magic. Well, they are I the midst of a six game losing streak and they just fired their coach last night. In other words, the Magic are entering the home stretch atop a colt that appears to have spent his reserves on the back stretch. Meanwhile, the Pacers have a fairly benign schedule coming in, highlighted by three games with the Nets. So if 40 is the magic number, and it could end up being less, I think the Pacers have a pretty good shot at overcoming Jermaine’s absence and making it to the playoffs.


Damon Stoudamire is breathing a bit easier today after an appeals court upheld a lower court and ruled yesterday that police violated Damon’s constitutional rights three years ago when they searched his pad without a warrant. The search ended up finding about a pound of dope in Damon’s attic and as a result, Stoud was charged with felony possession. However, because the cops had no warrant, the evidence cannot be introduced and Damon is off the hook. Word has it Stoudamire was ecstatic after hearing the news and immediately invited Darius Miles and Ruben Patterson over to watch a little South Park and try out Damon’s new Bill Walton Bong. If Stoudamire were smart, he would try asking this sympathetic court to free him from the clutches of the abysmal Blazers. If things weren’t already bad enough in Portland, the Blazers found out this week that their best player, Zach Randolph, will miss the rest of the season. If you want to see a textbook case of a team mailing it in, you should do your best to catch some Blazer games over the next six weeks. It is a sad comment on the state of your franchise when the only good news you get is when one of your players beats a drug rap on a technicality.

Congratulations go out today to Coco, the six year old Norfolk Terrier that won the British Open of dog shows last weekend in Birmingham England. You may have missed it on SportsCenter, but Coco, a dominant bitch on the U.S tour over the past three years, outclassed more than 21,000 other canines to win “Best in Show” at the highly prestigious Crufts dog show. This is quite an achievement for a dog that sat out 2004 on maternity leave after whelping a litter of three. I am far from the world’s expert on dog shows, but I feel there are really three “major” dog shows each year: Crufts, the Westminster in New York and the American Kennel Club/Eukanuba. Westminster is the gold standard and that is why I equate it to the Masters. It gets a great field and the winner becomes an instant celebrity, like the Newf did in 2004 and the German Pointer did last month. The AKC show is a bit less prestigious, so I equate it to the PGA Championship. It’s a major, but dogs aren’t exactly woofing it up on the winners stand. Meanwhile, Crufts is a huge tourney, especially for European dogs, and therefore this show has the same kind of standing as the British Open. As far as I can tell, there is simply no comparable to the U.S. Open in the world of dog shows. Anyways, Coco prevailed in England last weekend over a tough field that included a terrific beagle named Harry. Coco has twice been a bridesmaid at Westminster (2003 and 2005) so I give her credit for sticking with it and bringing a major back home to America. You may think this sounds crazy, but if Coco were a golfer, I would equate her to Tom Lehman. Like Coco, Tom had a hard time winning a major in the U.S. during the mid-90s. He finished second in the 94 Masters and played in the final group at the U.S. Open in both 1995 and 1996, only to come up small each time. Finally, in 1996, the Lemon Drop Kid was able to win the British Open by two shots over the Big Easy. If this were a SAT analogy, the answer would be Coco is to Harry as Tom Lehman is to Ernie Els. However, this is where the similarities end since Coco and Tom have different sponsors (Iams and Dockers) and Coco wears a name tag around her neck while Tom wears a pooka shell necklace.

Pete Rose says he never bet against his own team but I am not so sure Seattle Supersonic coach Nate McMillian can make the same claim. I say this after watching an almost surreal ending to last night’s game between the Sonics and Pistons in Detroit. Here is the setting: The Sonics were six point dogs and trailed by six with six seconds to go. The Sonics had the ball so if you had a Seattle win ticket, you couldn’t lose at that point. And if you were holding a Piston win ticket, you were not looking too good since it was unlikely Detroit would do much to prevent Seattle from covering with a meaningless last second shot. So what happened? McMillian ends up drawing a technical just before the ball is inbounded, Piston guard Chauncey Billups makes a free throw, and Detroit gets the ball. They proceed to run the clock out and go home with a seven point win. In the blink of an eye, bettors taking Seattle went from a push to a loss all because Nate couldn’t keep his mouth shut. If I had to guess, I would say the fix was in and Nate cashed in a winning ticket later that night. Despite holding the winning ticket, Nate couldn’t have gone to sleep happy after watching his team collapse in the final minutes. Seattle led by three and had the ball with 2:30 to go, yet somehow found a way to lose by seven. That is not exactly the stuff of legends. One possible excuse for the Sonics is they played last night without Danny Fortson. The Sonic enforcer evidently was sore from the previous night when he fouled out after playing a whopping six minutes. Who in the world gets called for six fouls in six minutes? That has to be some kind of team record. Its too bad Fortson went to Cincinnati because he sure sounds like a player who would have thrived under John Cheney’s tutelage.

Staying with Seattle for a moment, it seems as if a Civil War is breaking out in the Sonics locker room. Following last night’s game, the Seattle Times is reporting that the club flew back to Seattle as a “splintered team that has separated into cliques and is spitting venomous remarks about each other.” Rashard Lewis, a high school graduate who is probably the most eloquent Sonic, is quoted as saying that “guys have different attitudes on this team. I don’t know what the problem is but we have to solve it.” Lewis didn’t name names, but the Times reported that Ray Allen and Vladamir Radmanovic are the agitators at the heart of this rift. I have a real hard time believing Ray and Vladamir have formed some kind of clique as the Times suggests. Can you imagine Ray and Rads cruising for Russian chicks in Brooklyn after a Knicks game? If these two are in fact tight, I think we are looking at a great road-trip movie. Just think of all the wacky hijinks these cats could get into on the highway from Moscow to Murmansk. Regardless of whether these two former cold war adversaries have bonded, the fact that Allen is not getting along with Lewis and other Sonics does not bode well for the team’s ability to sign Ray to a long-term deal. Allen will be the hottest commodity on this year’s free agent market and there will be suitors. Some have suspected that Seattle was the front runner to retain Allen’s services, but is there any way he is going to re-sign if he hates his teammates? Furthermore, Vladimir is a free agent this summer and you have to question whether Ray is going to return if his buddy is gone.

The initial reports coming out of Milwaukee on Ben Sheets are not entirely encouraging if you are a Brewer fan or have Big Ben on your fantasy team. Sheets is coming off a very good year where he posted an ERA of 2.70, but he had back surgery this winter and it does not appear at first glance that he is back to his old self. The other night, he got lit up in two and two thirds innings against the Rangers and afterwards, he characterized his performance as being “terrible.” Asked whether he was worried about Tuesday’s showing, Sheets said “not overly worried, but worried. [I] better get it together.” Sheets says he feels fine and so it’s possible the big right-hander is just a bit rusty, but this is no laughing matter for the Milwaukee front office. Sheets is the key to this team’s upcoming season and there is virtually no way they can compete in the NL Central unless he is at full strength. Moreover, the Brewers had been hoping to lock Sheets up to a long-term deal this spring but that may prove difficult now that there are question marks about Ben’s health. He isn’t a free agent until after 2006, but the feeling is that although Sheets wants to stay in Milwaukee, he could be tempted to test the waters if he is not locked-up this year. I am actually surprised the idiots writing for the New York tabloids haven’t picked up on this story yet. My bet is if Sheets doesn’t sign a contract by opening day, we will see a story in April where the Post predicts Sheets will be in the Yankee rotation by the 2006 trading deadline.


Speaking of bad newspapers, Steeler fans should have some concerns today about getting their news from the Pittsburgh Gazette. In this morning’s edition, the Gazette reported that the Steelers had exchanged contract proposals with former Patriot Tackle Adrian Klemm. The piece, which was very brief, implies that negotiations were still in flux. This is a bit odd given the fact that Klemm signed a two-year deal with the Green Bay Packers yesterday. Perhaps the Gazette’s beat writer should begin checking NFL.com or the transaction wire before he hands in his stories. As an alternative, the Gazette needs to push back its deadline so their stories aren’t trumped by news breaking after lunch. It just so happens that the Gazette was not the only paper to butcher this story. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in today’s editions that Klemm is “one of the more physically gifted offensive lineman left on the free agent market” and has “the size and quickness” to handle Green Bay’s vacant left guard position. As a former Patriot fan, I can only say the Journal Sentinel is guilty of grossly exaggerating Klemm’s abilities. He was perhaps the worst pick made during the Belichek era and the Pats were counting the days until his contract expired. And aside from his questionable skills, Klemm has also shown no ability to stay healthy, having missed 54 games over his five year career. The Packers lost two guards this year to free agency and did nothing yesterday to remediate the situation.

The Rams Orlando Pace sure cashed in yesterday. After three years of playing under one-year contracts, the left tackle was able to finally secure a long-term deal that will pay him $15 million up front and $52 million over seven years, That is sick money for a six-time pro bowler who some consider to be very good but a step below the league’s elite. It also does not seem to be a wisest of use of money as far as the Rams are concerned. Listen, I understand that it is important to protect your quarterback’s blind side and therefore having a competent left tackle is critical. And I also understand that good left tackles don’t come cheap. But the Rams have basically given this guy a contract fit for a quarterback. And one thing to consider is the following. The Rams gave up 50 sacks last year. That was 27th in the league. Sure, the St. Louis line did get killed by injuries last year, but I got to think that some of those sacks came on Pace’s watch. Given their problems last year, I am not sure the Rams could afford to let Pace go, but after seeing these contract terms, I am not sure the Rams can now afford to do much else.

It is being reported that the Kansas City Chiefs are lobbying for a rule change that would reconcile the NFL’s pass interference rules with those in college. Specifically, the Chiefs want to see the penalty reduced for pass interference from the spot of the flag to fifteen yards. In other words, the Chiefs are seeking to cap the penalty and thus avoid situations where a flag can cost a team 30 or 40 yards of field position. The boys over at Pro Football Talk think the Chiefs are seeking the change purely out of self-interest since Randy Moss now plays in their division and the Chiefs are worried what Randy will do to their sub-standard secondary. If this theory is correct, the Chiefs motivation is comparable to a drug company that knows it has an unsafe drug on the market and is lobbying for legislation that would cap its exposure to potential damages. I would not support such a proposal in the public policy arena, but in this instance, I think Kansas City’s proposal should be adopted since I have long felt that the NFL’s penalty is too stiff. The current rule also encourages receivers to bitch about every bit of contact they receive down field and perhaps if you reduce the reward of drawing a flag, a small amount of this bellyaching will cease. If I had to guess, I suspect the guy who will fight the Chiefs on this topic is none other then my good friend Bill Polian. The Colts GM fought long and hard to strengthen the pass interference rules after the 2003 seasons and I am sure he doesn’t want to see the league go back to the dark ages when cornerbacks actually had a fighting chance. And as long as we are taking a look at penalties, I think colleges should re-consider their rule that penalizes offensive holding from the spot of the foul. Because these penalties are often flagged five yards upfield, they frequently result in drive killing fifteen yard assessments. That is just too much.