AMMMMMERRRRRICUHHHHHH

Short version: America is awesome and Canada sucks balls.

Extended version: How sweet was it to watch an entire country sweat it out as the American hockey team nonchalantly slipped by the ridiculously ridiculously stacked Canadian hockey team with a combination of natural resources, industrial backbone, and moxie. The best part was knowing that ALL of Canada was watching that game and only I was watching it in America. Despite the embarrassment of losing to us loud mouthed ass holes, the Canadian team still managed to qualify for the semi finals and are currently sticking it to the Russians. Meaning that there could potentially be a rematch in a medal round. If so we better prepared for some angry Canadians (a phenomenon previously seen only after the trading of Gretzky and the canceling of the Tom Green show). If we're going to pull off the quasi miracle on ice, we're going to need some of Herb Brooks' magic, except instead of Herb Brooks lets do the same exact speech but with a 4 year old doing it instead...man that kid is going to hate his parents in a few years.

"Both teams played hard...goodnight and godbless."

Return of the Mack

The Grizzlie's season has definitely been a surprise (the curse of Zach Randolph somehow reversing its self)and they are somehow good enough to be a playoff team...in the eastern conference of course. In any case their best effort fell short on the day of Mamba's return from a 5 game absence: 32/7/6, 13/19 from the field and of course a go ahead 3 with seconds left to play. Anything less would be uncivilized. When asked if hitting a game winner ever gets old Bryant responded "Every time it feels like the first time."

"Both teams played hard...goodnight and godbless."

Deadline Roundup: What a nerd needs to know

Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson for Josh Howard, Drew Gooden, Quinton Ross and James Singleton.

One thing you can say about Cuban is that he always goes for it, and his gusto has stretched out the Mavericks "run" a few years longer than anyone would have expected. This deal is OK, but not great. Presuming both are healthy Butler is essentially the same scorer as Howard but a crapier defender. The real value for Dallas comes from Haywood who is a HUGE upgrade over Drew Gooden and the back of the neck soul patch he stole from the bald spot on Rasheed Wallace's head. In the end this will help the Mavericks match up against teams with bigger front courts (as in the Lakers), but they will still lose in the second round of the playoffs. Net effect: nothing.

Steve Blake, Travis Outlaw for Marcus Camby.
&
Antawn Jamison to Cleveland Drew Gooden to Clippers
Zydrunas Ilgauskas, rights to Emir Preldzic and 2010 first-round pick to Washington
Al Thornton to Washington and Sebastian Telfair to Cleveland.

Wizards: The Wizards wholesale is complete (pending the voiding of Arenas' contract). It must suck to think you have the roster to contend and then suddenly be forced to get rid of everyone. The net effect is some cap relief, a late first round, Al Thornton, and Josh Howard ... you could say this is a "shot" in the Dark. BOOYAH

Cavaliers: We are well practiced in being harsh on deals that the Cavs make...you know like signing Larry Hughes, signing Damon Jones, letting Shannon Brown go, offering Varejao's 6 year 50 million dollar contract (!!!!) etc... But Ferry gets too much hate. The Cavs are still very very good (even if it is entirely due to LBJ) and it would appear that Ben Wallace and Pavlovic (remember that dude?) were well worth the boost that Shaq has given them on the inside. In any case The Cavs got their piece in Jamison. He is probably the most talented player that has been paired with Lebron, and at 33 he still has enough to give 20+ in the post, especially since he will never be double teamed. Telfair is also an OK piece, he is obviously an idiot and never lived up to his shared magazine cover with King James but he can provide minutes at point and with the injuries to Willams and West I'm sure Cleveland is happy to have someone else backing the point other than Boobie. The only downside of this deal, as compared to the potential Amare deal, is Jamison's age which basically precludes signing him to a longterm deal. If the Cavs are actually worried about losing Lebron this deal doesn't help with that...unless of course they win it all this year.

Clippers: Let's face it, the real winners here are the Clipshow. The Camby trade was a wash since he was an UFA and would have walked, but giving up Thornton who sucks, and getting another 6 millish of relief is killer. The Clipshow will now be about 17 millish under the cap next year. I mean there's no way Lebron or Wade go play in Kobe's shadow, but that is plenty of money to sign a Joe Johnson caliber player. Baron Davis, Joe Johnson, Eric Gordon, Chris Kaman, and Blake Griffin. SHOWTIME!

Darko Milicic to the Timberwolves for Brian Cardinal.

Light up the day with Darko!!! Timberwolves win the Superbowl, guaranteed.


John Salmons to the Bucks for Joe Alexander and Hakim Warrick.

The Bulls get enough cap relief to sign Dwayne Wade, who will leave now that Miami failed to improve the team at the deadline. Flash and Derick Rose ... hot.


Tyrus Thomas to Bobcats for Flip Murray, Acie Law and a future first-round pick.

Will Tyrus Thomas ever be good? No, and neither will Acie Law. Flip Murray is only good when playing for Flip Saunders...FLIPFLIP...the synergy is tangible.

Larry Hughes to Sacramento, and Jared Jeffries, Jordan Hill, 2012 first-round pick and the right to swap first-rounders in 2011 to Houston
Tracy McGrady to New York, and Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey to Sacramento
Kevin Martin and Hilton Armstrong to Houston, and Sergio Rodriguez to New York.

Rockets: This deal (deals?) is kind of hot for Houston. They got some draft picks (that will be good), some good players, and got below the luxury line all in exchange for Lowry (if you consider T-mac non-existant). If Yao comes back...

Sacto: K-mart is a very good and efficient player, but he was destined to be moved after it became apparent that Reke Havoc had a far superior nickname. I don't know what the Kings think they are going to accomplish with the cap relief though.

Knicks: HA! And you though it was Isaiah's fault. The Knicks gave up everything in exchange for enough enough cap space to sign Lebron AND Wade. GREAT SUCCESS!!!! Too bad it will never happen.

Nate Robinson to the Celtics for Eddie House

I guess its obvious that Doc Rivers has gotten tired of Sheed's poo poo shots. Solution? Bring in Nate Robinson...I mean you can't miss a dunk right?

"Both teams played hard...goodnight and godbless."

Cycling Fail

Is it even remotely possible to fail as hard as Floyd Landis? After miraculously making up time in the final leg to take the Tour title, Landis was found to be swiping some of Manny Ramirez's menstrual cramp medication. Big no no. Well as part of his defense he claimed that the fact that the lab in France that handled his blood had been hacked showed that they had mismanaged their data. He failed hard and was banned for hella. Now a warrant is out for his arrest, that basically insinuates that he was responsible for said hacking. What is wrong with this guy? The only way he's still fighting this is if he's delusional and really really believes that he didn't cheat. I'm not entirely sure that makes sense, but whatever its cycling.

"Both teams played hard...goodnight and godbless."

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWN

Dr J: ...and I said rectum? I DAMN NEAR KILLED EM!!!!
Dominique: heehee buttholes lol
Vinsanity: HAHA, I can't believe people think I'm good enough to sit at this table.
Kobe: WHAT? Hey can you guys speak up?!?!? I'm the freaking Black Mamba!
Jordan: Hey guys, hey guys...I have a better one....wait...hey guys....listen to me

Who can forget great moments from the slam dunk competition? Its an exciting display of creativity and athleticism thats unique to basketball. This year's competition was...well...yawntastic. Apart from Demar Derozan's sick off the side of the board teammate slam everything was something we'd seen before. Sure little man Nate can get up, but he basically did safe dunks to get points. He even looked a little bored out there. Every memorable moment came from a competition where a superstar was slamming the rock (and/or when Vince Carter was dunking). Even the recent competition between Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson was full of showmanship and excitement. But the lack of star power took some serious luster off of the event, in terms of both dunk difficulty/creativity as well as our general interest in finding out who wins. The NBA needs to find a way to entice the great players to participate. And the great players who do commit to participating should actually show up and dunk (AHEM Lebron James!). Maybe they should put a purse on the competition or give another 200K in salary cap to the winning player's team. Better yet they should have a selection of NBA players team dunk against And1 players. How sick would that be?

"Both teams played hard...goodnight and godbless."

Oprah Obviously Doesn't Read This Blog

What the hell Oprah? Did you just think that Drew Brees' birthmark was a lipstick smudge? The only way you could not know that he had said mark is if you had never seen him before...ever. Which means that Oprah definitely does not watch football, did not watch the superbowl, and does not read this blog. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one of these infractions is the most un-American.

"Both teams played hard...goodnight and godbless."

Don't Call it a Comeback

Oh hey! Whats up sports nerds? After my sudden and extended vacation from our beloved site I have officially come back to the blogosphere. Truth be told the absence was a ploy engineered by my publicist to fuel retirement and or trade rumors and thereby increase our readership. Well let me be the first to tell you that it worked.

Now that I'm back doing what I love I don't know where to start...there was so much that we missed: the Superbowl, some dude signing with the mets, Kovalchuk to the Devils, Agent Zero getting the axe, and Greg Oden's monstrous dong + awkward apology afterwards ("I'm sorry you all had to see my penis" LOL)...so much happened in such a short period of time. As always the newsworthy events have been a mixture of gravity and idiocy, and making sure that both are pointed out is our job. BOOYAH, sports.

"Both teams played hard...goodnight and godbless."

Saturday Morning update

1. Who dat??? Dat who. Congratulations to the Norleans Saints for winning the super bowl. All of the story lines, all of the drama, and the neverending hangover that has surely set in for the residents of NOLA, it's all so much to soak in.

2. Danica Patrick is HOT. How have we not talked about her on the SN yet?




3. EWwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww: Shannon Brown was epic fail in the SD contest last night. Come to think of it, the whole dunk contest, from start to finish, was absolutely piss poor.



Happy Saturday, you Nerds!

Taco Bell, Basketball, Then and Now

While KFC is making an attempt to "Un-Think" itself, Taco Bell continues to play to its strengths. With the exception of a ridiculous recent ad campaign featuring a woman who lost like 400 pounds replacing her "normal fast food diet" with select Bell items, Taco Bell has been fishing for and snagging the same target consumer for the last 20 years: the sports-watching single man, age 14-40. I realized this when I saw the current "Charles Barkley as a poet" campaign, and noted how reminiscent it is of the 1993 Taco Bell ad with Dick Vitale:

The Bell was looking for something new and fresh, and they re-discovered a campy format that always moves chalupas. Serendipity, Baby.