Maddux Sports Blog

The Tampa Bay Lightning made Steven Stamkos the number one pick in the NHL Draft. Stamkos is a high scoring center from the Ontario Hockey League. If you live in Canada or a hockey town elsewhere then this comes as no surprise - Stamkos has been pegged as the top pick for five years or so. He’s got a ridiculous scoring touch, he’s strong and versatile, and he is frequently compared to Joe Sakic. He’ll make the team next year as the second center, and he is already the heavy favorite to be rookie of the year.

Recent history points to a successful career for Stamkos. Since 2000, the roster of number one picks is impressive. Rick DiPietro is the number on goalie for the Islanders, and he really came into his own this year. Ilya Kovalchuk is a scoring machine. So is Rick Nash. Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was the playoff star for Pittsburgh this year. 2004 pick Alexander Ovechkin and 2005 pick Sidney Crosby are in a duel to be called the best player in the league. Last year’s top choice, Patrick Kane, was rookie of the year this year. Of all the picks since 2000 the only one who isn’t a certified star is defenseman Erik Johnson of St. Louis, and he put together a pretty solid rookie year in his own right.

Since Mario Lemieux was taken in 1984 there have really only been two guys, Alexander Daigle and Patrik Stefan, who haven’t put together very solid careers. Clearly it is much easier to assess top talent in hockey than any of the other major sports. Since 1984 in the NFL there have been eight or ten duds from the top spot, and the NBA has had at least five. Baseball is about as bad as football.

The Lightning remind me of the Bulls. They both have the top pick in their drafts, and they will both add a player who is as close to a lock as there is. Both teams had truly terrible years, but they both have good foundations of talent and were much better the previous year. Both of their top picks will contribute early and often this year and will elevate their new teams immediately. Both teams have also made much needed coaching changes. Both teams strike me as teams that are going to be much, much better next year. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see both of them in the playoffs, and at least at the start of their seasons I will bet them accordingly.

The Bulls seem determined to make a truly bizarre coaching choice. The latest man to  rise to the top of the pile is Vinny Del Negro. His biggest asset in the search is that he isn’t Doug Collins.  You probably remember Del Negro from his days  as a somewhat average player who bounced around five NBA teams and a couple in Europe for good measure. He had a good college career at NC State under Jim Valvano, and he comes from a basketball family - his dad played for Adolph Rupp at Kentucky. There’s just one problem with an otherwise solid coaching resume - he’s never coached at any level before. Hmmm. He was a broadcaster for a while after he retired before joining the front office of the Suns, peaking at assistant general manager. I’m sure he’s a good guy, and he obviously gave one heck of an interview, but it seems odd that a team with so much on the line (a solid roster, the number one pick, etc.) would give the keys to a guy who has never driven. It’s also a relatively unique-to-basketball thing. The NBA seems much more likely to give a job to an unproven guy than any other league. In the NHL you have to cut your teeth in the minors or as an assistant (unless you are Wayne Gretzky, and Del Negro is no Gretzky). You have to put in your time in baseball, too. The NFL wouldn’t hire someone who isn’t an established assistant or a college coach.  This would be like the Raiders firing Lane Kiffin and hiring Scott Pioli to take his place. Doesn’t make much sense, but I wish the Bulls well. At least I will be able to find something else to be fascinated by once they make this hiring official.

Speaking of Chicago sports, Cedric Benson finally got what was coming to him from the Bears.He was cut loose today. The reason given was that he was arrested a second time and generally had a bad attitude. The real reason, though, is that he sucks at football. There has been much discussion online today over what impact this will have on the team (and by extension how it will affect the decisions bettors have to make about the team). The answer, of course, is not very much. Matt Forte can be at least as good as Benson is, and he’s likely much less trouble, too. I still haven’t decided quite how I feel about the Bears this year, but this change won’t make me think any less of them.

The Mets are two games under .500 and they just got swept by the Padres. They were favored in all four games. If you had flat bet every game all season you’d be down almost 10 units. I don’t even know how to count the ways in which that all doesn’t make any sense. If I owned the Mets I think I’d fold them.

LSU needed a win over UC-Irvine tonight to make it to the College World Series. The bad news is that the Tigers allowed seven runs to raise a few questions about the defense. The good news is that they countered that by scoring 21. No need to worry about the offense as they head to Omaha. We’ll take a look for betting opportunities in this tournament later in the week.

A couple of things have me scratching  my head this morning.

First, the Bulls are reportedly about to hire Doug Collins as their next coach. Huh? With the first pick in the draft and a pretty decent existing lineup the best you could do is pull a guy off the scrap heap? Surely the lure of coaching Michael Beasley or Derrick Rose would have been enough to hire someone who is, well, good. Collins has already been a coach for the Bulls, and not a particularly good one. He’s also been at the helm for the Pistons and he wasn’t very good there, either. Finally, he was reunited with Michael Jordan with the Wizards. How can we possibly forget what a rousing and inspiring success that whole era was? Overall, he has a decent but not overwhelming regular season record of 332-287, but it’s in the playoffs that he has shown hs true incompetence - 15-23. He didn’t manage to get anything done with the Bulls in the playoffs, but soon after he left the team won three in a row. This move is totally without logic for the Bulls management team. Or maybe not. This must be what they are thinking - Collins hired Phil Jackson as an assistant, and when Collins was fired for being inept Jackson took the helm and won six titles in nine years. Maybe management sees this as the easiest way to identify the next Phil Jackson. That’s the only thing that makes sense, because as a coach Collins make a decent broadcaster. I wrote earlier that I was very optimistic about the Bulls next year because of the first pick and their other tools. A lot of that optimistic will drain away if they go through with this ridiculous hire. It’s not just his record that makes it ridiculous, though. They fired Scott Skiles because he was loud and fiery and it wasn’t working for the players anymore. The mogical thing, then, is to bring in a guy who is loud and fiery and shouts at his players. That’s the ticket. If I was a Bulls season ticket holder I’d be on the phone to cancel them as soon as they hired this goof. I suspect that I would have to wait on hold for a while.

The other thing that I don’t understand at all is why James Blake insists on sucking at the French Open. He was favored at -240 to win his second round match today against Ernests Gulbis, a 19 year old Latvian who is ranked 80th in the world and has only played in four previous grand slams. Not only did Blake lose the match, but he lost it in four sets. The first set went to a tiebreaker, but Gulbis dominated it. Blake fought back to take the second set, but then he folded. He looked confused, and he wasn’t playing his typical game. This is very frustrating. Blake is the 8th ranked player in the world. He’s not a clay specialist (the fact that Americans have a mental block against clay is another entirely different, though equally ridiculous, issue that I won’t deal with here), but he has had some success on clay both in the past and this year. He made the finals in clay in Houston this year. He made the quarters in the Rome Masters before losing to Stanislas Wawrinka, who went on to make the final and take a set off of Novak Djokovic. Blake has better surfaces, but the 8th ranked player in the world should be able to win their second round match in a major against an outmatched opponent on any surface. Period. Further, we should be able to trust an American ranked in the top ten to come through as a -240 favorite. Blake is an immensely talented player, but he really needs to get his head together before his window closes completely.