Maddux Sports Blog

We don’t talk about swimming here much for obvious reasons, but a story today caught my attention. Michael Phelps is currently swimming at a World Cup meet in Stockholm. He’s not at his peak fitness by his own admission, and he’s sporting a beard, so he clearly isn’t looking to set world records. He’s still Michael Phelps, though, so it is very significant that he failed to qualify for two of his first three finals at the meet. The most glaring explanation for this is the swim suit. Swimming is doing the right thing next year by banning the ridiculous high tech swimsuits that have so changed the sport over the last couple of years. In anticipation of that, Phelps is using a regular suit at this meet while his competition uses high tech ones. This is a clear example of just how much of an impact the suits have. It seems ridiculous that a sport would allow something that would change the sport so fundamentally. It would be like MLB suddenly deciding to allow aluminum bats, or using softballs instead of baseballs. Those changes would make a mockery of hitting records just like the new suits have destroyed the meaning of world records.

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The trade deadline hasn’t passed in the NBA as I write this, so I don’t know for sure that Phoenix has stayed pat with what they have. I believe that they will, though, so I’ll assume that they did. Whether they do or not, they have played two of the most interesting results I have seen in a while since the all-star game. They’ve made it very clear that they are happy to see Terry Porter in the rear view mirror. In the first two games of the Alvin Gentry era they have averaged 141 points per game – 140 in the first game, and two better the second time. Those are their two highest totals of the season. Now, some of the credit for this sudden success has to due with the fact that both games were against the incredibly pitiful Clippers. That’s only part of the explanation, though – they averaged 107.5 points per game in the first two against the Lakers’ runt sibling.

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A couple of very interesting things showed up in the news today, and both have a significant impact on my out look of the teams involved:

1. Steve Nash and the Jason Richardson trade. On paper, Richardson makes the Suns better. There’s an interesting angle I had forgotten about until I read it, though – Raja Bell and Steve Nash were best friends and were practically inseparable. According to Nash, the first he heard of the possibility of a trade was when he woke up from his pre-game nap, checked his texts, and saw the news. Bell was already at the airport.

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