Maddux Sports Blog

Olympic Bet of the Day – Because everything is a competition, I’m going to put a mythical $100 per day on these Olympic bets and keep score. Feel free to make your own bets in the comments along the way. Things started out well on this front when Simon Ammann took down the ski jumping in dominating fashion. Splitting the $100 evenly between my two picks I wound up making a profit of $75. For today’s pick we’re going to go with biathlon. Ole Einar Bjoerndalen is like the Tiger Woods of biathlon. He has a record 91 World Cup victories, and he won four golds at the last World Championships, including the 10 km sprint that is being contested today. He can be had at +210, and that seems like a solid price given all he has accomplished. I’ll put my money on him.

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The Hornets have become the first team to fire a coach this year by booting Byron Scott just a year and a half after he was named NBA Coach of the Year. The team had limped out to a 3-6 start, and two of those win hardly count because they were against the Clippers and Kings. I’d sum up the way the franchise handled this with two words – inevitable and stupid. It was inevitable because Scott had to go because of the start and because of the way the season last year went – a disappointing regular season and humiliating playoffs. Chris Paul was frustrated and the team has no more important task than keeping Paul happy. They are already over the luxury tax threshold so they can’t overhaul the roster in a meaningful way, so Scott was the only real option. The move was stupid, though, because of their choice of a replacement. The new head coach is general manager Jeff Bower. He has been with the team since 1995 and he built the current team so he knows them well, but he has never been a head coach and a couple of assistant stints atMarist and Penn State a hundred years ago are his only real bits of (barely) relevant experience. They have also hired Tim Floyd as Bower’s top assistant. Not only if Floyd coming off a disgraceful exit from USC, but his last coaching experience in the NBA was with the Hornets – and they fired him in 2004 after one season because he didn’t do a good job. I have no problem with getting rid of Scott, but only if they replace with a coach with a good chance of being better than Scott was. I just don’t really see that here.

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I’m posting late because I was at the Calgary Flames game tonight. I managed to score a seat from a friend of a friend – fancy, expensive corporate seats. We sat right in the front row against the glass. I wouldn’t want to sit there all the time – you can’t really see the opposite end very well – but it is a truly incredible view when the play is right in front of you. Three or four times during the game there was a big hit right in front of us, and it was amazing – your whole body shook. If you like hockey then you really need to see a game from that viewpoint – you see things you don’t notice from other places, and you get areal appreciation for the size, strength, and speed of these guys.

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The NBA Draft is now a few days in the past, so we have had a chance to let things percolate in our minds for a few days. Here are ten thoughts I’ve had about the events at this point:

1. Ricky Rubio is a jackass. I am so incredibly tired of 18 year old guys who think they rule the world. Rubio has never been to Minneapolis, so how does he know that he doesn’t want to play there. Idiot. I hope he festers in Spain forever. What a terrible way for a young guy to set a tone. The saddest thing is that in the end he’ll get exactly what he wants.

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I want to look at tonight’s NBA Draft a bit, but first a couple of quick stories to touch on:

• I love the Shaq trade for Cleveland. He’s obviously not the man he was, but he’ll fit well with LeBron, they gave nothing of significance up for him, and they aren’t tied to him long term. The guy knows how to win, and he’s hard to contend with inside. I could see him liking the idea of going out on top, and this is as good a spot as any outside of the Lakers or the Spurs (two places he really isn’t going) to do so.
• I was very interested to see Lleyton Hewitt pull a big upset of the number five seed off today, and look pretty darned good doing it. He’s in a soft draw, and could easily get to the quarterfinals. He’s traditionally been good at Wimbledon, and he has rediscovered some lost form recently. He’s not going to win it, but I see him winning a few more games.

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Dear Stephen,

You don’t know me, and you really have no reason whatsoever to listen to me, but I’m going to offer you some advice anyway. I hope you will listen to it because you know I am right – stay in school! You have another year of eligibility, and I beg you, implore you, and several other synonyms, to use it. Don’t just do this for me, though. Do it for yourself. Here are eight good reasons:

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College basketball is brilliant, and it gets better and better every week as the season progresses. This is shaping up to be a great weekend. Here’s a look at five games I will be paying particular attention to:

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There is an impressive amount of interesting news out there today. Let’s get to it:

It’s official – Ken Griffey Jr. is a Mariner again. I thought for sure he was going to Atlanta, but it turns out he fooled everyone. The move makes sense for many reasons. First, he’ll finish his career out as a returning hero. He’ll also be on a team that won’t have a lot of pressure for him because expectations won’t be huge. Most significantly, the AL has the DH. That makes so much more sense than Atlanta. It will be fun to watch.

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The bad luck continues at North Carolina. Already dealing with life without Tyler Hansbrough, they have lost another player – Tyler Zeller. He has a broken wrist that will likely keep him out for the season. Zeller is a freshman and a forward, so they won’t necessarily struggle to replace him. He was off to a good start, though – he was the leading scorer in his debut game against Penn. I’m not particularly superstitious, but it does seem like the Tar Heels are snake bit. Hopefully for them their luck turns soon enough.

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1. The Big East confuses the heck out of me – Coming into the tournament I felt reasonably confident that the Big East was the strongest conference. Now I’m not so sure. In some ways they have been better than expected, while in others they have disappointed.

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