Tuesday Notes
Kudos to Pitt. That certainly wasn’t the outcome I was expecting last night. I had grown to respect UConn, and I had grown to doubt Pitt. Oops. Pitt came into town playing a very rough and tough game, throwing themselves around like crazy. DeJuan Blair played as well as I have ever seen him, scoring 22 points, adding 23 boards, and generally asserting himself as the best player on the court. I wasn’t expecting that. I also wasn’t expecting Pitt to be as effective at containing Hasheem Thabeet as they were. This will certainly make it easier for Pitt to get a number one seed. As for Connecticut, I’m not sure what it means. There isn’t much shame in losing to the fourth ranked team, even if it is at home. The biggest lesson out of this one, I think, is that the Huskies are going to miss Jerome Dyson quite a bit. They just didn’t have all the offense they needed in this one.
It’s going to be strange not seeing Fred Taylor in a Jacksonville uniform next year. He’s been there for so long (11 years) that he just seems like part of the fabric of the young franchise. Now the interesting thing will be to see if he lands anywhere else. He’s motivated to get 1,042 more yards to Jim Brown on the all time list. On the other hand, he’s 33 and he’s not exactly the most durable guy in the league, so he’s probably only worth a risk if he comes cheap. It’s also doubtful that he’ll find a situation that gives him enough playing time to do what he wants to do. My bet is that he’ll eventually come to the realization that the best thing for him to do next year is to show up at Jacksonville Stadium for a number retirement ceremony. It’s just too bad that he had to have reality forced upon him like this.
The rumors of an impending Chris Bosh deal are flying hot and heavy today. I like the Raptors, but I also like the deal. Unless things change dramatically in the next year they stand little chance of resigning Bosh in the big 2010 free agency year. His departure would leave cap space, but Toronto also likely stands little chance of landing another of the big free agent names. That means that trading Bosh now is the best and perhaps only way that Toronto has of getting any value for the player. It will be wildly unpopular in Toronto, but it would be for the long term best.
The New York Rangers are an ugly, ugly mess. They have lost eight of their last nine games, and they have lost seven straight on the road. They’ve scored just nine goals in those eight losses, and they have been shut out twice. That’s a truly pathetic output. It’s amazing how bad this team is, and how little they can do about it. They have almost half of their cap tied up in three players – Scott Gomez, Chris Drury, and Wade Redden – and the three have been lousy. Gomez and Drury have forgotten how to score, and Redden is a defenseman who can’t stop anyone. All three are next to impossible to trade right now, so what you see is what you get. I’ll be a little surprised if they make the playoffs, and absolutely shocked if they can do anything once they get there.
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Tags: Chris Bosh, Fred Taylor, New York Rangers, Pitt Panthers, Toronto Raptors
February 17th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Fred Taylor takes offense to the “durable” comment. The guy has been solid in about the last seven seasons and really, he was injury prone in just his first four seasons. He’s played in 100 of his last 112 games, which is pretty good considering he started with about 40 of his first 60.
Secondly, how can Hasheem Thabeet go from like 25-20-9 to like 5-4-2. This is supposed to be the consensus No. 2 pick in the draft? Yikes. This looks like a horrendous draft class upcoming. If I give you any pick in the draft, who would you want? Do you want Peter Griffin first overall? Brandon Jennings after a year in Europe? Greg Monroe? What an absolute crap shoot this draft will be.