Fools Gold?

So here is a blog not about football, even though there is tons to talk about in the world of football, lets focus on the NBA right now.

What is going on with the Miami Heat? I mean, no one expected them to go 82-0, or to mesh together from the first game...but they are 9-8 right now. That's a pedestrian record, that's for a team that is just average, not a team that is getting tons of media coverage, has its own section on ESPN.com and has been expected to win multiple championships. For the record, those expectations aren't the medias fault, the Heat's big three(I'll call them Miami Thrice) started throwing parties and mini championship parades during the offseason when Bosh and James came to town. It was a big party in south beach, everyone was talking about how high this team could go, the Miami Thrice were guaranteeing not just a championship in Miami, but multiple championships.

Now I know its early, they have only played 17 games together this season, but when do we start to worry? When do the excuses of injuries and giving this team time to gel together stop working? How long before this team starts to fall apart from the uber excessive media coverage that they get? When will head coach Spoelstra get fired and Pat Riley come in and coach the team?

Perhaps the biggest question of the year is this. When will they start looking like a championship contending team?

Its time for the Heat to show up

In their defense the Heat are pretty banged up. Udonis Haslem is out, likely for the year, and he was their big rebounder, their big post presence. Mike Miller has yet to play, and that;s hurt them as well. He is a good three point shooter and can play descent defense.

But no team in the NBA is going to go through a season without some big injuries, its part of the game.

Also an argument the Heat have is how little time the team has had to mesh together. Wade, Bosh and James have never played in a team like this, three huge superstars and a weak bench. To make things even harder, Wade was hurt for pretty much all of the offseason, letting Miami Vice play a whole one quarter together before the regular season topped off.

But at the same time, these three have been talking about playing together since before the 2008 Olympics. You'd think they would have some sense of how to play with each other...right?

To me the problem is this, they don't have a good point guard or center. Those are the two most important positions in the game. You have to have a good point guard to win, the PG is the general on the court, he is an extension of the head coach. You need a good center to win too, and if you don't have a good center, you at least need a good post player to win. The Heat have neither. They have three top players at the 2, 3 and 4 positions, but nothing solid at the 1 or 5. Their bench is pretty weak as well.

Now I'm not saying that the Heat are doomed because they don't have a good point guard, I'm just saying that is one reason why they are struggling. They have amazing talent and have amazing potential, its just a matter if they can do the things necessary to get there. They need to play like a team, play with tempo and play with heart.

Bosh is a great power forward, but he doesn't seem to be a great post player, he doesn't seem to play well with lots of contact in the post, he needs to toughen up and play some rough basketball.

Wade and Jame need to work in sync with each other, not letting one person handle the ball and lead the team. They can work some good screens and pick and rolls with each other and really confuse opposing teams.

Wade and Jame are both highly talented, highly athletic and are amazing playmakers. They can drive to the hoop and make things happen better than any other players in the league. So why not make opposing defenses worry about both Wade and James acting like playmakers? Let them play like the are capable of together, not taking turns.

All the smiles are gone in South Beach

So is that the head coaches fault? Partially yes. Coach Spoelstra needs to do a better job, reports are flying out of south beach that the Heat players are not happy with their head coach. Apparently he has been too hard on his big name players, calling them out in practice. James got called out by his coach, I guess the coach can't tell when he is serious and the coach wants him to be serious. Now James is known for being a care free, joking kind of guy. But I guess there are times were a leader needs to act serious and lead his team.

My opinion on that? Lebron James needs to stop complaining about his coach. I don't care how good of a player you are, you do not have more authority than the coach, you can't undermine the coach. When that happens, disaster follows. Look at Brett Favre in Minnesota, it ended in disaster because Favre had more pull than his coach.

Lebron James did the same thing in Cleveland. After the Cavs lost to the Celtics in the playoffs he really questioned his coach. The Cavs fired Mike Brown after back to back 60 win seasons. They fired him, hoping that by doing so it would keep Lebron in Cleveland. Lebron got his coach fired, because he quit against the Celtics. He really did quit, he had no heart or effort in the final games last year. Coach Brown can't go up to James and accuse him of quitting, why you ask? Because Lebron had more authority than his Coach. Now Cleveland fired the best coach they have ever had and lost Lebron, its a surprise they are as good as they are this year.

So, Lebron please stop complaining if a coach is hard on you. The mark of a good coach is if he can be hard on his best players, it shows he isn't afraid to question his players. And usually when a coach is hard on his player, the player gets better, its called good coaching.


The Heat can turn things around, its not hard. They play in the weak eastern conference, so they play a lot of weak teams. They have the talent to make a deep playoff run. It's just a matter if they can work together as a team.

Miami Thrice said it was all about teamwork, they made that known in the offseason. They knew that their stats would go down and they were ok with that. They tried to look like the 2008 Celtics that added Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. There is one big difference between these two teams, the players on the Celtics learned to play well and they learned quickly too. The Heat are still trying to find out how to play well with each other. Once they figure it out(and they eventually will) they will be a threat to win it all. But until they do so, expect them to get criticized, over covered and play .500 basketball.

Can College Football Get Anything Right?

So I realized today that I only have two posts this month and decided to change that, I enjoy blogging and will do other sports other than football, but this is topic is just too big to pass up right now.

College football seems to be hurting right now, and hurting really bad. Three football players for Southern Mississippi were shot in a bar fight over the weekend, leaving one paralyzed. A Notre Dame student who filmed the football teams practices died after filming on a scissor lift that fell over when weather got really bad.

But the biggest black eye right now is Cam Newton. Newton is the starting QB for second ranked Auburn. He is the leading candidate for the Heisman trophy and if he keeps winning, he will be playing for a national championship.
However there have been a slew of reports coming out that Newton and his father were soliciting money to schools that wanted to sign him.

For a background, Newton played for Florida in 2007, backing up my most hated athlete Tim Tebow. When Tebow announced he would come back his senior year, Newton and his dad agreed he should transfer, and he did to a small junior college in Texas. During the 2009 season he was amazing, leading his school to the junior college championship. He was ranked the #1 QB coming out of high school or junior college. Newton has highly recruited by both Mississippi State and Auburn. He chose Auburn. Lets also not forget that while we has at Florida he got in trouble there. He was arrested for stealing a laptop(charges were dropped after he went to some classes of some sort) and he was also caught cheating in class on multiple occasions. This isn't the kind of cheating were you look at your neighbors paper, its were you put your name on a paper that you didn't write AND paying for a paper online. So his character isn't exactly perfect by any means

Reports now are saying that Newton and his dad asked Mississippi State for $180,000 to get him to commit. Now Newton didn't sign with Mississippi State, but that still doesn't mean he is a clean player. Auburn is saying that Newton is eligible to play, but they could just be saying that. Who knows if Newton and his dad got money from Auburn.

So if Newton did take money then its Reggie Bush all over again. Reggie took money(about $300,000) in the 2005 season, we won the Heisman and then went to the NFL. Reggie had to give up his Heisman trophy, and USC got hit with tons of probations for playing Reggie when he was not eligible. USC also had to vacate wins from that season too.
So what if Newton is guilty, but we don't find out for sure until after the season is over, after he wins the Heisman, and can take Auburn to the BCS national championship game. Leaving Boise State and TCU out, even though they obeyed all the laws.

But then again Newton could be eligible and could be worth of all the praise he is getting.

The problem is we most likely won't find out until after the Heisman trophy ceremony and when all the bowl bids are given out.

So what should college football do?

Punish Newton and give either Boise State or TCU a chance at the title game, but then what if Newton is clean? Do we just say sorry Auburn for ruining your chance to win a title game, even though Auburn got burned by the BCS in 2004 when they went undefeated but didn't play in the BCS title game. Even though Reggie Bush played for USC who won the title that year and he was not eligible. Is it fair to burn Auburn twice in 6 years?

Or does college football let Newton play? And if he is not eligible do we just say sorry to Boise State and TCU for costing them a once in a lifetime opportunity to play for the championship?

College football is gonna be damned if they do and damned if they don't. They cannot make the right decision because there isn't a clear one. If there was a playoff system then it could work out better, but you and I both know that ain't gonna happen.

Lets also look at the fact that Tennessee, USC and North Carolina are all under heavy punishments from the NCAA for recruiting violations.

Is it safe to say that college football is just not a clean sport anymore? Not with steroids, but with schools buying players and paying them money to stay?

If its true then college football should just come out with it, much like baseball needs to come out with steroids. So everyone can know and we can work better at fixing the problem rather than trying to cover it up.