Thursday Thoughts

Since the Nationals will still be atop the National League East tomorrow no matter what happens tonight (they’re 1 ½ games up on the Phillies this morning), I’ll post 25 Reasons The Nats Are In First tomorrow. Today, Thursday Thoughts:

Spurs and Pistons Tip-Off NBA Finals Tonight
Is it just me or has the buildup for this series taken a “she has a great personality” tone? Seriously, how many times can you hear how boring the Finals will be (always with the additional caveat that basketball purists will love it) before you start believing it?
I am, by no means, a huge fan of the NBA; I rarely watch regular season games and only get into the playoffs because I’d be confused watching PTI if I didn’t. But I, for one, was thrilled that the Pistons beat the Heat, and not just because I want to see if Bruce Bowen goes into the Detroit locker room to take Rasheed Wallace’s championship belt if the Spurs should win the series. (Speaking of Rasheed – If you gave him a flannel shirt, handed him an empty coffee cup from McDonalds and stuck him on the corner of 34th and Broadway, don’t you think you could pass him off as a homeless guy without any problem? Sure, the ragged look helps, but it’s the craziness that lies behind those eyes that really clinches it.
A brief aside: The other day I was filling up my car with gas (at the gas station with the most expensive gas in the D.C. area, a testament to my eternal stupidity) and at the pump in front of me was a black Ferrari Modena. A sweet ride, to be sure. But it wasn’t the car that got my attention. It was the guy pumping the gas who drove away in the car that piqued my interest in the proceedings.
I don’t need to tell you who you’d normally expect to see driving a $150,000 car, except that it’s not usually a scruffy guy in his 40’s wearing a tattered flannel shirt and way-too-big-sweatpants with a rope serving as his belt, sporting a ratty beard and looking as if he didn’t have enough change to buy a Washington Post. In addition to possessing that crazy Rasheed-esque look and seriously looking so homeless that even seeing this guy in the suburbs was a bizarre dichotomy, the dude only had one arm. No joke, it was a one-armed homeless guy driving a Ferrari. If I lived in New York I’d say, “only in New York”, but then I’d be a putz and hate myself. Anyway, that’s my story.)
The Spurs and Pistons are the two best teams in the NBA and they have been all season. San Antonio played three distinct styles to get to the Finals, including running up and down the court to beat Phoenix at their own game (most analysts thought the Spurs would try to get the Suns to slow it down).
Detroit had a little more difficult time making their Finals run, but Larry Brown’s team always manages to make the right pass, right shot and play the right defense down the stretch. And they are, of course, the defending champs.
Both squads epitomize the concept of a team, just like the NFL’s Patriots. The NBA should be salivating at the thought of having Tim Duncan and his two foreign guards facing off against the defending NBA champs, but because the Association markets the star over the team this series is looked at as a disappointment because Shaq, Dwade and Steve Nash aren’t there.
It’s a shame, it should be one of the more interesting Finals since MJ left the Bulls.
Before I make my prediction, please keep in mind that last year I hated on the Pistons in the Finals, even after they dismantled the Lakers in Game 1. So if those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, then color me screwed.
Tim Duncan is the best player in the NBA and he’ll be too much for the best defensive big man in the NBA in Ben Wallace. With Bruce Bowen likely covering Rip Hamilton and, thus, taking him out of the series, the Pistons will have to rely on Chauncy Billups and Rasheed Wallace for the bulk of their scoring. Rasheed will likely be covered by Nazr Mohammad and will get his points, but Tony Parker on Billups will be an advantageous match-up for Gregg Popovich.
Factor in the Pistons thin bench, the fact that the Spurs are well rested and home-court advantage, and it seems that San Antonio will be home to the NBA Champs for the third time in seven years. And I don’t think it will be close.
Spurs in five.

Drew Rosenhaus on PTI
In an unprecedented occurrence on the nearly four-year old show, Wibon and Kornheiser interviewed super-agent Drew Rosenhaus in the “Five Good Minutes” segment for a whopping 11 minutes on yesterday’s program.
Rosenhaus, true to his reputation, charmed the pants off Tony and Mike and came across as a likable schmuck instead of the soulless schmuck most have pegged him to be. His answers were maddeningly evasive while, at the same, hilariously spun.
His assertion that T.O. “outperformed” his contract was said with such conviction that I almost started to believe it. His rationale for Sean Taylor not returning Joe Gibbs’ phone calls made sense, until you actually thought about what Rosenhaus was actually saying.
And that’s the beauty of Rosenhaus. He’s a salesman, and a damn good one at that. He might be the most hated man in Philadelphia, Washington and various other NFL cities, but it’s nearly impossible not to be captivated when he’s talking. It’s no wonder players leave their agents to sign with him, Rosenhaus could sell a Ferarri to a one-armed homeless man, so getting Terrell Owens to sign on the dotted line is probably a piece of cake.
To their credit, Kornheiser and Wilbon asked Rosenhaus most of the right questions but he deflected each of them like he was some sort of argumentative Superman.
When you’re listening to Rosenhaus you find yourself agreeing with him until you step back from the moment and realize that he’s completely full of shit. In order to pull that off though, you have to know that you’re completely full of shit, and Rosenhaus certainly does, which is why he comes across as genuine even while selling snake oil. He seems to be using the old George Costanza credo: “It’s not a lie… if you believe it”.

The Continuing Story of Sean Taylor
This is all I have to say about SeanTay: I wanted so desperately to be wrong about him and watch him turn into a mature NFL star, but every single thing he has done since getting drafted by the Redskins indicates that he will likely be more Lawrence Phillips than Lawrence Taylor. Both those guys had their problems, but only Taylor could put those aside and do his job on the field.
The word "stupid" doesn’t even begin to cover Sean Taylor, but let’s stick with that for a bit.
He drives home wasted from a D.C. nightspot in an expensive car traveling 25 mph over the speed limit. He leaves the NFL’s rookie symposium to show how he doesn’t have to conform. He fires his agent not once, but twice, and then complains about the contract he signed after a mediocre (at best) rookie season. He doesn’t return Joe Gibbs’ phone calls. All these things indicate such stupidity that even Mike Tyson has been overheard saying “man, that’s brotha’s stupid.”
But those things were just leading up to Taylor’s mecca of stupidity: The ATV Incident. Having two ATVs? Stupid. Possessing a gun? Stupid. Rolling around with a 19-year old who uses a baseball bat for reasons other than hitting a baseball? Stupid. Pulling the aforementioned gun on two guys who you think might have stolen your two ATVs? Stupid. Leaving the scene without firing a shot? The first, and probably only, intelligent thing Sean Taylor has ever done in his life. Of course, his moment of clarity was short-lived because the utter stupidity had yet to commence.
After dipping from the scene, Taylor returned to the guys house and started beating them up. Essentially, Sean Taylor let his temper calm down after pulling the gun, left, and then made the conscious decision to return and risked ruining his entire career and wasting $10 million just to show he wasn’t soft because his dad is Chief of Police and he plays in the NFL. If Dave Chappelle is having trouble coming up with skits for the third season of his eponymous show, he can feature SeanTay in a segment of “When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong”. Of course, Dave could also use himself for that skit, but that’s a whole other story.
I’m so sick of Sean Taylor and hope he never plays down for the Redskins again. If he were any good last season maybe I’d be singing a different tune, but I saw enough blown coverages, misread routes and pouting to go along with unprecedented stupidity to believe that Sean Taylor will be nothing but a huge disappointment in the NFL.