The Ship Be Sinking

Gilbert Arenas has gotten a little too big for his britches while the Dukies are having trouble simply putting on theirs without falling flat on their wimpy, pockmarked faces. Both the Bullets and Blue Devils are in freefalls, as demonstrated by their losses yesterday. A look at each:

Duke
OK, I'll call Pete Gaudet if you find someone to cover the 12-6 a.m. shift for Dickie V's suicide watch. Because, at this rate, the only way the Dukies will be able to underperform in the postseason, as usual, will be by losing to Canisius in the NIT. (No, I don't really believe that Duke is going to miss the Tournament; Billy Packer might actually murder Tournament chairman Gary Walters if Wright State made it over all-powerful Duke. But if they continue to lose, the committee might have no choice. But they won't.
And since I've started down this path, I might as well keep going. Duke is rated #3 in non-conference RPI. An upcoming game with St. John's might lower that a little, but not by much. Coupled with five wins against the RPI top 50 (bubble teams like Texas, Oklahoma and West Virginia all have just two), no real "bad" losses and wins over Air Force, Indiana, Georgetown, Gonzaga, Clemson and Boston College, it's really tough to see how Duke will miss-out on the Tournament, barring a historic collapse.
They're good for wins against St. John's and Georgia Tech, which would get them to six in the ACC and 20 overall. Do you honestly think a 20-win Duke team is going to miss the Tournament? And that's worst-case scenario (for them, not society). Count on, at the very least, one more win against either BC, Clemson, Maryland or UNC too. Clemson's wheels haven't just come off, they've blown up and Maryland is the most inconsistent team in the conference. Like it or not, Duke isn't going to miss the Tournament. All that buzzing you'll hear between now and March 11 about that very topic is inane. And now that I've tried to ruin this parade, let's get back to ripping Duke.)
When the buzzer sounded in College Park last night, Coach K had a strange, bemused look on his face. I think it was a look of resignation. It was almost as if he knows he doesn't have the horses this year and was willing himself into getting some more back pain so he can hand the reins over to Johnny Dawkins so the impending losses won't cloud his coaching record.
All of Duke's problems were on display yesterday. Greg Paulus isn't a competent point guard and probably would be better served by making a switch to the two. DeMarcus Nelson peaked in high school and every freshman on the roster is as inconsistent as... um... something that is really inconsistent. Josh McRoberts has improved since last year, but he still isn't taking over a game like somebody of his stature should. McRoberts often had two or three inches on the guy's defending him last night (Bambale Osby, James Gist), yet he failed to dominate the interior with Bowers and Ibekwe in foul trouble. It's sort of strange to see a Duke team struggle like this, particularly because it's been so out of the blue.

Can somebody explain to me how Duke is ranked #11 in the country right now? They lost their two best - nay, only - players and... I guess that's it. But it's enough. Duke lost their two best players. Now they're forced to rely on a soft presence in the middle who couldn't even contribute when he was getting defended by scrubs and the most overrated point guard in the land.
Sure, Greg Paulus led the ACC in assists last season, the first freshman to do so since Ed Cota, but he did so feeding the best shooter in the conference and a proficient big man. Assists won't come as easy dishing to David McClure.
Krzyzewski had another great recruiting class, but who else can step-in to fill the void left by the aforementiond tools and the about-to-be-mentioned one, Lee Melchionni? David McClure? You mean Ridgefield, CT's finest? Sorry, Ridgefield, you had your college superstar already and his name was Justin Redemer. Martynas Pocius? The best thing anybody can say about him is that some European teams offered him contrats this off-season. I suppose Trajan Langdon is lonely. DeMarcus Nelson? Please, I'm eating here.
- November 16, 2006

I'd pat myself on the back, but I know I'm not the only one who saw this coming. Bill Simmons definitely did too.

Bullets
Four weeks ago, Gilbert Arenas was the toast of D.C. Everything he touched turned to gold-plated swag, he was voted to the All-Star team and his coach would be there with him, on the strength of Gil's late-game heroics. Everything was copasetic.
Yesterday, in a game in which Gil said he'd drop 50, Arenas scored nine on 3-15 shooting (including 0-8 from three). The Bullets scored their lowest point total of the season against the lowly Blazers (at home, no less) and afterwards, utter mayhem ensued (to steal a line from Dan Steinberg).
Gil called out coach Eddie Jordan who, in turn, called out Gil. Antwan Jamison's absence clearly is to blame, but it doesn't much matter; strife is strife. The Bullets are falling apart at the seams mere weeks after being the hottest non-helio-named team in the NBA. In the immortal words of Micheal Ray Richardson, "the ship be sinking" and there's only one way to fix it: Bench Gilbert Arenas. (A fine would work too, but "Bench Gilbert Arenas" has a certain je ne sais pas.)
This theory is not my own (it belongs to a Bucknell grad who still can't believe the Bison lost to Wake Forest this year), but I am stealing it and passing it off as my own. There's really no explination needed either, which is good. If a player publicly calls out his coach, there should be repurcussions. Just because the player doing the calling out is a superstar doesn't make it any different. Gil needs to shut his mouth, learn to play some defense and take his ass-whuppings like a man. Ernie Grunfeld should announce that Gil has been fined and reprimanded and will sit out the first quarter of the next game. The Bullets need to show Agent Zero who's running the show and they need to do it in public so Gilbert knows that this type of nonsense won't fly.

* (re: Sean Taylor's hit: A reader named Jerry apparently has translated what those Japanese announcers were saying while describing SeanTay's hit in the Pro Bowl and he has transcribed it in the comments section. I don't know whether Jerry knows Japanese or simply stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I'm going to take his word for it. It's sort of awesome:

The Japanese guys was pretty funny. What they said amounts to the following:
(something hard to make out without the first half of the sentence. He's either talking about strong winds or big numbers. Or maybe both.)
Analyst: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!
Play-by-Play: Oh, whoa! What's this?
Analyst: *something VERY incoherent in the background*
Play-by-Play: It's a keeper! He's not punting it!
Analyst: *continues to make noises*
Play-by-Play: (as the hit occurs) AHH! THERE'S SOMEONE THERE!
The last line really cracked me up.

When I watch Iron Chef I often wish I could just hear the original Japanese audio because they always seem a lot more giggly and excited than the American translaters. I don't know why I just wrote that.

* This is probably a few weeks old, but SNL's "Weekend Update" comments on the utter stupidity of Michael Vick. It's actually pretty funny.