Re-thinking (or not) the NBA & World Cup

OK. I didn't get my complete wish in the NBA Finals. Mark Cuban didn't win a title with his hippie kraut, but Dwyane Wade screwed it up for me. No one (outside of Dallas) is going to remember questionable calls in his favor. They are just going to remember Wade's incredible performance in dragging that somewhat lifeless Heat team to a title. I wanted to puke when I kept hearing that Shaq delivered a title to Miami just like he promised. Sure his 13 points and 10 points were pretty good, but considering his "Superstar" status, it's not really all that. Plus when you miss 34 out of 48 free throw attempts (and 3 of your 4 wins are by 3 points or less), you were a lot closer to losing the title for your team than "delivering" it. Alonzo Mourning and Udonis Haslem were more important to the team in Game 6 than Shaq was.

Then there is the Pat Riley who is given credit for a great coaching job to win it. Well, to begin with, if Wade hadn't hurt his ribs before game 6 of the conference championship last year, the Heat would have been in the Finals then without Riley or the "veteran" supporting cast. Yet, somehow Riley is a genius for taking a highly paid team and making it slightly better. Of course, he wasn't an idiot when the Heat looked like crap in the first two games when the plan was to force it into Shaq. The genius apparently came from him making "adjustments". Is that the new term for "give the ball to Wade and get out of his way"? Yeah, no other coach would ever have thought of putting the game in the hands of their best player instead of an out-of-shape former star who can't hit a free throw.

Still, I do have the jerk-off Dallas fans crying conspiracy, so at least there is some taint to the win, but not enough. After all, "pundits" rave about Michael Jordan finishing his Bull career with a game winning shot against Utah, but they rarely mention his push-off to get the shot off. However, the Dallas fans are entertaining in their whining. I heard an email from one into Dan Patrick's radio show that actually complained about a foul not being called when the non-call favored the Mavs. On their last shot, Dallas needed a three and Jason Terry tried to get open for it. He did, but before he got into shooting position, Gary Payton grabbed his jersey. The refs ignored it and the shot missed. Everyone knows the last thing the Mavs wanted was for a foul to be called. It would have been on the floor, so at best they would have had two free throws instead of a fairly open three point shot. I bet the same moron would have whined that the refs shouldn't have made the call if Terry had hit a three after the whistle blew.

Now, the World Cup. As I said before, I wasn't nearly as impressed with the American side against Italy as so many others were. I couldn't believe so many thought the U.S. were a lock to beat Ghana. Ghana beat the Czech Republic. We were embarrassed by the Czech Republic. Sure, we could have beaten Ghana, but we didn't and I wasn't that surprised. When you don't score a goal (remember, Italy kicked our only score in for us) in your first two games, why should expect a big performance in the third? Losing 2-1 wasn't that surprising to me.

I still think soccer will always be problem for the U.S.. The reason is that so many of the premier athletes in this country are tracked into basketball, football or baseball. Think about Hakeem Olajuwon. He started out playing soccer, and only went into basketball because he was tall. Now, think about the athletes playing other sports in this country. Look at the speed and footwork of a Barry Sanders when he played football. Maybe he wouldn't have other attributes to be a great soccer player, but I think the necessary athleticism is there. And he's not alone. I just think the other professional leagues are full of guys who could have been great soccer players if they had chosen that sport at an early age. As long as the NFL, NBA and MLB are a more attractive destination than professional soccer, the U.S. will be fielding teams that are considered overachievers for simply making the quarterfinals of the World Cup.