Thanks Super Sarver

Thanks for the valiant efforts in 05 and 06 to get the Suns to the NBA Finals Mr. Sarver. But now, its clear that you are not interested in spending money to keep you best finisher (Amare Stoudemire) and your seasons top scorer (Jason Richardson). Now it seems like you are trying to dismantle the team and send them into another direction.

While it is your team and you are certainly validated to spend or not spend your money, let me send out a plea into the cyberspace of blogging. PLEASE TRADE STEVE NASH!!!

I know quite a few Suns fans will crucify me for stating this but lets face it. Steve will not ask for a trade and won't complain that you have given him less than a Ju-Co team of scrubs and bench warmers! Send the greatest point guard of this century to a contender! Reunite him with Mike D'antoni and STAT! Or see if he can be the final piece in the Heat puzzle. Let him help solidify Kobe and Phil out in L.A.! But for heaven's sake let him go!

Steve Nash is hands down the nicest guy to play in the NBA and there is not one person in the league that would not LOVE to play with him! After all he's been through he deserves a shot. I think more so than KG or Karl Malone or Ray Allen or anyone who left their long time teams late in their careers for a shot at a title. Steve will not ask for it, just think of it as a belated Christmas present!

I never wanted Amare to leave. I never wanted them to break up the three that gave us so much entertainment in 05. I never wanted them to use six players a game. It felt like Alvin Gentry finally realized that defense and developing your bench along with the 7 sec. or less mindset can get you close to the Finals. But now, you've neutered the Suns and taken all of the fun out of being a fan here in AZ. I'll leave you with the same plea to let Steve thrive with actual NBA players instead of a horrible investment in Channing Frye! Channing Frye?! Really!? 13 Million!? That just seals it. Right there.

Under Protest

I've have made it no secret that my least favorite teams in the NBA are as follows:

1. The San Antonio Sucks

2. The Celtics

3. The Lakers

With all this in mind, the #1 and #3 seed in  my rankings played on Wednesday night. The Lakers were down by as much as 12 points in the forth quarter. With a minute left to play and on a Kobe corner pocket three, the lake show takes the lead.

Now, this is where in all reality, no other team can come back from what the Lakers are pouring on to this horrible cheating team. But not so for the dirtiest team in the league. With 12.0 remaining, the San Antonio Sucks inbound the ball to Roger Mason who goes up for the two, while Derek Fisher tries to go all the way around him, from the back, to defend the shot. On his way around, Mason's leg kicks WAY out and connects with Fisher drawing a foul!?!

Next, with 11.0 left and down one, the Lakers get the ball to Kobe who is double teamed right away. He passes to Trevor Ariza who drives to the lane between two defenders. After his first step he is sandwiched and tripped while being hacked by Manu "The Nose" Ginobili. When he takes his second step he shoots and the whistle blows. Traveling...

How blatant can you be David Stern?! You obviously love San Antonio and at the cost of losing millions of fans. There are so many of us out there that can't stomach this crap any more. As a fan I am watching in protest from now on. If my team is playing either San Antonio or Boston I'm going to voice my concerns before it starts and then sit back and watch as my team plays against an eight man team.

Not long after the dust settles from what Mr. Stern has created here, he will realize that he has destroyed the NBA. No one will be supporting them. Attendance will be nil. Ratings will fall off the face of the earth. No one will buy the apparel that he has driven the price of. It will be the next Arena Football League.

Imagine if the seven seconds or less Suns would have had a fair shot in 2005. I guarantee that they would have taken it that year. The repercussions of that championship would have made the league fun again what with all of the teams trying to implement the run and fun style of Mike D'antoni.

Alas, it was never meant to be. So thank you Mr. Stern for taking something so great and wonderful and making it a bidding war. The Celtics paid the most to win last year. Let's see if Greg and the Sucks can out bid them this year again and be * champs yet again.

While I will be supporting the Suns as much as possible, most of my t.v. time will be for college basketball. Or trying to find the 08 olympic basketball game for the U.S. I love watching that team play for our country and the gold. Some of the best basketball I've seen in a long time.

Old School!

Much like Michael Jordan when he came back to cement his legacy with the Bulls, I am on my way back to college. I know I'm still not at the university level, but I am going back to it and am not going to quit until I get my degree.

I've almost been alive for 3 decades and have finally realized that if you are not learning you are going backwards. Always look for new things to learn. Keep moving forward. 

Sorry. Enough of the after school special stuff. With such boring classes on my schedule such as Intro to computer science and computer setup and repair, I'm going to have to keep my sense of humor intact if I am to make it through this semester. So with that in mind, I am going to try and do something out of the ordinary everyday.

Today is the first day of school and I'm going to change my name to Grand Master Mike Flash and tell everyone that I only have 3 weeks to live. I know this sounds weird but with a title like this it will demand respect and 80% of the classes income. "Girl you better give me that MONEY!"

It's been almost five years since I last attempted to finish my schooling and I'm no closer now then I was then to being comfortable with what vocation I would like to pursue. With my recent knee injury I have put off walking on as the 6th man for the Phoenix Suns and have relegated myself to city and church league basketball. With all of this coming to light I have to go pro in something else. The Double Stuff Dunking League.

"My brother and I would like to announce that its on like Donkey Kong!" Halo is now on my "I have to play for at least 30 min a day" list, along with GHIII and Madden 09. So beyond all of this I have to make time to study and play with the kids. My Suns and other sports viewing will be taking severe hits. But you only live once and this is my time to finish my education on the way to a solid vocation.

The Cardinals are in the NFC Championship game along with the Eagles and I really think that they have a shot to get to the big game. While they were -10 point underdogs on the road to Carolina they are now -3 at home and I think they have a chance to take this spot and run with it all the way. Even with the crappy history that we have endured, they have a shot to rewrite history, as do I with my degree. Put it on the board. By this time next year I will have my degree or be a 4 star general in Halo! Either way, its going to be a heck of a fun year!

A New Hope

Give it up to the Utah Utes who TOTALLY dominated Alabama. This seasons bowl games have been a little more on the disappointing side for me. I must admit though, I did not think that Utah would have any chance against a Crimson Tide team, who during the year, were ranked #1 and were in one of the tougher conferences in all of college football. But the game more than won me over. They dominated all aspects of the game and it was hard hitting from the beginning. As great as that game was, it could never wash the taste out of my mouth of having to sit through the Ohio State/Texas game. Oh, My, Gosh! How anyone could rationally pick Texas as the number one team in the nation is beyond me. Ohio pushed them around all game long. Texas' defense is soft and allowed the bucks to take the lead at half-time and overcome an 11 point deficit in the 4th quarter. Ohio should have won the game and had it not been for blown coverage on the final touchdown play then it would be a different blog today.

With all of this coming to life in the Fiesta bowl, we can all concede that Florida, USC, and Utah are the three best teams in all of CFB. Come this thursday Florida will have their way with Oklahoma. The score will not reflect the domination I'm pretty sure, however it will more than make up for the crappy bowls that we have seen this season.

Don't read anything into this new post, it is not another "We So Need a Playoff System in College Football!" diatribe. I'm just shedding some light on what the Texas fans are feeling today. They had an exciting last second win against a team that everyone thought that they would blow away. But that is how their entire season went. Barley beating teams and losing in the most emotional games. Colt McCoy should not be the Heisman, nor should he be considered the #1 pick in the draft that he will declare for. Texas can't run the ball, they have no deep threats, no intermediate game and if Ohio would have gotten to him consistently then he would have folded like a cheap hooker getting punched in the stomach by a guy with sores on his face (Thanks Joey). 

Utah is now 3-0 in bowl games and once again undefeated. How they reload next year will say a lot about their program. Until then we can enjoy the likes of the man who started it all at the U of U, Urban Myer, as he completely dismantles Oklahoma. We can also hope for better play next year from BYU, ASU, and of course Boise State. Let's all hope that we can make it through another off-season of baseball and basketball. Football season is way too short!

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

For the first time in 35 years the Cardinals are in the playoffs and it looks like they'll be 8-8 when they finally do reach the post season. While they could have made the last two games at least competitive. Minnesota I can live with, after all it was during the "you have got to be kidding me!" weekend. But in New England today they came into a buzzsaw of a blizzard. After not seeing so much as a snowflake for the past 25 years they were forced to play in Foxboro stadium in a driving snow storm. While many will state that its all apart of the advantage of living in a certain place, it is all subject to mother nature and that is all an advantage over the opposing team. Especially when the teams come from the west coast.

There are several ways to even the playing field as it were. Such as forcing all of the teams in the colder climates to have dome stadiums. Climate controlled indoor real turf fields can be easily maintained and would be like playing outside. But I know that none of that will happen. Too many purists think that the game of football should be subject to mother nature. I also agree that there have been some interesting games played in severe weather.

So, for the teams that are in the west or in warmer climates they should also take advantage of their environments. Arizona should schedule more games during the months of September and October at home when there are still triple digits. Have the games in the middle of the afternoon during the hottest parts of the day. Open roof, pipe in more heat and make sure the team has trained in that sort of situation. It makes just as much sense as going 3000 miles to the east just to face something that you can't possible practice for unless you live in the east. Why do you think the Patriots, Giants, Steelers, etc. are so tough in December and January? In at least 5 games on Dec. 21st the temperature was well below freezing.

While the teams in the east and to the north are not making exceptions to the other teams that they are playing, Arizona spends months trying to create a playing field that will control the elements and allow both teams an equal shot. So, in hopes of shedding some light on an overlooked subject, I hope that the Cardinals learn something from these losses. I hope they remember just how when these teams could have let up and put in the second and third string players, they kept their proverbial foot on the gas and ran up the score relentlessly. Schedule the games in the desert, in the middle of the day. Channel more heat on the visitor side. And just when the opposing team has become dehydrated, that is when you run up the score to 50+.

Play to your strengths as much as you can. Just like today when all the Patriots had to do was run the ball 40+ times and stack the box because they know that you can't throw the ball like you're accustomed to. They are not going to apologize for it. They are going to take that natural advantage and the win. Play their game. Use what God has given you in this heat advantage. Demoralize the other teams and make them cringe at the fact that they even have to play a preseason game in "The Valley of the Sun".

Once again, thanks for reading this far. I was so ticked off when I saw the golden boys of the NFL get yet another concession and help from the elements as well as the referees. Next week will be Christmas and I'm planning on writing on the Suns, why we should ALWAYS say Merry Christmas and many others. Have a very merry Christmas and here's to the post-season for the Cards!

Dreaming of the perfect Bowl

For the 29th year in my life it is once again bowl season. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. I haven't always been a follower of said season but once you're in you're in for life. Through my friends in high school and my Buckeye father I was introduced to the beautiful game of college football. For countless Saturday afternoons, when the leaves were finally beginning to turn colors my father and I or with my friends, we would watch the great players like Eddie George, or Jake the Snake Plummer, or Pat Tillman doing all the little things that made him great. At the end of those regular seasons you always remember, without a doubt who the best team in the nation was. Even with great teams such as these there was the championship game that decided it all.

Flash forward to the present. Teams are now more equal in terms of recruitment, athleticism and coaching. Every week, at least for this season, it seemed like there was a new #1 and they would stay in that position for less than a week. It seems like any given Saturday the definition of the best team would be redefined. Not only did the best teams in the nation face off almost once a week, it was near impossible to come to a clear conclusion who the best of the best is.

We have been given the BCS and I don't need to go into what that stands for, for there are many acronyms (most of which are inappropriate for our younger readers). But the fact is is that we do have it and its not going away anytime soon. Its in place to determine which teams play which and in what bowl said teams will face off in. Now for a while I thought that it was based solely on a computer and how it saw the nation of college football. How wrong I was. Just like everything else in the world, the human factor plays a bigger role in this than we originally assumed.

The problem with this system is too many biased and political factors are allowed to cloud the rankings week in and week out. As I've said earlier, the field has been narrowed almost to nothing. We all know that any team could be number one. Instead of blaming it all on the computer they should change the way the rankings are established. An unbiased committee needs to be established to take in all of the teams and even out the little factors that the computer leaves out. Like not allowing Boise State to be in a higher bowl after having yet another undefeated season. Or (as much as I hate to admit it) selecting Ohio State as an "at-large". Or putting Utah against a much tougher Alabama.

There are many, many people that feel that the bowls should be done away with. That there should be a playoff system. I've heard numbers from an eight team playoff system to a 64 "March Madness" system. While I do like a tournament feel to the college football system, I think that eliminating the bowl system is a terrible thing to do to athletes who sacrifice so much for almost nothing. When teams work hard enough that they make it to a high bowl then they are rewarded with amazing gift bags for each player. For amateur athletes who are not allowed to receive compensation for their hard work, these bowls are like their championship super bowl. SWAG!

My solution to all of this is to keep the bowls. Reward those players and schools for hard work and giving us great entertainment. But add a plus one or a mini four team playoff, if need, to determine who is the best of the best. Not limited to any conference or regular season schedule. If there is more than one team still undefeated after all the bowls let them play for it all. A few years ago we would have seen Florida against Boise State. A great game would have made an unbelievable season even better.

For a first blog this might be too long. If you've read this far you're either related to me or a sadist. Either of which I thank you for taking the time to read this rambling. I hope my opinions and reasoning have been clear. I'm not writing to impress people or even try to turn some heads. This is how I feel, what the world looks like through my eyes. Probably more often than not, this blog might reveal my real, true to life man crush I have for STAT (Standing Tall and Talented, aka Amar'e Stoudemire) and the Phoenix Suns. I've come to grips with that fact and I am embracing it. Remember, it's all good. I'm out like the Spurs should be as national champs ever!