Links, in Honor of Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacque Wamutombo

This year, the Rockets became one of my favorite teams in the NBA because they signed Brent Barry, got Ron Artest and, of course, had Dikembe Mutombo.





When the Sixers first traded Theo Ratliff for Dikembe Mutombo in 2001, I was devastated, angry and upset. Not because I had any problems with Dikembe, in fact, quite the contrary, after all, his pure joy when his 8th-seeded Nuggets toppled Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton and the top-seeded Sonics was just an awesome sight, but I was/am a HUGE Theo Ratliff fan. But it turns out, the trade was brilliant, as Mutombo helped lead the Sixers to the NBA Finals with his incredible defense and tremendous rebounding, and the big guy really grew on me. He really, truly did.

Dikembe Mutombo is the best defensive center I've ever seen play, and by all accounts, he is the nicest, funniest guy in the NBA. And he truly has his priorities straight, helping out his impoverished homeland and doing good deeds all over the place. Sure, I remember in 2002 when every time he touched the ball in the Sixers-Celtics first-round playoff series the entire Wachovia Center let out a collective, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" because of his clunky hands and awkward offense, but I also remember a warrior and a great teammate. I'm going to miss Dikembe and all his hilarious antics, Cookie Monster voice and incredible defense. All the best to you, Dikembe. Now on to the links …

-Go to TrueHoop and read everything, especially the awesome coverage of Dikembe's retirement here.



-Praise Jeebus, Navorro Bowman only got a slap on the wrist.


Yeah, Rubin, that rose is nice and all, but you got any weed?

Now please, Navorro, no more smokey smokey, OK? Wait till you get to the NFL for that.

-Chauncey Billups and the Nuggets are doing work, son:



Back in the day, somewhere around 7th, 8th, 9th grade, my friends and I used to have these ongoing jokes about Vinny Testaverde, Yancey Thigpen and yes, Chauncey Billups where we'd make these weird hand motions when referencing them for no apparent reason. I'm not sure why we did it, why it involved those three guys or exactly how it started, but we were pretty committed to it. Clearly, my friends and I were weird kids.

-Jeremy Tyler, considered the best high school big man in the country, is leaving HIGH SCHOOL early to play professionally overseas.



Some of the details:

Tyler told the Times that he's making the move because he's too focused on getting better at basketball to spend time hitting the books, adding that "people look to college for more off-the-court stuff versus being in the gym and getting better."

…

The 17-year-old Tyler left San Diego High School before finishing his junior year, but he says he'll try to get his diploma by taking classes online. He also says he's ready to spend two years in Spain before returning in June of 2011 for the NBA draft.

Tyler told the Times of his European excursion, "It will help me get better and grow up."

First Brandon Jennings, now Tyler. This, my friends, is awesome. I certainly don't want a lot of players to go overseas, preventing me from watching the future players of the NBA before they get there, but leaving high school, and the books, behind to get paid, that's freakin great. I wish I could have done something like that. School is for fools kids. I would know, I graduated from college in just four short years and now get paid dick to work for the man. When I grow up, I want to be just like Jeremy Tyler.

-A first-round exit is not good enough, and neither is the status quo:

Fans focus on results and look for reasons for those results. The easy targets when a hockey team disappoints are the goaltender and the head coach.

Marty Biron has played well in this series. He has not won a game by himself, as Fleury did Tuesday or as Biron did a couple of times in last year's playoffs. But it would be a stretch to blame Biron, a soon-to-be free agent, for what has happened in this series.

Stevens is a tougher call. The Flyers were stunningly flat in Game 1. That is the players' fault, but responsibility for a performance like that tends to fall on the coach. And then there is the simple truth that coaches are not exactly permanent fixtures in the NHL.

Look at the Penguins. They won their series against the Flyers last year, advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals, and then replaced their head coach in the middle of this season. It is an unforgiving business, but there's little reason to believe changing coaches would accomplish anything.

The Flyers are a good team, but the results say they are not as good as Pittsburgh. That was true last spring, and it appears to be just as true this spring.

-Domo rightly questions Maurice Evans' decision to enter the draft.



Sometime late Saturday afternoon or early evening, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will walk to the podium at Radio City Music Hall and announce that a Penn State defensive end has been selected in the first round of the draft.

Eight months ago, most people figured that defensive end would be Maurice Evans. He was coming off an outstanding sophomore season in which he registered 12 1/2 sacks and 21 1/2 tackles for losses and forced five fumbles. He was All-Big Ten. The world was his oyster.

Then, last September, everything went to hell. Police were called to a noisy party at a State College apartment shared by Evans and teammate Abe Koroma. The cops found marijuana in the bedrooms of both players.

…

It's perfectly understandable why Maybin decided to pass on his final year of eligibility and declare for the draft. Evans' decision to do the same, though, is a little bit more mystifying.

…

His position coach - Lions defensive-line coach Larry Johnson - basically told Evans that he should stay in school for 1 more year. He advised him to return to Happy Valley, put up the kind of numbers he put up as a sophomore, and improve his draft stock.

Basically, if Evans' marijuana incident wasn't proof enough of how stupid he is, his decision to go pro certainly drove that point home. The guy is an idiot, and it pains me to write that because Mo Evans is one of my favorite players from Penn State. He was an absolute beast in 2007, and if he came back this year, he'd be the best player on the defensive line and with a bounceback season like 2007, he would have vaulted to the upper half of the draft. Now he's going to be a late-round pick with no guarantees. What a moron.

-The Yankees, despite a bevy of empty seats down low, are already planning to raise ticket prices next year. Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

-MJD takes Sports Illustrated to task for it's "apology" to B.J. Raji.

-I hate Ohio State, but this old hit is too awesome not to post:



-Stephen Curry is going pro.

-Shanoff's take on Jeremy Tyler. Very well said.

-Scottie Reynolds is declaring for the draft, but he won't hire an agent.



That's a good idea, because, uh, Scottie is not ready for the NBA at all. He should come back to Villanova, work on his consistency and try to turn himself into a first-round draft pick, because he sure as shit isn't a first-rounder this year.

-Breaking down Pedro Feliz's hot start at the dish.

-Honestly, no need to cover those up:



For the record, if you haven't been watching the NHL playoffs beyond just the Flyers-Penguins series, you're missing out. Typically this time of year I spend much more time watching the NBA playoffs, but this year, I've been watching more hockey than ever, and it's awesome. Last night's Chicago-Calgary game was incredible, and the end of the Rangers-Caps game was epic. Watching Alex Ovechkin is one of the most incredible things in the world, even when his team loses. His goal last night was sick:



He shoots the puck so hard that it's nearly impossible to even see. And the most impressive thing is how deadly accurate he is. The guy barely ever misses the net. Makes me even more disgusted with how many times the Flyers do miss the cage. But Ovechkin, even in all his dominate glory in the third period, couldn't best Henrik Lundqvist, who was incredible.

Anyway, the Flyers will try to stave off elimination in Pittsburgh tonight. This has the potential to be the worse thing ever. The Pens are up 3-1, the Rangers are up 3-1, the Devils are tied 2-2, and Boston already swept. If the Devils win, and with the Rangers and Pens all but wrapping things up, the remaining teams in the Eastern Conference playoffs would go like this: Pittsburgh, New York, Boston and New Jersey. There is nothing that could possibly be worse than that. I mean, I'd be forced to root for a team from Boston to represent the East, and God knows I don't want to do that. It would be a lot easier if the Flyers decided to just do the impossible and win three straight already.

Yo, Guy, You Stink

Ah, what a weekend it was in the land of free and the home of the cheesesteak. As promised, I'm here to give you all the rundown of the weekend that was for ye olde Reverend.

It all started on Friday night with the final NBA game in the illustrious life of the Spectrum.



Now, I have to admit, the Sixers started things off on the wrong foot for this game. Excited and anxious for the game Arkansas Fred and silver fox made the trip from Bucks County bright and early. Being the hard worker that I am, I arrived at my office at 7:30 a.m. just so I could leave a little early, meet up with those two idiots and walk around the Spectrum one last time.

Here's the catch: When I arrived at Broad and Pattison to meet up with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum at 5, we were informed the doors weren't opening until 6. What the fuck? I mean, really? In the last true professional sporting event to take place at the Spectrum, no one was allowed in until an hour before tip-off? That's messed up. I was looking forward to walking around the place to check it out one last time, but that plan was completely thwarted. By the time they opened the doors, the fans were flooding it, making it impossible to navigate around in the tight confines of the Spectrum. Not a good way to start.

It was one of the many downs in the up-and-down weekend. We entered, got our free lanyards and posters, took our seats up in the nose bleeds and settled in for what we hoped would be a fun night. Well, turns out, you put a rolled up poster in my hands and I instantly revert back to an elementary school kid. Arkansas Fred, silver fox and I were hitting each other with the posters, using them as bull horns and honestly, if anyone around us happened upon our inane conversations before the ceremonies began, they would swear we were no older than 15 … instead of, you know, in our mid-20s.



Anyway, as game time approached, our experience took a turn for the worst. An older gentleman, probably in his late 50s, early 60s, sat down in front of us with a hoagie in hand. About 30 seconds after he sat down, a stench so vile that even a dog wouldn't go up and attempt to sniff it permeated our section. Immediately, Arkansas Fred covered his nose, made a horrid face and pointed toward the man in front of us. I mean, this smell was awful.

At first, I assumed it must have been his hoagie. Sometimes sandwiches can give off quite an unpleasant odor. But long after this slob had finished feeding, the putrid smell lingered. In fact, every time the man moved, the stench grew stronger. I'm not exaggerating, I'd rather have sat next to a sewage plant than have to be around this fellow. It was that bad. He fucking stank.



Honestly, this guy smelled like a cross between a decaying dead animal, puke, sweat and vinegar. Maybe. I'm really not sure what the smell was to tell the truth, but it was the worst thing ever. All I know is that people who wash themselves do not smell like that. And nothing should smell like that. Really, seeing as he smelled like death anyway, that guy should do the rest of the world a favor and just kill himself.

The good news is that the game and presentations were pretty sweet. The Sixers who were being honored from the 1982-83 championship team were introduced by Joe Conklin in the voice of the famed deceased former Sixers PA announcer Dave Zinkoff, and sporadically throughout the game, Conklin would make timeout announcements and the like in Zink's voice.



Now, what I'm about to say is probably going to upset some of the Philadelphia faithful, but honestly, if Conklin's impersonation of Zinkoff was as spot on as most of his other impersonations are, and if Zinkoff really did always announce like Conklin did in those few instances, I'd have gone completely mad attending Sixers games. Don't get me wrong, I think Matt Cord is fucking hack who, if there is any justice in the world, will have his vocal chords removed and lose any ability to talk in the very, very near future, but honestly, given all the praise I've heard over the years about Zink (from my dad and others), I just don't get it. Hearing that nasally voice go over the top on everything was annoying as hell. Hopefully it was just for the effect on Friday, because I mean no disrespect to a dead man. But for real, the Zink impression was annoying the shit out of me.

What did not annoy me was the good Doctor's speech before tip-off. Dr. J was gracious as always, gave a very heartfelt speech and urged the Sixers to beat the Bulls … which is exactly what they did, albeit in a very close contest.

Although there was certainly some obstructed viewing with the poorly places thick, black rails in our section, it was cool watching the game in the gym atmosphere of the Spectrum. It was a tight contest, and Thaddeus Young was a beast, scoring a career-high 31 points.



He put on quite a performance, much like Derek Rose. If you haven't gotten the opportunity to see Rose play in person, do yourself a favor and make it a priority. The kid is just sick. He got wherever he wanted on the floor virtually all night, opened up many shots for his teammates, and without Rose, the Bulls would have easily lost by 30 points instead of just 3. He's a beast.

But the beastliest player on the court Friday was Young, even though in the fourth quarter his teammates seemed to completely forget that. All game long, Young was dominating, getting to the rim, hitting jumpers, doing it all. Then, after a rest early in the fourth, with the game tight and the Bulls posing a serious threat, Andre Iguodala and Andre Miller refused to even look Thad's way. As a result, the Bulls pulled closer and had a chance to tie at the end of the game. Luckily, the Bulls couldn't make the final shot, and Andre Iguodala did take over at the end, but the stupidity in the fourth quarter of this team drove me nuts.

Which brings to the conclusion, officially, that Tony DiLeo is not a good coach. Shocker, I know. But really, he put his team in some horrible match-up situations in the final quarter, not the least of which was having Reggie Evans attempt to guard Tim Thomas. Evans routinely played off Thomas and doubled off him, leaving a very good three-point shooter open from beyond the arc routinely. And Thomas hit a couple big shots to keep the Bulls close.

Then, DiLeo sat a scorching-hot Thad, then proceeded to allow his team to completely ignore him offensively when he got back in the game. Oh, and he should have had his team foul at the end rather than give the Bulls an opportunity to tie the game with a three. But he didn't because he's not a good coach, which is why the Sixers are still nothing more than a mediocre, inconsistent basketball team. But hey, they won, and it was great.

Almost as great as hearing that Temple beat Xavier to advance to the A-10 finals, which of course they won on Saturday to steal a spot in the dance.



Much like Syracuse seems at home in Madison Square Garden, the Owls love them some AC. I'm pretty pumped that they won again, even if it meant taking the spot that potentially could have gone to Penn State. I'm a Temple basketball fan first, and the Owls deserved to be dancing. Dionte is a stud, and their RPI was way too good to be left out. Now they'll take on a good Arizona State team, but my money's going on the Owls.

Anyway, after the game, we headed back to my house, watched Penn State get killed and relaxed for the remainder of the night. Then on Saturday, silver fox and I decided to head out on the Erin Express.

We made it exactly one stop in, downed a couple beers and some car bombs, and then couldn't get on the bus because it was so packed. So we instead headed to drink at a more comfortable location, watching the Flyers dismantled the Rangers thanks to two goals by Aaron Asham and a nice game by Marty Biron, witness UNC lose to Florida State with no Ty Lawson, and then went back to my house to watch Temple win the A-10 tourney yet again.

Then we headed to Bucks County, drove around a bit and rested up for a 22-round offline fantasy baseball draft yesterday. It was certainly an experience to say the least. The Flyers were getting killed, leading to some responses from the stupid Rangers fans I know and had mocked on Saturday, the Sixers beat the Heat behind the deadly three-point shooting of Donyell Marshall, who Arkansas Fred seems to be in love with, and the draft took roughly 2 and half hours.


It's the baseball draft honey, I got Matsui!

The highlight was certainly the ridiculous spelling of the names by CuzinVin, who is clearly the least informed on baseball and an idiot to boot and was somehow the guy writing the names on the big board, with R. Kinow (Robinson Cano) and A. Lee (Utley) taking the cake.

Then I wrapped up my weekend by watching the selection show on CBS, and I can't really argue with much. There was one issue I had, however, and that had to do with the No. 1 seeds. Now, UNC, Pitt and Louisville deservedly got No. 1s. They all deserved it, earned it. My issue is with UConn getting a No. 1 ahead of Memphis. Yes, I know the Big East was brutal this year and that Conference USA isn't the toughest conference in the world. But, UConn has already proven they don't deserve a No. 1. How? Well, they lost to Pitt. Twice. In the same season. Call me crazy, but a team that loses to the same team twice in one year just doesn't deserve a No. 1 seed in my book when there is another worthy team.

That team is Memphis. The Tigers had fewer losses, and yeah, they play in a pretty bad conference, but I'm pretty sure Memphis proved its worth last year, if I remember correctly. Let me check my memory. Did UConn, or Pitt or Louisville or any other Big East team for that matter, play in the national title game last year? No? You have to be kidding me. Well, then, who was the team that lost to Kansas on that sick shot by Mario Chalmers? The team that should have won if they just hit some damn free throws? Memphis?!? Get the fuck out of here.

What I'm trying to say is, Memphis deserved the No. 1 seed over UConn. They just did. The Tigers were the runners up last year, and even with the departure of Derek Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts, Memphis cruised through Conference USA, played sick D all year and emerged with just three losses. Still, a No. 2 isn't a slap in the face, but the Big East, as awesome as it was this year, didn't deserve three No. 1s, especially since UConn lost to Pitt twice this year.

That is all.

So Long Sucker … the Weekend that Was

It was quite an interesting weekend around these parts, to say the least. One minute, a trade is getting nullified. The next minute, you wind up at a strip club with a few ladies that may or may not be able to legally drink.



And that was all before Sunday. For starters, let me touch on this Kyle McLaren nonsense. Believe it or not, I consider this an extremely good thing. I know the Flyers were looking for an imposing defenseman to come in and, if nothing else, provide some insurance depth should a blue line body go down. Understandable. Beyond Andrew Alberts, the Flyers don't have a guy back there who's looking to take people out, and considering what transpired last year with the injuries to Kimmo Timonen and Braydon Coburn in the playoffs, insurance is good.



But, let's face the facts: Kyle McLaren is nothing more than Mike Rathje, and we all saw how that worked out for the Flyers. I'd feel infinitely more confident inserting Lasse Kukkonen, a guy who can actually skate a little bit, into the lineup should someone go down than the slow-footed McLaren. And hell, I'd have to think there's at least someone in the Phantoms organization that's a better option than McLaren. Either way, this trade getting nixed is a positive in my eyes.

As far as the Flyers themselves are concerned … Saturday's 4-1 win over Nashville was a nice way to rebound after that embarrassment at the hands of the Flames. Sure, the Predators aren't exactly, you know, good, but it was nice to see the Flyers take care of business. Joffrey Lupul deposited two goals, Mike Richards had another tremendous game and newcomer Daniel Carcillo notched an assist and was a +1. Oh yeah, and he fought, which was nice to see.

But, the story of the game was once again Martin Biron, who is officially stating his case to be the Flyers' man in net for the playoffs.



Following his tremendous display in his two periods against Calgary, Biron was fantastic again on Saturday, stopping 31 of 32 shots including a couple of dandies.





I think it's abundantly clear that Biron is the guy in net. He proved last year he's capable of coming up big when it matters, and suddenly, he looks as though he's getting into that groove again.

That was a nice primer before heading out to the Northeast to take in a little fun. And fun I had.

But unbeknownst to me, my alma mater wasn't having such a great time. Remember on Friday when I said Penn State should be getting their dancing shoes ready following the Nittany Lions' second win against Illinois. Yeah, well, scratch that. Turns out, for the second time this school year, Iowa ruined Penn State's season.

I didn't watch a second of this game, but it seems the Lions choked it up just like they did in football against those mother fucking Hawkeyes, this time with a double-overtime 75-67 loss. Apparently, Talor Battle did all he could, scoring 12 straight points in two minutes to keep the Lions in it, but his 26 points and 10 boards weren't enough to prevent Ed DeChellis from failing yet again.



Now, the Lions have had an excellent season, surpassing pretty much any expectations and bringing Penn State back to respectability. But that has been because of Battle, not DeChellis, who is pretty much as incompetent a coach as there is in the country. Get a decent coach in there with Battle doing his thing, and maybe Penn State would become more consistent. And seriously, someone needs to bomb Iowa to prevent the Hawkeyes from continually screwing us over. I fucking hate Iowa. Worthless state with nothing but dishonest jerks.

Now Penn State's gonna have to make a deep run in the Big 10 tournament and get a little help to make the Big Dance. A sixth seed in the Big 10 just isn't going to cut it on its own, nor should it. You lose to Iowa in your last game, and you don't really deserve to make it. That's just the way it is.

The Sixers, on the other hand, did manage to win on Saturday, albeit by just five points against a struggling Memphis squad. Here's the catch—they followed that up by losing to the Thunder without Kevin Durant. That's, as they say, god-fucking-awful.

As the calendar flipped over to 2009, the Sixers were playing some great ball and everyone, myself included, was saying how much better the Sixers are without Elton Brand. And that was and is true: The Sixers have played much, much better without Brand this season. Here's the thing: Better than bad still isn't good. And the Sixers are not a good basketball team. They're not really an awful team either, as the run in January proves, but losing to Oklahoma City this late in the year, with playoff positioning on the line, is not good. At all.



Andre Iguodala, who has had quite the inconsistent year, played his worst game since early in the season last night, scoring just 9 points on 3-11 from the field and 6 turnovers. That's not good for a guy who's supposed to be the man on this team. And that's the problem with the Sixers. They don't have that guy. They don't have a closer, the man who will put the team on his back and will them to victory. Andre Iguodala is getting paid like that guy, but he just isn't that guy. He does a lot of good things on the basketball court and is without question a player anyone would like to have on their team, but he's not a guy you feel confident will get you that bucket you need when you need it.

Andre Miller is probably the closest thing the Sixers have to that, but even when he's carrying the team and making big shots, it never seems like the Sixers can make it over the hump. With last night's loss, the Sixers dropped a game below .500 again, still in 7th place and two games ahead of Chicago, but they look like nothing more than a mediocre team. And as each day passes, the Sixers get closer and closer to facing either Cleveland, Boston or Orlando in the first round, meaning quite a short stay in the playoffs yet again.

It certainly hasn't turned out to be the year the Sixers had hoped.

Luckily, all was not lost yesterday, at least for me. In a fight of good vs. evil, the caretakers of the universe, North Carolina, topped the appropriately named Blue Devils, preventing Satan's minions from disrupting the balance of the Earth. What I'm trying to say is, as I've said before, when Duke loses, the rest of world wins. And yesterday, for the second time this season, Duke lost to North Carolina, giving UNC the outright regular season ACC championship.


Because this photo never gets old

It's pretty easy to say that North Carolina went 2-0 against Duke this season because UNC is simply better than Duke. And that would be true. But there's more to it than that. The Tar Heels are better for two main reasons: balance and versatility.

Take yesterday's game for instance. North Carolina had five players in double digits: Danny Green (12), Tyler Hansbrough (17), Ty Lawson (13), Deon Thompson (14) and Wayne Ellington (16). Duke had just five players in the entire game score, one of which had a measly two points. Contrast that with North Carolina's seven players who made a basket, and you get the idea.

The other thing is, UNC can beat you in different ways. They have guys who can score inside, guys who can score outside, drivers, slashers, shooters, pounders … and a point guard who should be a lock for ACC Player of the Year and be in the discussion for National Player of the Year (although Blake Griffin in a lock for that). On the other side, Duke has to hit the three ball to win, and that's a recipe for disaster come tournament time. You can't be one-dimensional, but beyond Gerald Henderson, Duke doesn't have another player who can get to the basket. The rest of the Dukies, Kyle Singler included, need to be on point from three to beat the top teams. That dependence on the three has been the reason Duke hasn't done jack shit in the tournament for a decade—and it's the reason they won't do jack shit again this year. This makes me very, very happy.

Now, surprisingly, yesterday's game was the most bored I've been in years watching a Duke-Carolina contest. I'm not exactly sure why, but it was. The game just wasn't very exciting. However, I'd like to give a little love to Philly's own Wayne "The Brain" Ellington for putting on quite an impressive showing (free throws aside) yesterday.



Ellington, who's been notorious over the years for coming up small in big games like yesterday's, scored 16 points and did it in impressive fashion. Known as nothing more than a deadly shooter as a freshman, Ellington has improved his ball-handling and aggressiveness attacking the rim over the past two years, and yesterday he used the whole repertoire to get his 16 points. At one point, he crossed up his former high school teammate Henderson badly, getting to the rim for a layup. On another bucket, he crashed the offensive glass on a beautiful putback. He also made a three, a couple short jumpers and a couple layups to account for his 7-10 shooting.



However, the 80-plus percent free throw shooter did go just 1-5 from the foul line, which was driving me nuts. In fact, the Tar Heels went a combined 17-25 from the line, just 68 percent, which was pretty annoying considering UNC is typically an excellent free throw shooting team. But nonetheless, the Tar Heels won the ACC Championship yesterday, giving Danny Green and Tyler Hansbrough a very nice gift in their senior seasons—not to mention two more wins this year against Duke.

It was a damn fine way to wrap up the weekend. Although Flight of the Conchords was pretty week last night, but I digress …