Rounders and Free Agency

In the movie Rounders, Edward Norton and Matt Damon play life long friends who are gifted poker players and hustlers. Damon plays a law student recovering after a massive loss to mysterious Oreo twisting Teddy KGB, played by John Malkovich. Norton plays Worm, a recently released prisoner, who immediately goes back to poker houses trying to cheat and using Damon's good name as credit. After running up a bill on Damon's name, Damon's character sits down for one last show down with Teddy. Only when Damon figures out Teddy's tell, he starts to win and saves his life. This situation mirrors the Bulls this week.

Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) is Gar Forman. Gar is a good guy who inherited a situation from his friend Worm, who is John Paxson. Paxson created this idea of joining the Knicks for big time free agents last year by trading for Brad Miller and John Salmons, which freed up cap space. Paxson acts out like Norton's worm by fighting with Vinny Del Negro, the coach he hired to fire for Lebron (why else would he hire a guy for nothing with no experience for two years? Vinny was fired the day he was hired.) Paxson, like Norton, is now in the shadows leaving his friend to salvage the situation. If Gar fails, he is dead. The Chicago mob will kill him. He must figure out if Teddy, played by Lebron James/World Wide Wes, if bluffing. In recent days, World Wide Wes (best sports name ever) told Yahoo! Sports that Lebron is going to the Bulls with Bosh. Jalen Rose tweeted that Lebron was leaving (1. Is Twitter a credible source now for research papers like Wikipedia? 2. Would you trust someone who wore that on the biggest day of their life?). Today, the New York Times reported the same thing from a NBA executive from a Lebron suitor. The executive claims Lebron will sit with all the teams and thank them for making an effort.

Gar has a lot at stake. If he reads the situation correctly, he can assemble a team that is NBA 2K worthy. History tells us that all champions have two Hall of Famers, except the Pistons of 2003-2004 (the worst championship team ever). Lebron and Bosh could be the next Kobe and Gasol (I said "could be"). History also tells us the Bulls are not very good with big moves and free agency. They tried this in 2000 with Tracy McGrady and ended up with Eddie Robinson (right) and Ron Mercer along with the worst record in the NBA. Side note, the Google search of Eddie Robinson just got me high, wow man (I'm so hungry, I could eat myself out of the NBA). They tried to trade for Kobe and couldn't get that done. Returning to the present, Wade is staying in Miami, and that I am 100% sure of. If Lebron stays with the Cavs, then Bosh will join him on South Beach and Gar will be scrambling. If he fails with the Lebron/Bosh signings, then he will resort to these options:

Joe Johnson: The oldest of the free agents at 29. His scoring dipped in the playoffs from 21 ppg to 12.8 in the second round against Orlando. Not exactly a "clutch" player since every highlight this year was of Jamal Crawford, a Bulls cast off, taking the last second shots. Also, he enjoys the iso offense, so not a big team guy.

Carlos Boozer: A gifted traditional post player. Great pick and roll guy in Utah. Health is not his strong suit. Out of six seasons in Utah, he only made it over 70 games played twice and one was in a contract year. Some will say that means nothing, but this is the same guy who at the last second backed out of a deal to stay with the Lebrons to bolt to the Jazz for more money, so his loyalty is about as good as his health (not saying I wouldn't have done the same, but he is shaddy).

Amar'e Stoudemire: After claiming he owns Pau and Lamar, he got beat so bad his team had to play zone the entire series. This Youtube video will test Tom Thibodeau's defensive teaching skills.





Rudy Gay: Rick Majerus summarizes it well (check out Lavin laughing). He is a good player who could help a team, just not the Bulls. I like him for the Clippers because they just need dunks, not wins. He has the potential to be the next Andre Iguodala aka Franchise Murderer.



Gar needs to figure out if Lebron is creating the news for fun or because he is serious. The franchise is on the table and we are all in (insert more poker cliches here). Up until today, I thought Lebron was staying in Cleveland, but now there seems to be so much momentum behind Chicago that I can't ignore it. We could end up winning the pot (I did it!!!) and star in The Dynasty Returns: Lebron Strikes Back and Return of the Jordans. Or we sign these other guys and finish in the second half of the conference getting our asses handed to us year after year. One day, Gar would recover and rejoin the table to play this very same game with Derrick Rose...if he makes it that long. May God be with us on July 1st and thank any Wizards fans you know.

World Cup:

The World Cup is a great break from boring ass baseball, but I hate how ESPN keeps trying to say how the win to get us into the knock out stage is going to change USA soccer. Soccer will never be big in America. Period. First, any sport that has this said every four years clearly has not made that jump and there is no evidence it will. How many times does it take to make that jump? The sport that has made that jump is MMA because Americans are sick perverts looking for death on pay-per-view. MMA is the sport that caught the mainstream by combining the snobbish pay-per-view/closet case wrestling fans and the red neck Americans. Second, the NBA, NFL, and MLB get the top athletes in our country. City kids are not buying soccer balls. MLB can't even get inner city kids to play baseball so they started the RBI program. Suburban kids all play soccer as children, yet most gravitate towards other sports with age. ESPN, have you noticed Americans suck at tennis lately? Maybe it is because our best athletes don't play tennis professionally. Drew Brees and Gordon Hayword were both excellent tennis players who chose other sports. The money and fame are all state side with the NBA and so forth. Europeans love soccer because they can be famous at home. South Americans and Africans get to leave their poverty stricken countries for the bright lights of the Western World. U.S. athletes are not going to switch over to soccer. Bringing over washed up stars like David Beckham is not going to make people care except horny women. ESPN, go apologize to Brett Favre for ignoring him during the month of June and stop pushing soccer down our youth's throats. I want my kids to be rich and play for the Lakers, not the Columbus Crew.