Danny ChaiI respect Tim Lincecum, but his hair is awful. He looks like he should be a member of the Black Crowes. Or a hippie commune.
Prediction: Houston Rockets will make the playoffs this year even if Yao and McGrady don’t play a single game. I predict they’ll be the 6th seed.
Is the Spurs era over? Too early to tell, but I’m surprised at how bad they are so far.
The Cavs, as currently constructed, won’t even make it to the Eastern finals this year. Shaq is a team cancer. I think even George recognizes that now.
A number of people have been giving Stanford grief over their “unclassy” move of going for 2 late against USC while up 27. As I’ve been telling them, I won’t defend it. It was wrong. But I feel less bad because it was against Pete Carroll, and if you know him, he runs up the score all the time. I’m not saying it was justified. I just feel less bad for the opponent. I love Minho’s response to it – he hoped Stanford would onside kick. He knows USC.
Relatedly, Albert made a point about how he’d rather have all that Cal has achieved by playing the “right” way than what Stanford has now with a jerk of a coach. Obviously, we’d all like our teams to win and to do it the right way. But his statement made me think a lot, because I don’t know how far I’d take the “right” way thing. Like, I really love the current Rockets team – they all play the “right” way, with heart; I think you could describe every one of them as scrappy. Love them. But would I like it if they swapped teams with the Lakers, even though Derek Fisher is dirty, Artest crazy, and Kobe a whiner? Absolutely. You play to win the game. I’m not a pure mercenary, but there’s a balance, and I’d rather have some more winning and less “right” play (within reason) than more “right” play and less winning. Obviously, you want both, and I wish Harbaugh didn’t go for 2. But I am, above all, glad that Stanford is winning. I mean, a legit, straight-up crushing of USC – that’s the best football feeling I’ve had in a long time.
And while we’re talking about doing things the “right” way, another thing I take pride in as far as Stanford goes is it’s graduation rate. Here’s some analysis on football. Stanford football’s graduation rate far and away leads the Pac-10. Cal is mediocre at best, roughly on the same level as Ohio State (although, to be fair, the most recent NCAA report shows they’ve made strides under Tedford).
I also love that our stars are legit students. Toby is an MS&E major. Ignoring the fact that Management isn’t a science, that’s a legit major and I’m impressed. Not Kate Starbird CS Major level, but still. Andrew Luck was valedictorian at Stratford in Houston, and Texas high schools aren’t like those in CA – they rank students on a 100 point scale and there’s just a single valedictorian, not the dozen or so they seem to have every year at Whitney. Legit student.
Back to Harbaugh. Kris said that his move is something the football gods don’t look kindly upon. I’ll be honest – I’m worried about that myself. I’m still worried we may lose to Cal or Notre Dame. But a part of me is hoping that his move is the football gods’ payback for Carroll’s bad karma, that he’s the consequence of it, not the initiator.