Freedom Isn't Free

What’s up yall. Hope everyone had a good time celebrating their freedom this weekend. I sure did as SAE’s from around the country invaded the nation’s capital, and by Sunday morning everyone was strug-a-ling. The Oceanliner would like to send a special shout out to Mr. Joshua Davis Glubiak, who called this weekend to let everyone know of his engagement to Meg. I could not be happier for the pre-newlyweds and am ecstatic for the wedding in Dallas next year. Plus now we have an excuse to take Rubiak to Vegas…

In completely different tone and news, I got a drastic haircut about 2 weeks ago, which has been my norm for a couple of years now: let it get shaggy as hell and then cut it real short. I like to get my money’s worth with haircuts. After this particular butchering, I got a lot of awkward “Did you get a haircut?” questions. I normally get about 13 pounds chopped off my head, so I feel like people can skip the “Did you” question and move straight to the haircut analysis. When people ask “Did you get a haircut?”, I wanted to respond with a deadpan “No.” and see how they reacted. I mean, a stupid question deserves a stupid answer. I would much rather have people lead off with, “Dude, Old, your head looks like a Q-tip now” than the impossibly obvious answer generating “Did you get a haircut?” Moving on.

It got announced a week or two ago, but I’ve got to give my 2 cents on the USA basketball roster for the Beijing Olympics. First of all, they didn’t have any tryouts, which is a huge mistake. Nothing brings out competition and intensity more than an open tryout, which is exactly what a complacent Team USA needs before heading off to Asia to represent our country. Feeling entitled is exactly why we didn’t win gold in 2004. Not having tryouts is just an extension of that.

This is especially troubling given some of the questionable selections made by team VP Jerry Colangelo. Dwayne Wade got shut down by the Heat midway through last season and has not played any meaningful basketball in a long time. He made the team by having an “impressive” private workout with Colangelo. Hmmmm, what would be better than a private workout to gauge the status of a star player coming back from injury? An open tryout! That way the coaching staff could accurately judge how well Wade is doing in his rehab playing against actual players in a pressure situation. Giving Wade a spot has got to create animosity with other players in the league who didn’t get the call.

I also think Wade’s style of play is ill suited for the international game. Half of Wade’s game is getting to the free throw line, and international refs are simply not going to call the petty hand checks and swiped that get called in the NBA. The finesse finger roll drive (aka the D-Wade special) is going to get eaten up by foreign defenders who will be allowed to be physical with a driving opponent.

The fact that Jason Kidd is also on the team is also flabbergasting. Colangelo must not have been following the NBA when Kidd got traded to the Mavs and guided them to an impressive first round playoff exit. An open tryout would prove how much of a lame duck he is now. Chris Paul and Deron Williams are thankfully on the team, but I believe even point guards like Chauncey Billups, Baron Davis and Brandon Roy would be a better fit on the Olympic team than Kidd. Hell, give me Daniel Gibson over Kidd; at least Boobie can shoot the rock. You have got to be able to knock down jumpers in international competition, and Kidd’s current 38% field goal percentage (read: Yikes) last year is just not going to cut it.

Kidd is also a huge defensive liability at this point in his career, which is a big risk. One of the main reasons the US didn’t win gold in Athens is because we couldn’t defend the high pick and roll, and the marksmen foreign shooters killed us with mid range jumpers. Kidd will get rained on all day long out there on defense. Billups, Davis and especially Roy are much better on defense than Kidd. Kidd might dish out a couple more dimes a game, but he bleeds big-time in every other department. An open tryout would expose this flaw and we could correct it early. Oh well.

The only other complaint I had was that Tyson Chandler was left off the team. He is exactly the kind of bruiser we need in the middle. A guy who is on the court to rebound, hustle and play defense. A guy who wears his emotions on his sleeve and will get his teammates fired up. He would also be a perfect fit with Paul on the team, as Chandler has proven to be fairly efficient on offense when working together with CP3. I would have chosen Chandler over frail Chris Bosh, but this is not an egregious omission.

I have heard a lot of criticism for the selection of Tayshaun Prince, but this is one pick I wholeheartedly agree with. Prince is incredibly versatile, unselfish to a fault, and like Chandler loves to hustle and play defense. This is the kind of guy you want to see on your bench when 3 other players have fouled out and Prince can come in and play 3 different positions without being a liability on either end of the court. Great pick here in my opinion. Plus Prince can maybe sucker the opposition into going easy on him with his heroin addict good looks.

In summer doldrum news, Fox Sports signed recently retired Michael Strahan to join their NFL pregame show on Sunday. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s now five people around the table for the Fox Sunday morning show. When will the networks realize that more is not better in terms of broadcasting? Having five people trying to share airtime is such a stupid and inefficient idea, especially considering Terry Bradshaw and Jimmy Johnson are on that panel. Whenever you have more than two or three people, the show disintegrates into one-upsmanship and annoying laughter. There should never be more than two people in the booth during a live sporting event and never more than three people hosting a pregame show. College Game Day was perfect when it was just Fowler (the moderator), Herbstreit (the ex-player) and Corso (the ex-coach). Now they have ruined it by bringing in Desmond Howard plus some joker celebrity every week. People are so stupid sometimes.

For those of you, who, like me, are fascinated by the world of college football recruiting, check out this superb article that appeared on SI.com last week about the history of recruiting:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/andy_staples/06/19/recruiting.main/index.html?eref=T1

I was sad that Charles Schwab was one of the title sponsors of the Wimbledon coverage this weekend. Not because I don’t like the company, but because those weird animation ads they run are so freaking stupid. The ones where it is just a person talking, but there is some kind of crazy CGI effect going on. There is absolutely no point of doing that, it looks retarded and I’m sure it cost a lot of money. Why not just show us an actual person talking? I feel like this is one instance where the producers were trying to be trendy and failed miserably. And you know how much I like trendy.

Well, that’s it for this week folks. I feel like I need a weekend to recover from the weekend I just had. Oh well, back to work. Until next time friends, stay safe, keep it real and remember where you came from.