Blake Murphy Sports Writing

Title: Random Thoughts From the Weekend
Date: March 25, 2007
Original Source: The On Deck Circle
Synopsis: Four articles into my career and already lacking topics? Come on! Anyway, this “random thoughts” approach comes back throughout the course of my archives, although this one was especially all over the place.

So I couldn’t really think of any one thing to write about, so over the weekend I scribbled some notes down and thought I’d hit up as many topics as I could in one piece.

-I know I should have been focused solely on college ball, but I got suckered in to watching Raptors vs. Nuggets since I was home and could see a Raptors TV game for once. On Chuck Swirsky Bobblehead night, the Raptors put on what I think was the most well executed half of basketball I’ve ever seen. The Raptors shot 67%, Garbo had a career high 21 points in the first half, TJ Ford had a double double, and a million other things went right to lead to a 72-43 halftime lead, all without Anthony Parker and Andrea Bargnani. The Nuggets shot under 30% and Melo/AI combined to go 3/17.-With my recent article on Sam Mitchell, I think I should throw his assistans some love as well. Jim Todd gives a great halftime interview, is always entertaining and funny, and has had a solid career as an assistant coach in the NBA. While he probably doesn’t have the mettel for a head coaching position, I’ll welcome him on any team I cheer for just for the halftime comments. Jay Triano is a shooting machine, a great coach of mechanics, and a great ambassador for basketball in Canada. It’s only a matter of time before Alex English is given a head coaching job. He’s a Hall of Famer, the best Denver Nugget of all-time, and has enough front-office connections around the league to land a job soon.

-$8M a year for Matt Schaub? At first I was astounded at this figure, as it seems way too much for an unproven quarterback who will have to learn a much different offense than the one he knows now. However, my buddy Sam pointed out something extremely relevant to me: He is better at this point than any 2nd year quarterback or any rookie in the draft this year, will make slightly less over the duration of his contract than all of those players, and has close to as much upside potential. On top of that, I’ll add, is that waving David Carr brought on only a small cap penalty, so it’s not a terrible move. If only they’d drafted Reggie Bush.

-I was really unimpressed with Bill Simmons’ mailbag from Friday. While normall it’s my favorite Simmons feature, and he is without a doubt my favorite sports writer, I get the feeling he wrote this last one while in a bad mood. He was snappy, provided mostly just short answers, and wasn’t as funny as usual. I don’t mean to chirp because he’s a role model as far as blog sites like this go, I just wasn’t pleased with the latest offering.

-On the other hand, DJ Gallo continues to get better and better in his role as the Page 2 funny man. AM Jump is hilarious when he does them Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and he’s starting to write his own full pieces with more frequency and, I believe, more freedom. He’s a really funny guy, and his Page 2 stuff is worth a look. His website, Sportspickle.com, is usually a good read, too, but the site is visually unattractive and awkward to navigate.

-Baseball Mogul 2008 is out. I haven’t got deep into it yet, but there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of improvements so if you’re a player, you might want to save your $25 and just download a roster patch for the 2007 edition.

-Friday Night Lights, the show, has only a few episodes left. I recommend watching them and catching up on any you’ve missed. The whole season has been great and offers a lot for everyone (guys, girls, football fans, and non fans). My only concern is that I’m not sure how well a 2nd season will do. A lot of the characters will have graduated, and there may be too many storylines to focus on (a path the show has already started on) with some people in college, new players on the team, and the further development of unimportant storylines like the one with Mr. Garrity and the hot chick’s mom.

-Rocky Balboa is out on DVD. If you haven’t seen it, rent it. If you have, buy it. It was a great wrap-up to bring the Rocky series full circle and make up for the Rocky V disaster. Stallone was awesome, and while his opponent (played by Antonio Tarver, who was good but my boy Roy Jones Jr. would have been better) wasn’t developed as a good guy or a bad guy, it’s still a great watch. It’s better than Rocky II, III, and V, but I’d still put it behind the original and Rocky IV starring my buddy Stu Wilkinson.

-Fight Night for Playstation 3 is insane, I can’t get enough. I haven’t played as much as I’d like but I figure during exams my thumbs will be bruised like crazy from knocking out B-Hop, JT, Roy Jones, and others as my middleweight fighter moves up the ranks.

-I watched the early games Thursday night in class. Praise whatever God you hold for March Madness On Demand on cbssportsline.com. If you’re not a VIP member, become one next year.

-Chris Bosh just hurt his ankle landing on Reggie Evans after a jump shot. He’s heading straight to the lockerroom, but walking fine. A scare, but we’re up 32 in the 2nd half so I think it’s safe to rest him for the rest of the game. Colangelo followed him into the lockerroom, which is great to see, the guy obviously cares a lot about this team.

-I can’t stress enough how great the Fred Jones/Juan Dixon trade was. It was no-lose, and Colangelo is a bright man for pulling it off. Fred Jones wasn’t playing, so trading him made sense. Juan Dixon has great upside and couldn’t do worse than Jones (0 minutes), so trading for him made sense. Dixon also makes $550,000 less this year and next, saving us $1.1M, so why not, right? On top of that, Dixon has shown flashes of brilliance before so a change of scenery was highly likely to help him out. In 14 games as a Raptor he’s averaging double digit points and career highs in rebounds and assists.

-Happy Birthday to Chris Bosh (23) and TJ Ford (24) on Saturday, as well as Jack Armstrong’s adopted son (10).

-The Blue Jays won a grapefruit game 6-5 Friday on the strength of 4 sacrifice flies, bizarre.

-The Wire and Entourage both re-start soon, so it’s time to get caught up on both. Entourage, entering season 3b, is the best “guy” show ever and everyone with a penis loves it. The Wire, on the other hand, is a much less heralded HBO show but the single greatest thing I’ve ever watched. It’s a Baltimore hood drama that looks at the drug game from the perspective of police, dealers, users, and those indirectly affected by the game. According to black people, it’s a really real show, and it’s crazy intense and worth catching up on as it enters its 5th and final season.

-Wrestlemania is just one week away. It’s well known among my close friends I’ve been a closet wrestling fan for a long time, however, I’ve successfully kicked the habit over the last two years or so. Even still, I find myself excited each March as Wrestlemania creeps up, and I’ve been suckered in to watching Raw every Monday the past few weeks to learn up on the Wrestlemania 23 matches. I’ll be watching either next Sunday from the movie theatre or Monday via download, and I don’t care how immature, redneck, or retarded it is. Every guy likes pro wrestling, it’s science.

-Zuffa, the company that owns UFC, has apparently purchased Pride FC, a Japanese mixed martial arts promotion. This would be a huge purchase and would really re-shape the evolution of the sport. More on this later this week in an article by Kyle Norton.

-On the note of wrestling and MMA, Brock Lesnar is scheduled to have his first professional MMA match in early May. For those who don’t know, Brock Lesnar is a 6’3”, 295lb. monster who is a 4-time NCAA All American and former NCAA Champion heavyweight wrestler. He is also a former WWE World Champion and was at the peak of the WWE before leaving to try and crack the Minnesota Vikings’ roster. Lesnar is training with Minnesota Martial Arts Academy, and has apparently been training with UFC Lightweight Champion Sean Sherk and Royce Gracie. Yes, Royce Gracie. So the most jacked man on the planet, who is a former wrestling champion, is also being trained by one of the greatest of all time. He’ll fight a 7’2” South Korean monster for K-1’s Heros show in May, so check that out on the internet after the fact.

-“NBA scolds Arenas for making $10 bets with fans.” That one explains itself.

-I think I have to see Blades of Glory this weekend.

-Great set of college games all weekend. I have never been as torn as I was in the UCLA/Kansas game from Saturday. I have Kansas on my bracket winning it all, but UCLA is my favorite team (and Texas), so it was tough watching Kansas lose but cheering every UCLA bucket. I love college ball, this is definitely the best time of the year.

That’s all for now. Expect two hits from me this week, one a Toronto Blue Jays’ season preview, and the other I haven’t decided yet.