Do Professional Athletes “Make Too Much Money”?

I promise I’ll get one of my own posted tomorrow… but until then this is the second in a row from Mr. Wright:

M.D. Wright

8.16.2010

Professional Athletes “Make Too Much Money”?

Do they?

Or is it a bunch of jealous people who wish they were in these guys’ position if they had the chance? Let’s dissect.

I listen to people. I actually prefer listening to talking, even though people close to me know I can ramble have rants FOR THE AGES. But in listening to people, I hear a lot of inherent biases and jealousies at play in the comments I hear. Besides, what is the basis for them saying that? And if they really believe what they claim, where is the outrage regarding the owners of the teams who earn 100 times more than the highest paid player in any league?

New USA Basketball Jerseys

I don’t have a whole lot of time to write about this, but Bryan emailed me a link about it so I figured I’d put it up real quick. The United States has new jerseys for it’s basketball team. Thanks to Nike’s awesomeness the jerseys look nearly the same but weigh significantly less. The jersey somehow has 13 inches less of material than before and the shorts weigh about half as much as the old ones. I don’t really know how much of a difference all this will make, but at the very least it sounds impressive; and hey, every little bit counts, right?

NBA Playoffs Preview – First Round

This is written by somebody who we are hoping will become a regular contributor. His name is Adam and he actually knows and follows the NBA which -as many of you know- is something we’ve been missing from this website. Either way, here’s his preview for the playoffs:

First off, I would like to say that I live in the greatest state for the NBA…Missouri, with two major cities St. Louis and Kansas City and a combined number of zero teams. So that means I have no team, but I love the NBA and always have since I can remember, of course I grew up a Bulls fan (who didn’t)!

The NBA seems to be somewhat rejuvenated from a competitive standpoint with a crop of true Superstars in LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, and many more. Sure the defense is still lax for most of the game during the regular season, but for the Playoffs it is different. That’s why I’ve always said that for the casual basketball fan or the NBA hater that the NBA Playoffs are the time to watch. It’s when the greatest players in the world play their hardest and for the NBA fan, it’s the best time of the year!

Weller’s Favorite Teams

Bryan and I were trying to come up with something for one of us to write tonight. Later this week I will be putting up a new mock draft and will be taking another look at the NFL playoff situation while Bryan will be putting up another one of his draft position posts, but tonight neither of us could come up with anything to write. With nothing else coming to mind I decided to lay out where my loyalties lie in each sport. I will briefly explain why each team is my favorite for that specific league and list a runner-up as well. This idea came to me because over the weekend I had stopped in Columbia, MO on my way from Knoxville back to my parents house for Christmas. On Saturday morning we watched a soccer game from the EPL (English Premiere League). After the game Bryan suggested that I pick an EPL team to be a fan of. I ended up settling on one and which team it is will be revealed later in this post. Let’s get started.

Weekend Update

Bryan and I were both out of town for Fourth of July weekend and weren’t on the internet at all. There were some pretty big things that happened in the world of sports that we feel should be mentioned but didn’t have the opportunity to write full posts on. I’ll just give a quick one or two sentences about each one.

– Steve McNair was shot to death in his downtown Nashville apartment. It currently looks as though it was a murder suicide by the girl whose body was found next to his.

– Roger Federer beat Andy Roddick for his 15th Grand Slam at Wimbledon, passing Pete Sampras previous record of 14 career Grand Slam victories.

– Tiger Woods won the AT&T National this weekend. This gives Tiger 68 career PGA Tour wins, five short of Jack Nicklaus and 14 short of Sam Snead’s record 82 career wins.

– Manny Ramirez returned from suspension and hit a home run in his second game back.

– USA beat Grenada in soccer to win their first round match of the 2009 Gold Cup and will face Honduras in their second game.

– Serena Williams beat sister Venus Williams to win Wimbledon on the women’s side and then the two teamed up to win doubles.

– Three stages into the Tour de France, Lance Armstrong is currently in third. He is seven seconds behind Tony Martin and 40 seconds behind Fabian Cancellara.

– Some big name NBA free agents have agreed to terms with different teams from the ones they played with this past year. The most notable are: Ben Gordon to the Pistons, Hedo Turkaglu to the Raptors, Trevor Ariza to the Rockets, Charlie Villanueva to the Pistons, Rasheed Wallace to the Celtics, Marcin Gortat to the Mavericks, and Ron Artest to the Lakers.

– And most importantly Bryan and I got the oportunity to play two games of Schleuderball over the weekend and we won both games.

Cleveland Cavaliers Get Shaq

Do you hear that distant noise? That’s Lebron James throwing a party.

LeBron’s Non-Handshake

LeBron James

Usually I go for a run at this time, but since it decided to pour rain when I got off work, I’m reading sports articles instead.  Unfortunately, everywhere I go, I find articles like this one.  I’ve stated before that I just don’t like basketball, so this is venturing into unknown (and probably unwelcome) territory for me.  Luckily for me, it’s not real basketball news; in fact, it’s not real news.  It’s kind of dumb.  If you haven’t heard already, LeBron James didn’t shake hands with anyone after the Orlando Magic beat James’ Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals.  He also didn’t show up to a post game press conference.

Story ends there, right?  Of course not.

Glen Davis Apologizes…For Doing Nothing.

I had planned on putting this up before I went to a concert tonight, but it wasn’t meant to be.  Oh well, it all reads the same.  While I was at work this morning I ran across this article.  On Sunday, Big Baby Glen Davis hit a jumper at the buzzer to beat the Orlando Magic and tie their playoff series at 2.  After the shot, he turned to celebrate with his teammates and inadvertently bumped a 12-year-old boy.  Boo. Hoo.

NBA All-Star Weekend

While I love Major League Baseball’s All-Star festivities, mainly because the game is played like a real game, I think the NBA may take the crown for the most entertaining All-Star break. In the game itself, no defense is played, but that is kind of fun in an NBA setting. Seeing all the alley-oops and 360 dunks is quite entertaining.

Stat of the Day (Assists Per Game)

Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets currently leads the NBA in assists per game with 11.71. If he can maintain this pace, it would be the highest assists per game total since John Stockton of the Utah Jazz led the league with 12.33 assists per game in the 1994-95 season.

Bonus stat: Stockton posted the highest assists per game total for a single season during the 1989-90 season, when he racked up 14.54 assists per contest.