SU always finds it useful to review its predictions with the intergalactic subscriber base – especially when we are pretty much on target.  Perhaps you may recall this post from April 17th:

SU is ready for the NBA playoffs.  While I had been previously high on the Spurs’ chances to repeat, losing that final game dropped them from the #2 seed to #6 and a first round series with the Clippers.  SU has a funny feeling about the Clippers this year – might be their last year to play together with this current roster.  SU says they will beat the Spurs in this round but Golden State has been the gold standard all season with only 2 home losses.  They are finals bound out West.  In the East, SU would love to see a real team make the finals like the Hawks but I think we have not seen Cleveland play its best ball of the year as of yet.  Plus, SU is rooting for JR, Shump and Mosgov on the Cavs and their high octane style of play.  But a Cavs-Hawks Eastern Conference finals would be a lot of fun.  Warriors over the Cavs in the finals.

There are persistent rumors out there in NBA circles that some coach who appears to be in a reasonably stable position is going to be canned and that Tom Thibodeau will get that spot.  One article had the Knicks being that team and looking to send Derek Fisher packing (article sent to SU by long-time subscriber T. Potter).  SU does not see that happening.  Phil Jackson is very stubborn and will want to see his triangle offense through with his hand-picked guy.  But Thibodeau is a name brand and it’s a story worth following for the next week or so.

SU is a big-time Novak Djokovic fan.  Not only is he a great player, he is also a great ambassador for the sport.  Check out this video from the French Open as he warmed up before his match yesterday.  Somehow you don’t picture Nadal or Federer doing this.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2015/05/21/Roland-Garros-Saturday-Djokovic-Ball-Kids.aspx

So, was the NY Rangers’ season considered to be a success?  Many of the sports talk radio callers yesterday would say otherwise but SU believes making it to game 7 of the Conference Finals has to be viewed as a positive.  Especially when you play so many 1-goal games the margins are very small.  They still seem built to continue winning and fans should be optimistic going into next season.

The Yankees pulled out a win against one of baseball’s worst teams in the A’s last night.  SU notes that Brett Gardner is now slumping without Ellbury in the line up.  The reality with Ellsbury throughout his career is that he almost never plays a full season.  He is an injury-prone guy and you have to figure he will miss 4-6 weeks every season (at $21 million a year).  SU maintains its position that just because you are in 1st place in a horrible division, it doesn’t make it more exciting for the fans.  Being a .500 team with boring players is not a product that you can market with their ticket pricing structure.  SU continues to wait on Cashman to either go young or make a move for a middle infielder who can hit even a little bit.

The Mets continue to hang in there in 2nd place but they also need an offensive upgrade.  SU says the investment will pay off in higher ratings and higher attendance.  Time to make the move as players will start to become available from a number of teams.

Let’s face it: the NBA playoffs save for the Clippers-Spurs series have been awful this year.  So many untimely injuries have hurt really good regular season teams at the worst time and created mis-matches in the playoffs.  It’s why you really need to admire LeBron and what he has accomplished with the Cavs with the loss of Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving being marginalized to a large extent.

SU has been struck by the play of Dellavedova and the havoc he has caused with injuries.  He is the kind of player when if he’s on your team, he’s scrappy and a fighter.  But for the opponent, he is annoying and worse, a hazzard to your health.  Many of you have played pick-up hoops and you know there are guys out there who are always banging into you, low bridging and wreaking havoc.  You learn to keep an eye out for them and avoid contact where possible.  Dellavedova is a hustler but when he dives on the floor, he knows he will be slamming into other players’ legs and the reality is that he knows he may be causing injury.  Sure, you want guys to be the first on the floor but SU believes he crosses the line and it’s no accident that Corver and Horford either were injured or almost injured.  LeBron will defend him but trust me: if he was on the other team and undercut LeBron, there would not be big hugs all around.

Basketball players are a fraternity to a point but over the years there have been plenty of these types of players who play hard but cross the line: Rick Mahorn; Bill Lambier; Psycho T on the Raptors (Tyler Hansbrough).  In baseball, it’s even a stronger fraternity with big hugs all around on the bases and you see little of this except for the occasional hard slide at 2nd base or a brushback pitch.  And in the NFL, it’s the other extreme as defensive backs are looking to maim and injure as much as possible.

Long-time SU subscriber A. Grossman emailed SU (mistakenly not just posting his comment on the blog) in all CAPS which I have maintained here to reflect the intensity of his comments:

“BEFORE I REMIND YOU TO WATCH A NON STOP INTENSE GAME WHERE EVERY PLAYER GIVES 110%… UNLIKE ANY OTHER SPORT I AM GAINING MORE AND MORE FAVOR IN PLACING LEBRON EVER SO CLOSE TO MICHAEL JORDAN AS THE GREATEST PLAYER OUTSIDE OF WILT CHAMBERLAIN TO EVER PLAY THE GAME. OK… SO HE DOESN’T HAVE 6 RINGS… BUT HE HAS GONE TO THE FINALS 5 STRAIGHT TIMES WITH THIS CURRENT ONE BEING THE MOST IMPRESSIVE BASED ON WHAT SUPPORTING CAST HE HAS TO WORK WITH. I DON’T THINK JORDAN COULD DO WHAT HE HAS DONE WITH THE CAVALIERS SITUATION AS WELL.”

I PUT CHAMBERLAIN AHEAD OF EVERYONE ELSE BECUASE HIS STATS WERE AS OFF THE CHARTS AS GRETSKY’S WERE… EVEN MORE SO… AND DONE WITHOUT REAL GUIDANCE FROM HIS COACHES. HE WAS THE MOST UNSTOPPABLE SPORTS FIGURE EVER…. BESIDES BABE RUTH.

SU would agree.  He can be a bit too impressed with himself at times but he is one of the all time greats even at this point in his career.

Are the Rangers’ faithful feeling confident?  Anyone want to weigh in?

For those of you that took in a few minutes of yesterday’s Yankee game, that may have been the bottom.  There is certainly the theory that in a long season, you go go through peaks and valleys but SU is pretty certain that this is who they are with the current roster.  Carlos Beltran has a nice hitting streak going with basically 1 hit a game.  Texeira has been red hot for him this early in the season but he is not going to hit 40 homeruns and drive in 120 runs this year so he will cool.  The issue is that McCann and Headley are only mediocre hitters and will not pick up the slack.  If George was alive, surely someone like Stephen Drew would have been sent packing by now.  SU says players need to earn their playing time.  Girardi needs to make guys uncomfortable.  Open the Wilkes Barre Scranton express.

Good comment from relatively new SU subscriber A. Zagin yesterday on Kyrie Irving:

“I think the cavs play is slightly less surprising than most fans think. All year people praised kyrie Irving offensively, and he is extremely talented, but is his absence or injury plagued playoffs that much of a loss. Lebron was fortunate to have him alleviate some of the regular season rigors, but the playoffs are entirely different. With kyrie either spotting for up or on the bench, the most noticeable result is that all of the isolation sets that lebron used to allow kyrie to run, mostly when lebron needed a rest, are now being taken over by lebron himself. This just gives lebron more time with the ball in his hand, and while he’s not the shooter Irving is, he’s stronger, finishes better, and sees the floor better. Combine all of this with the fact that kyrie’ minutes are being filled with Matthew dellavadova, who people forget was arguably the best college player in the country his senior year. Dellavadova, while not as offensively gifted as Irving, is a much bigger and better defender who can knock down open jump shots created by lebron.”

One thing about Kyrie is that he is a terrible defender.  SU assumes his game will evolve over time on the defensive end.  I am not a fan of Dellavadova as he rarely shoots well when given more minutes.  But he is a tough kid and as Andrew points out, was a force offensively in college.  I still think the Cavs are much better with Kyrie contributing some minutes as LeBron can wear out having to play both ends against the Warriors.

Crazy number of injuries in the NBA playoffs this year.  They are really having an impact on the various series.

SU has been a long-time LeBron fan but this year you really have to appreciate just how good he is.  Kevin Love goes down for the series with the Bulls and is gone for the year and now Kyrie Irving is hobbled in the Conference Finals.  You don’t hear any whining from James.  He just raises his game and is 2 wins away from the Finals.  Did you know that in his career, LeBron has surpassed 30 points in 44% of his 174 playoff games?  That is an amazing stat.  And he is not just out there chucking it up.  Interesting quotes from his teammates after last night’s win:

“He helps us elevate our game,” Tristan Thompson said. “Playing with a great player like him just makes you want to get better, makes you want to put the time in watching film and I think that’s what great players do. They take the group around them and help elevate their game.”

“We all have a skill set and you want to be able to get to your skill set and do what you do best and he allows that,” Jones said. “If you’re a defender and you’re an on-ball defender, you know you can pressure up because he’s a great weakside defender and that gives you the confidence. If you’re a shooter, he gets you the ball in spots. If you’re a big man, he finds you in transition. So, all the different facets on the game he’s able to impact.”

For SU, it’s such a contrast with what you have in NY with Carmelo.  You never, ever hear comments like this.  It just highlights the distance between LeBron and that next tier superstar in the NBA.  Money-wise, it’s the same.  Impact-wise?  Miles and miles apart.

Jeff Van Gundy is a leading candidate for the Pelicans’ head coaching job.  Good for him.  Good guy, good coach.  Mike D’Antoni is apparently in the running for the Denver Nuggets position.  SU would love to see him get that job and then bring in Jeremy Lin to run his offense.  That would justify my purchase of next season’s NBA Season Pass to watch those games.

Yankees getting clobbered again today – 10-0 half-way through.  The only positive that could come out of this is that Cashman might finally start bringing up some youngsters to replace his under-performing veterans.  Stephen Drew may still be a viable major league player but not in New York.  He is one of those players who cannot perform here.  Bring up Refsnyder from the minors.  If he makes a lot of errors, believe me – no-one will notice as the whole team makes a lot of errors.  Didi Gregorius just cannot hit at all.  Is this the best Cashman can do?  Use the rest of the season to play the young guys.  The fans demand it.

Finally, the French Open starts tomorrow and the men’s draw has Djokovic playing Nadal in the quarterfinals.  I know they come up with a draw by picking names out of a hat but that is crazy.  SU is pulling for Djokovic to get that first French championship and his career Grand Slam.  To win it, he will likely have to beat Nadal, Murray and Federer in succession.  If you win a major in Men’s tennis, you have earned it.

SU is on the way back from some badly need R&R time, but of course has its finger on the pulse of the latest developments in the sports world.  A few thoughts this morning:

• Memorial Day is a key benchmark for baseball teams.  You can generally tell what you have for the season by now.  For the Yankees, who always have higher expectations, SU will stick to its original prediction of at best a .500 team.  Early season success has given way to a spotty offense that is geared to Ellsbury and Gardner getting on base.  Ellsbury has never played a full season and going on the DL will no doubt impact their ability to score consistently.  For the diehard fans like SU, there is little to get excited about with this year’s team.  Admit it – other than seeing A-Rod come up, who are you watching on the edge of your seat?  Chase Headley?  The injuries to the pitching will only heighten the need to get younger and sooner.  SU says bring up the young guys and at least give fans something to watch.
• For the Mets, they never have the same expectations and have surprised thus far with an impressive record despite some important injuries.  The addition of Syndergaard to the rotation is great and now you have three young studs going every 5 days.  Once Wright returns, the offense should stabilize a bit.  They should be in the mix through July and then we shall see if they have staying power.
• What have we learned about tanking an NBA season?  First, do not go out and win a couple of late season games for pride.  Bad move by the Knicks there.  You have to be all in on tanking.  Second, this year’s draft requires you to be in the #1 or #2 spot.  At #4, the Knicks will have to gamble on the kid from the Congo playing in China (or more accurately being injured in China) or else take a lesser impact player.  What’s amusing is that many sports writers are saying that you have to draft someone who will blend nicely with Carmelo.  So, if you go with the point guard, he will have to learn to stand in certain parts of the court once the ball stops moving.  Sure, they will play the triangle offense into late November but after that, Melo will have seen enough and taken over the new and improved “isolation triangle” offense.  This will be Phil Jackson’s defining off-season with the draft picks and some cap room.  Prepare to be under-whelmed.
• SU enjoys watching LeBron and surely he is the best player in the league.  But why do you go away from an offensive scheme that works for the first 44 minutes of the game to having James go one-on-one for the last 4 minutes?  From what SU has seen, he risks losing leads in these games.  It’s fine to isolate him but he still needs to pass it to the wings if guys are open.  He has not been that effective doing this late in games.  SU expects more from him.

As many who follow SU on a regular basis know, SU has not been a full believer in the early season success of the Yankees.  Starters who can’t go longer than 5 innings and an offense built on the homerun do not spell long-term success.  Things peaked last Sunday when Pineda struck out 16 hitters in a dominant performance.  Now, 4 losses in a row later, the Yankees are dropping to what is most likely their true performance level, i.e., around .500.  They have played a ton of games against the other equally mediocre Eastern Division teams and now the schedule becomes a bit more diverse.  As Michael Ray Richardson says, “the ship be sinking.”  SU believes it’s really just a fall-off to what is their real level.

The Mets are in a similar free-fall and I would have to say they will also find their level.  They do have the excuse of a ton of injuries to some key guys (Wright, D’Arnaud) but after being swept by the Cubs, they were trounced tonight by the Brewers.  The NY teams are trending very similarly right now – and in the wrong direction.  We may all look back fondly to early May as the peak of the season.

The Clippers had an historic meltdown going for the series win last night against the Rockets.  They were out-scored 40 – 15 in the 4th quarter and blew a 19-point 3rd quarter lead.  SU  still believes the Clippers can win game 7 on the road but this will be a real gut check for them.

Jorge Posada has come out with a new book on his career with the Yankees.  Check out the link below from today’s New York Daily News:

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/new-book-jorge-posada-reveals-bitter-core-article-1.2216846

SU was always a big Jorge fan.  Tough guy, really cared about winning and losing, played with a lot of heart and fire.  From the attached article, you can see that he was not a happy camper the last few years, and he was especially unhappy having Joe Girardi as his manager.  He took the catcher’s job from Girardi in the late 1990s and he clearly did not enjoy playing for him at the tail end of his career.

But way too much whining about batting lower in the order, not being allowed to catch anymore, no team spirit, etc.  Writing a book like this only tarnishes his image and makes him look bad.  Fans were left with a very postiive view of him as a “true Yankee” (whatever that means) and a warrior.  It is good to see that he still hates Pedro Martinez.

SU says leave with class.  Not everyone gets to have the lovefest in their last season like Mariano and Jeter.  This book was a mistake.

As an NBA team playing in a hotly contested playoff game, do you want your star players to be able to over-rule the coach when designing the plays for the end of the game?  Take yesterday’s game between the Bulls and the Cavs.  1.5 seconds left in the game.  LeBron has shot 9 for 29 for the game and has committed 2 offensive fouls in the last minute and a half.  Kyrie Irving hurt is ankle and has been a non-factor.  Coach Dave Blatt, rookie in the NBA but very experienced internationally, has LeBron taking out the ball underneath the basket.  In the huddle, LeBron over-rules the coach and says just give me the ball.  Naturally, he drains a fall back base line jumper from the corner at the buzzer and is the hero.  But is this a good thing?

This incident made me recall the series between the Knicks and the Bulls back in the mid-1990s after Jordan had “retired” and Scottie Pippen was the star player.  Phil Jackson drew up a last second play for Toni Kukoc to take the shot.  Pippen got pissed off in the huddle and took himself out of the game.  Kukoc hit the 3-pointer to win the game and Pippen looked like a fool and a spoiled, selfish NBA star.  In that case, Jackson wanted to use Pippen as a decoy to free up Kukoc to take the shot.

We all know the NBA is a star’s league – more so than any other professional sport.  No doubt, a lot of this goes on in late game huddles.  Hell, even in the movie Hoosiers, coach Gene Hackman originally had someone else taking the last shot in the championship game until Jimmie Chitwood spoke up that he would make it and the coach changed the play.  It is unusual that your star player feels the need to publicly acknowledge what happened in the post-game press conference, and make your coach look a little small.  For Dave Blatt, he also lost track of the timeouts and almost called one in the last few seconds that he didn’t have which would have resulted in a technical foul and loss of possession (and likely the game).  But one of his assistants pulled him back to the bench and saved him.

From SU’s standpoint, these coaches have 27 assistants to help them in these situations (note: back in the Knick glory days, it was just coach Red Holzman and he had trainer Danny Whelan who kept track of the timeouts.  No other assistants on the bench back then).  Blatt will now be in the spotlight and may be viewed as a puppet coach who is being manipulated by LeBron the rest of the playoffs.  SU does not love this situation because here is how it may play out.  If Cleveland advances and goes all the way, LeBron adds to his legacy as superstar and pseudo-coach.  If they lose, and it’s because of some late game decisions by LeBron, he will blame it on the coach.  LeBron needs to set the record straight today that Dave Blatt is the coach and the players have some input at times – even if it’s not  true.  And the reason is that things will only spiral downhill from here if they don’t nip it in the bud.  SU is not a fan of the control freak coach who calls every possession like Pat Riley.  But there needs to be some order in late games situations.

Your thoughts?

SU has a theory on why the fans have rallied around A-Rod so quickly in NY this year.  First, check out a today’s read by Wally Matthews on espn.com:

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/yankees/post/_/id/85025/alex-rodriguez-the-winner-in-dispute-with-yankees

SU believes it’s a combination of three factors.  First,  A-Rod has gotten off to a good start and has hit some tape-measure homeruns.  Second, he is saying all the right things and has been able to stick to the story line without being tempted by the media to go negative.  And third, it’s the absence of the shadow of Derek Jeter and SU believes this is in fact the most important reason.  Jeter always did everything right, he never, ever mis-spoke (as he learned to say nothing in answering reporters’ questions) and for the last few years, he did not have A-Rod’s back anymore.  They were best friends back in the mid-1990s but after the Esquire article where A-Rod bad-mouthed Jeter (slightly), well, that was that.  After the 2009 World Series win, it just got bad and they really didn’t interact much anymore.  The fans sensed that too and as long as Jeter was around, A-Rod would always be the bad guy and would always get the boos – especially at home if he failed to come through.  With Jeter now retired, if you notice, A-Rod is no longer booed at home when he strikes out or leaves guys on base.  We live in the post-Jeter era now and SU believes A-Rod also feels less pressure without Derek around.  He is playing much more relaxed (and chemical free).

Much of the Yankees’ success this season is due to the combination of Ellsbury and Gardner at the top of the line-up.  Some said last year that Girardi should have moved Jeter down in the order to take advantage of this but did not want to diss him in his final season.  Given how bad their offense was last year, it looks like that would have been a good move.

Ellsbury is on fire of late batting around .500 for an extended period of time but still only has 4 rbis on the season because he bats in front of Stephen Drew and Sir Didi Gregorius.  That is amazing.  For the Yankees to have close to the best record in the AL with those two plus Beltran in the bottom of the line up is impressive.  Surely Perela will start to get more playing time and the Stephen Drew era in NY will end.  Some team must need a shortstop for the 2nd half of the season.

Finally, Deflategate is getting out of hand.  There is talk now of a 4- or 8-game suspension for Brady.  SU cannot believe this.  It reminds me of the Mitchell Report in baseball where they exposed a handful of players for possible PED use and they took the fall for everyone else who was using PEDs.  They all remained silent.  Don’t you find it hard to believe that other NFL QBs are not doctoring the air pressure of their game balls?  I am not a Patriot fan but the punishment does not fit the crime here.  The refs handle the ball on every play – every play.  If the air pressure was that far below the 12.5 psi threshold, they would have noticed it.  It will be interesting to see if Brady gets both fined and suspended over this.

So, let me see if I have this right?  The New England Patriots took air out of the balls in order to cause a traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge.  Oh wait, I am mixing up Deflategate with Bridgegate.  The NFL just released its report and while it’s “probable” that the Patriots equipment personnel took air out of the game balls, there is no smoking pin.  SU may be on the wrong side of this but I just cannot get too excited over this.  I know the golfers out there will be outraged as they play by a thousand specific rules and police themselves on the course (I guess be careful if you play with an NFL player).  The baseball players will just yawn as MLB stars have been taking PEDs for years and before this era you had catchers and pitchers scuffing balls and hitters corking bats.  In hockey, they curve their sticks a little extra.  In tennis, they try and put a few extra dimples on their sneakers to play at Wimbledon for better traction.  Basketball is harder – not a lot of equipment other than the ball.  No doubt there will be suspensions for Brady and the equipment guys and by the way, once again you really shouldn’t use email to communicate with one another about how you are going to circumvent the rules.

Many in the SU universe will say that the integrity of the game has been damaged and that this is a gross violation.  SU says that in every sport, players and coaches are constantly looking to gain advantage and that they push the rules to the limit and beyond in doing so.

Do you agree?  What say you?  Or will you leave SU talking to myself?