What will the season hold for the Sacramento Kings? It’s unclear, but a few observations were gleaned from their season-opening 100-91 victory over the Lakers on Monday:
1. Cousins grew up: If this game is any indication, DeMarcus Cousins is a dramatically different player than he was last season. He has matured physically and mentally.
He looks leaner and faster on court. It showed in more than the 12 points and 11 rebounds he contributed. He was pesky toward the Lakers’ big men, poking the ball away if he couldn’t haul down a rebound, and hard to get by, drawing a crucial charging foul by Kobe Bryant with 57 seconds left.
Cousins also kept his cool in situations he might have lost it last year. He still pouted after not drawing a foul on a few possessions, but when he was called for his third foul late in the first half, he bent over, talked to the ref and patted him on the butt when their discussion was over. He didn’t go nuts when he drew a double-technical with Lakers center Pau Gasol after the two got tangled up; he took a seat on the bench when coach Paul Westphal pulled him and cheered his team on. [click to continue…]
Phoenix Municipal Stadium. Photo courtesy of Flickr.com
It didn’t gain big headlines. In fact, the San Francisco Chronicle buried it on Page 7 of The Sporting Green. Yet news that the Oakland Athletics may be moving their spring training operations to Mesa, Ariz., could affect half the Cactus League when the dust has settled.
In case you missed it, the A’s have entered into an exclusive negotiating period through May 15 with Mesa to discuss playing at Hohokam Park in 2015. That is one year after the Cubs will have left for their new “Wrigleyville West” stadium, which Mesa is building it its Riverview area.
An A’s spring move from one Phoenix-area park to another has far-reaching ramifications, not just with the Cactus League but the rest of the spring training in Major League Baseball: [click to continue…]
Sometimes the world of sports and politics intersect. Sometimes sports and journalism intersect. But rarely do journalism, sports and politics all cross the way they did this week.
The topic was Sarah Palin, who is a subject of a new biography by Joe McGinniss that had excerpts leaked by, of all publications, The National Enquirer.
The Enquirer, which is is known for having questionable ethics, raised some eyebrows in the sports and political world when it reported that Palin in 1987 had a tryst with former University of Michigan basketball player Glen Rice, who would go on to moderate stardom in the NBA.
The hookup wouldn’t be of note unless you knew that Palin at the time was a sports anchor/reporter for KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Alaska. She was covering the Great Alaska Shootout, in which Michigan was competing.
If you haven’t noticed, someone involved here made a huge ethics violation and it was neither Rice nor The Enquirer. Gotcha! [click to continue…]
It made sense when the Sacramento Kings sold tickets on Groupon. It didn’t raise any red flags when the Golden State Warriors had tickets on Living Social. And it has been no big deal that the San Francisco Giants have been offering “dynamic pricing” for years.
Those moves made sense. They were all good marketing. But what showed up in email boxes Wednesday was more than a marketing ploy. It reeked of desperation.
The NFL direct- mail ad deal offered a “2 tickets for the price of 1″ promotion for two Raiders games this season at O.co Coliseum. Not just any Raiders home games, but Sept. 25 against the New York Jets and Oct. 2 against the New England Patriots.
That’s against one team that went to the last two AFC Championship Games and travels well and another team that has been one of the premier NFL franchises in the past decade. If you’re adding at home, that’s 1+1 = slow ticket sales.
Really? Has anyone every heard of an NFL team doing a two-fer? [click to continue…]
Somehow, the Giants have all the hopes and dreams that they will repeat as World Series champions.
It’s not because their pitching is carrying them through a second consecutive dreadful August. It’s also in part because the National League West is oh so very bad.
Whatever the reason, the Giants will be lucky to win the NL West, in which they trail the division-leading Arizona Diamondbacks by two games. In fact, it might be best that the Giants don’t win the West because it would mask the problems that have plagued them since Barry Bonds went unsigned almost four years ago. [click to continue…]
And we thought Al Davis was losing it. Or maybe this is just an anomaly.
Either way, the Raiders’ owner/general manager/make-believe coach looked shrewd Monday morning by taking Terrelle Pryor in the third round of the NFL supplemental draft.
It will cost the Raiders’ a third-round pick in the 2012 NFL draft, a pick that it appears they had to burn. [click to continue…]
What’s the best way to get a college football player to admit he cheated? Leave his NFL eligibility dangling.
That’s what happened this week before the NFL ruled Thursday former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor eligible for the league’s supplemental draft, which was delayed until Saturday.
The league only did so after Pryor admitted even more of cheating during his time with Buckeyes, which are already facing heavy NCAA sanctions for the tattoo scandal that cost Coach Jim Tressel his job. [click to continue…]
