Archive for June, 2008

620 Sportsline: OT formats for different sports

After 91 holes of play, Tiger Woods is your 2008 U.S. Open champ. But were the last 15-ish holes really necessary? Burnsy doesn’t think so. In fact, he thinks the U.S. Open’s 18-hole Monday madness is one of the worst overtime formats in all of sports. College Football’s is the most entertaining, although it really makes little sense (i.e. as a true extension of the sport). Sort of like a movie that’s totally unrealistic or over-the-top, but you still can’t turn away from:

College Football OT = Guilty Pleasure Movies

1. Dumb and Dumber (Burnsy)

2. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (Rod)

3. Happy Gilmore (Rod)

4. Die Hard (Burnsy)

5. Nacho Libre (Burnsy)

6. 300 (Rod)

7. Iron Man (Burnsy)

8. Top Gun (Rod)

9. The Lost Boys (Rod)

10. Old School (Burnsy)

Here’s how the analogy would apply to other sports/movie genres:

NFL OT: (Lifeless, no fun, clinical) = Biopics:

1. Ali (Rod)

2. Gandhi (Burnsy)

3. Ray (Burnsy)

4. Walk the Line (Burnsy)

5. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Rod)

MLB: (Fair, only way to do it, but too long): = 3-hour movies:

1 Braveheart (177 min)

2 Dances with Wolves (180 min)

3 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (201 min)

4 The Godfather (175 min)

5 Scarface (170 min)

6 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (174 min)

7 The Deer Hunter (182 min)

8 Magnolia (188 min)

9 Schindler’s List (195 min)

10 Doctor Zhivago (197 min)

NHL: (Regular season shootout is stupid and the playoffs are great) = Sequels better than originals:

1. Superman II (better than Superman)

2. Road Warrior (better than Mad Max)

3. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (better than The Temple of Doom, but not Raiders of the Lost Ark)

4. The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum (better than The Bourne Identity)

5. Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan (better than Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

US Open/Golf = Great ending, rest of it was OK or good but not great- the ending defines it:

1. Sixth Sense

2. Unforgiven

3. Seven

4. Fight Club

NBA = Straight forward, uncomplicated, solid movie:

1. Batman Begins

2. Training Day

3. Blood Diamond

4. I am Legend

5. Juno

Things are bad for the Arizona Diamondbacks, but they could be much worse. The D-Backs dropped 2 of 3 at home to the Kansas City Royals, but did not drop in the NL West Standings. OK, so maybe the Dodgers really suck, but is that any consolation for a team that is being outscored 20-6 by the friggin’ Royals. ESPN.com’s Rob Neyer stopped by to discuss that and the “dead in the water Yankees.” (My words). This in light of Chien-Ming Wang’s recent injury, one that Hank Steinbrenner blames on the National League. (Apparently, Mr. Steinbrenner believes the DH should be uniform policy around baseball.) Burnsy ripped Mike Mussina’s endorsement of that absurd argument which, in case you missed it, goes as follows:

“We don’t hit, we don’t run the bases,” Mussina said. “You get four or five at-bats a year at most, and if you happen to get on base once or twice, you never know. We run in straight lines most of the time. Turning corners, you just don’t do that.”

Yeah, turning corners is pretty tough stuff. But the “Forrest Gump School of Baserunning” Yanks get little sympathy from me or Mr. Burns.

Neither, for that matter, does Sports 620 KTAR’s own Jon Bloom, who was tired from long walks at the U.S. Open. Bloomer joined Burnsy to talk about his Open experience, and joined him in his call to change the 18-hole playoff format. I mean, who really has time to watch 18 holes on a Monday. Besides H-Lo, of course…

 

The NBA coaching parade continues

Burnsy can’t help but to wonder if Terry Porter is a rebound coach. And by that he doesn’t mean teaching rebounding. Like a guy who gets a girlfriend after a long marriage breaks up and, as everybody knows, she’s the rebound girl. This team is clearly trending down, and is probably a couple of years away from a rebuilding effort. Depending on how bad it gets, will Porter be around when the Suns cycle back up? How far out is that? 4 years, 5 years? How have some other “rebound” coaches faired in (somewhat) recent NBA history:

Bulls Phil Jackson - 545-193, 9 playoff appearances in 9 years, 6 NBA championships, lowest win total- 47, earliest playoff exit- Eastern Conference Semifinals.

*replaced by Tim Floyd in 1999. Floyd - 49-190, 0 playoff appearances in 3 ¼ seasons.

Pistons Chuck Daly - 467-271, 9 playoff appearances in 9 years, 3 Finals trips, 2 titles.

*replaced by Ron Rothstein in 1992. Rothstein - 40-42, 0 playoff appearance in 1 season.

Trailblazers Rick Adelman - 291-154. Adelman - 6 playoff appearances in 6 years, 2 NBA Finals trips.

*replaced by P.J. Carlesimo in 1994. Carlesimo - 137-109, 3 first round playoff losses in 3 seasons.

Lakers Pat Riley - 533-194. Riley - 9 playoff appearances in 9 seasons, 4 NBA championships, 7 NBA Finals trips, lowest win total- 54, earliest playoff exit – Western Conference Seminfinals.

*replaced by Mike Dunleavy in 1990. Dunleavy - 101-63, 1 NBA Finals appearance, 1 first round exit in 2 seasons.

Does time really heal all wounds? If you were you to tell me in 1992 (when the Portland Trailblazers eliminated the Phoenix Suns from the playoffs for the 2nd time in the last 4 years), that Terry friggin’ Porter would be head coach of the team someday, I would’ve told you that you were nuts. So, if Terry Porter can coach in Phoenix, who else may be on list in 10 years or sooner:

Clyde Drexler (possibly)

Robert Horry (NEVER)

Manu Ginobili (NO)

Tim Duncan (Probably not)

Bruce Bowen (NO)

Kobe Bryant (Probably not)

John Paxon (possibly)

Mario Elie (actually was mentioned by some as a potential D’Antoni replacement)

Jerome Kersey (I really hope not- still hate that guy)

Suns GM Steve Kerr joined Burnsy to talk about his choice to replace Mike D’Antoni has head coach of the Phoenix Suns. “Balance” is Kerr’s favorite word when describing Porter’s philosophy and what he will bring to the Suns. Not too surprising since Kerr and Co. wanted his predecessor to embrace that very concept. Moreover, Kerr thinks the current group of Suns will have no problem embracing Porter and his system:

“I think our players are ready for a little bit of a change philosophically. I believe there’s a balance. I think instead of averaging 110 points we can average 105.”

Once again Kerr played up Porter’s head coaching experience, albeit a brief one in Milwaukee- an organization’s that’s seemingly perpetual struggles may have skewed Porter’s win-loss record:

“There aren’t any great coaches who didn’t get some talent. I can only imagine how many good coaches there are out there who just got lost in the shuffle because they took dead-end jobs.”

Kerr wasn’t calling Milwaukee a “dead-end” job, but the inference is pretty clear: He thinks Terry Porter would have and will succeed with better talent around him.

Kerr also thinks Vinny Del Negro will succeed if he gets the Chicago Bulls job, as ESPN’s Ric Bucher is now reporting: