Was There A Dunk Contest Conspiracy?

Cold envelopes, crooked refs, and now prejudging a slam dunk contest. This comes from benmaller.com, that the NBA had Blake Griffin named as the slam dunk contest winner. This is something straight out of the WWE.

Everyone knew that Griffin would win anyway. With all the hype he's received with his wicked dunks on Sportscenter night after night, he couldn't lose. Why would you want to have Serge Ibaka or JaVale McGee as you champion, when you can have Blake Griffin. Imagine all the marketing possibilities for the NBA and Griffin.

In this official media advisory it listed the “KROQ BLAKE GRIFFIN SHOWCASE” from 1:20 pm to 2:00 pm with the following description: “Five middle school students will showcase their dunking talents in front of 2011 NBA Sprite Slam Dunk Contest winner Blake Griffin.”
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That was sent an hour before the scheduled start for the dunk contest. The NBA and David Stern always try to throw us off when a conspiracy comes up. Now there is some kind of proof that it does exist. Of course they tried to fix it later.

Somewhere Vince McMahon and David Stern are having a drink with the shooter from the grassy knoll.

Burying The Hatchet

Remember when Antonio Cromartie threatned to smash Matt Hasselbeck's face in. All seems to be well now after running into each other last week and even posed for a picture. Me being the cynic that I am, figures this is some clever posturing for some union solidarity.

Actually they were at the Pro Athletes Outreach NFL conference in Florida last week. Look at them, looking like best buddies. Almost reminds me of Rocky and Apollo Creed. At least they seem to be getting along and all is forgotten.

Chipper Jones Tells Cynical Fans What They Can Do

Last season Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones suffered a torn ACL and everyone figured that he should step away from the game. Jones isn't that kind of guy to walk away from something without giving it a try. That's what I see from him after countless years of watching baseball. At age 39 that just isn't in his nature.

Some writers, fans, and bloggers have written him off and according to him say that he's only playing for the money. Jones scoffs at that notion and quite frankly it pisses him off. I don't think he plays for the money at this point in his career. I just think he's one of those players that loves the game so much he might be buried in his uniform. He's still a dangerous hitter, efficient in the field, and capable of mentoring the youngsters. Jones alsomprobably wants to play to see can they make another playoff run and possibly get to another World Series. I don't think like some who think he does it for the money.

“If they think I’m doing this for the money, they obviously haven’t seen my bank account,” he said. “I’ve never played this game for money. Nor will I. My mind doesn’t work that way. I play this game because I love my teammates and they wanted me to come back.



“I still feel like I have something to offer, and the cynical fan can really kiss my ass. I really don’t care. There’s a bunch of true fans and the people who actually want to take the time to get to know me know who I am. The guy who sits in his mom’s basement and types on his mom’s computer, I couldn’t really care less about.”

Of course he plays for the money, but that's not his motivation. He plays for the money only because he gets paid for it. I think he'd play for free if you asked him. Just my opinion. Besides, he's made $141 million throughout his career and $127 million in the past 10 years. He'd have to drop money like Bryant McKinnie to burn through all that cash. 

Will Hill Is A Family Man

After having pictures of him with bikini clad women, and talking about his exploits and escapades, via the social media giant , Twitter, former Florida safety Will Hill says he's a family man and not the outrageous party animal everyone's made him out to be. He was more Benny Hill than Will.

Hill says he has grown up and has been married for a year, with three children. Damn, Will has been putting in work in the bedroom. This was said at the NFL combine in Indianapolis where Hill is trying to improve his draft stock. The only way Hill does that is by telling interviewers he's changed for the better and he's no longer the guy that talks about defecating in an airport bathroom.

"The photo, yeah, I'm at a pool party and people wanted to take pictures with me," Hill said. "It got blown out of proportion to, Will did this Will did that. People don't know I've been married for a year now. All that Twitter stuff was seven, eight months before my marriage. Everybody is going off previous things not knowing the real Will HIll. I'm a family man. I have three daughters. They all look up to me. There's rumors out here that Will Hill is a party guy. If I go out now my wife is with me and my kids. I don't go out to meet people or galavant. I sit back and just relax and enjoy my time."



Of course actions are louder than words and Hill has to do a lot aof convincing to NFL suits who are doing the drafting. He's going out of his way to show them he's not a troublemaker and he'll do whatever it takes to be a success in the NFL. He wants to let whoever is considering him that they'll get a player.

"They are not giving me skepticism, they are accepting me," Hill said. "They know guys make mistakes. You have to live and learn. I'm learning from this experience just being here and guys tell me what to do next time. I deleted my Twitter. I have no Twitter now. As a football player, they get a passionate guy. "This is all I know. I come on the field and I go to work. I cover much ground."


He'll have to do a whole lot more than talk about being a high character guy but getting rid of the Twitter account was a start.

 

Referee And Brazil Soccer Federation On The Hook For $96 Million

I'm not big on soccer. Don't like it won't watch it and will dispute it till I'm blue in the face that it's a legit sport. But this story caught my eye.

The Brazil soccer federation and a referee are sharing a $96 million dollar fine. That's like being sentenced to 120 years in prison. How do you pay that back. Their great great grandkids will be paying back that money. I understand that they're are a lot of people involved in this, but $96 million. I'm lucky to have $96 dollars.

All this over a match fixing scandal. You know if that happened over here there would've been conspiracy theories everywhere. Remember the Lakers-Kings playoff series? That has nothing on this.

A civil court has ruled that the federation and Edilson Pereira de Carvalho must share the fine for the scandal that forced 11 matches to be replayed after the referee confessed to accepting bribes from gamblers to ensure the outcomes of games. Corinthians eventually won matches that it had lost and clinched the title.-The Associated Press


No word on how this is going to be divided up. No college basketball point shaving scandal has ever been this large.

Quote Of The Week: George Karl

In the aftermath of the Carmelo Anthony trade to the New York Knicks, coach George Karl seems to have a high opinion of his team, the Denver Nuggets.

“You guys must think I’m crazy but I think we’re good. I had one practice with them, and I’m going ‘whoa!’ What always kind of mystifies me about this world of basketball is there’s so many brilliant minds in basketball; there’s so many guys that believe in the zone or believe in the triangle-and-two, or believe in the slow-down offense, or believe in the fast passing game offense — there’s so many ways to build a philosophy and win. But it seems like in the NBA you can only win with super stars. And I don’t believe that. I’ve always coached kind of doing what everybody else does, I do different. When I went to Seattle, nobody trapped and nobody did anything, so we fronted the post, and we double-teamed post-ups, and we doubled 40 or 50 percent of possessions a game and that worked. I just think why can’t you build a team where you don’t have a top-five player, but maybe a top-20 player at every position. That’s kind of what I’m thinking what we’re going to be. We might not have an All Star, but at every position and maybe even have a bench that has more versatility and explosiveness than anybody else. So you have six or seven weapons, you might not have a superstar weapon, but you have good weapons. And then play hard, play defense, and be the most unselfish basketball team that you can be, because team wins more often than talent in this league anyways.”

Someone has to have confidence don't they? I do think the Nuggets have a future after Carmelo if they make the right moves.

Charles Barkley Is The Number One Auburn Legend

Here's Charles Barkley in a radio interview with KJOX in Birmingham, Alabama talking about his All-Star weekend and more importantly his place in the Auburn athletic pecking order. And he wasn't shy about letting Cam Newton know where he stood.

Here's what he said to Cam Newton about his place at Auburn.

"You know, I finally got a chance to meet him. Since I keep getting him tickets to all these events, I joked with him, 'I keep hearing I'm getting you tickets to all these events.' I finally got a chance to meet him. He came over, we were actually staying at the same hotel and he came over and said hello to me. And I just told him how proud I am of him and the Auburn team, and what a great season they had. ... Then I said I love you, I'm proud of you, but you can't ever go any higher than No. 3 on the list behind me and Bo [Jackson]. No matter what you accomplished, I said if you had stayed another year and did what you did this year I might have moved you up. But right now, I'm No. 1, Bo [is] No. 2, and you're No. 3. And I felt bad that I had to move Frank Thomas down to No. 4."

We get what your saying Charles your the man at Auburn and always will be.