Weekend T.R.U

Hello gang, its time for another installment of the T.R.U. It has been a wild and wacky week in sports. Kind of unusual considering this is a traditionally dead period in sports news. Football is still a couple of months away from getting started which we all are counting the days. The NBA and NHL seasons are way too long. By this time if your team is out of the playoffs then who really cares. Next year for your team is right around the corner and they haven't even crowned a champ yet. So let's review some of the hot topics making headlines this week.

NBA Playoffs
The Spurs predictably cruised past the overmatched Jazz to make it once again to the Finals. They will meet either the Cavs or the Pistons. The only thing worth watching is the coming of age of Lebron James. He had a career defining game on Thursday night in the double overtime thriller. He scored 48 points, his team's last 25 in the game. Now all the talking heads and hype machine networks are putting him up there with all the greats. Not so fast my friends. This series is not over and if his team doesn't win tonight or a game 7 in Detroit, then his game 5 efforts will have been in vain. I think they will close it out tonight because Detroit is done. Look for Lebron to seize the moment and will his team to win again. Look at me going on about the NBA. I must stop now I am getting a nose bleed.

NFL News & Notes
The Michael Vick dog fighting story just keeps getting uglier and uglier by the day.There are now reports of informants coming forward to testify that not only was Vick a participant, but a major player in the dog fighting ring. If this is proven true then I feel no punishment could be harsh enough for Vick. He has been teetering on the edge of thugdom for a while. Things he has done have been covered up because the NFL has pushed him as the poster boy for the new breed of "athletic" quarterback of the future. It now seems as there maybe enough evidence to prove he was part of this amoral and totally disgusting activity. I don't think 1 year is enough. If proven guilty of these crimes I would be in favor of a lifetime ban, or at the least a 2 or 3 year suspension. It won't happen but it should. If any of us regular guys were caught doing this, we would be out of a job and spending many years behind bars.

Sad news about Patriots Marquise Hill this week. He lost his life in a drowning accident while riding a jet ski on a lake in Louisiana. He was not a starter but was a good backup defensive lineman. All indications are that the former LSU star was a good person and gave allot of his time and money to help with Katrina relief. The reports are he was not wearing a life jacket. Even though he was reported to be a good swimmer he could not resist the strong currents in the lake. I guess it may be true the good die young. People like Michael Vick and Pacman Jones seem to live forever.

MLB
As I have stated before wake me in September when baseball gets interesting. Right now all we hear is Yankees and Red Sox. By the way do they play every weekend now? Did I miss a meeting with the scheduling department where this was mandated. I am sick of hearing about them so I will not waste time writing about them. Someone should send a memo to MLB and ESPN that there are several other teams in the league now that are still playing baseball. I believe that has been forgotten. Not all of us are Sox and Yanks fans.

College Basketball
The Orlando Magic announced this week the hiring of their new head coach, Billy Donovan formerly of the University of Florida. Donovan says the lure of the NBA was just too strong to resist. Pardon me if I don't buy it. It was the lure of all those dead presidents that was too strong. He is the next in a long line of success stories of college coaches making it big in the NBA. John Calipari, Jerry Tarkanian, P.J. Carlesimo, Lon Kruger, Tim Floyd, Mike Montgermery, and Billy's mentor Rick Pitino are fine examples of how college success will certainly follow you to the pro level. One moment I have just been handed a memo from my research department. WHAT????? All those guys were flaming disasters and stole millions of dollars from franchises and repaid them with losing records. Yes folks we think Billy talked a good game about loyalty to UF while letting UK think they had a shot at hiring him. Oh he sounded good about not giving up what he he had built, blah blah blah. In the end he turned out to be a cash whore like all the rest. Again just like his mentor Tricky Rick Pitino who never saw a job opening he didn't like, or try to weasel an interview for it was all about the Benjamins baby. And the Magic are the next franchise to fall for it too. Don't believe me? Come see me in 3 years when the Magic are 20-62 and stuck with too many big contracts given to overrated former Gators, including the coach.