Sports, Sports, Sports

I meant to write about this a long time ago, but I'm kind of out of the habit of blogging now. You'll never guess who had an awesome NFL draft that is being lauded all over the place by the pundits. Yup...da Raiders! They picked up the premier middle linebacker that QB'ed Alabama's national championship defense, they picked up other receivers and linemen, and with picks that most others would consider a reach, they used appropriate picks that were worth the gamble. It's seriously as if someone else has taken over management from Al Davis and wants to turn this team around. And they released Jamarcus Russell, and traded a 4th round pick to the Redskins to get Jason Campbell who is an instant upgrade over everyone else they have on their roster. Nothing like the offseason to get me excited about that team. The only problem is the actual season that always seems to let me down.

Went to Game 4 of the Lakers v. Jazz on Monday night. They pretty thoroughly crushed the Jazz. Can you believe this? That was only my second Lakers game in my lifetime. The other one was during the Showtime era when they played the Rockets. Yeah, we're talking late 80s. It was a really fun game though. The Lakers crushed the Jazz, and I almost felt bad for the Jazz fans. You could feel them wanting to get into the game, especially in the 3rd quarter when they cut the formerly 22 pt. lead down to 5, but then just couldn't sustain it. The Lakers pushed it out to 12 by the 4th quarter, and from there you could just see that the Jazz were not a good enough team. Gasol had an awesome game, and Kobe has been a steady dose of great in the last five or six games.

You know what I'm most happy about though? How much the Cavaliers are struggling. I get why people hate the Lakers, and I totally would too, but the Cavaliers are everyone's favorite front-runners. I understand the Lebron love, but I don't like how some people are pretending like this is rooting for the underdog. Rooting for the Cavs is rooting for the 2x MVP on the team with the best record, who were the favorites to win the title. What kind of underdog is that? The guys I'm really scared of are the Orlando Magic. They look pretty much unstoppable. When you have Vince Carter as your third or fourth scoring option, you know that you're a deep team. I just can't believe how much the Celtics creamed the Cavs last night in Cleveland. Crazy. The conference finals should be pretty entertaining to watch.

The Angels stink. Guess who's looking awesome and who stinks right now? Guerrero and Matsui. Ouch. It's still early, but it looks like I was wrong on that one. Kazmir can't pitch past the 5th inning. Our bullpen is super weak. I wish we'd use Rodney instead of Fuentes as our closer. Aybar is not consistent enough yet. Abreu can't get on base like he normally does. Hunter and Morales still look great. Wood is still struggling getting use to MLB pitching. Kendrick is respectable. Mathis was on fire before breaking a bone in his hand. You know who our MVP right now is? Jered Weaver. He's got the weight of being our bulldog, and he's carrying it well. The season is still young, but we have some troubles right now. It comforts me some that Figgins is really struggling over in Seattle. I'm not hoping for a down year, but it would be a big boost to stockpile some talent in our farm system through better draft picks.

In other news, I love golf. If I didn't feel like a moron staying through the second hour, I totally would stay after my class and into the next one to continue practicing. I can't wait until the Reids come up here and we can play a round together before Mike's wedding. That will be so fun.

Can you believe this? We are exactly one month away from USA v. England in the World Cup. It starts in 30 days. I can't wait...