NY Giants (-2.5) at Detroit Amazingly, Detroit opened as a 1.5-point favorite. Anyone who watched Arizona run past Detroit last week knows it will take a miracle in Motown for the Lions to devour the Giants. However Detroit has already reached its quota on divine intervention. In Week 2 against Minnesota, quarterback and Christian missionary Jon Kitna got knocked out with a concussion in the second quarter, then returned in overtime to lead the Lions to a 20-17 win. Kitna characterized his return as "a miracle." Doctor of philosphy dp says Jon's sacrifice of body (and mind?) is just medically stupid, not a true miracle like the Siamese Queens pictured here: The miracle is simply the easy money that was out there at the beginning of the week when you could pick the Giants and still be getting points. So many gamblers did so that the line has jumped four points. New York will roar past the Lions, whose remaining schedule includes two games with Green Bay, plus Dallas and at San Diego. If 6-4 Detroit wants to make the playoffs, they better keep praying in Kitna's bible study groups.
Saints at Houston (opened even; Houston -1.5 now): N'ahleans gets back on track in Texas. San Diego at Jacksonville (-3) Jacksonville will win if David Garrard plays; check the starting lineup early Sunday and pick the Chargers if he doesn't.
Cleveland (-2) at Baltimore Cleveland is on the rise and the Ravens are spiraling down. Of their playoff hopes, quoth dp, "Nevermore."
Tennessee at Denver (-2) The line has tightened down a point or so because the Titans are a popular upset pick. Stick with Denver, still tough at home on Monday night. Titans DT Albert Haynesworth missed last week's game and Jacksonville gashed the Titans' D for 166 rushing yards. Haynesworth missed practice this week and is a game-time decision. Meanwhile, Denver looks to have improved its run defense.
How awesome are Sox fans celebrating National Disability Awareness? Check it out for yourself?
This would never happen in New York. The Yankees lack the heart. dp deeply praises Sawx spirit for reminding us how enhancing performance can be a good thing.
Isiah is a for-profit non-prophet prone to shady maneuvers and a cloudy future. If you believe Peter Vecsey ( as dp does), Thomas is now trying to get fired, and he's proving to be completely inept at that, too!
Barry Bonds was indicted Thursday on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. The indictment alleges that Bonds lied during his 2003 testimony before a federal grand jury which had convened to investigate the BALCO steroid distribution ring. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 30 years in prison. Later Thursday afternoon, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the release of Greg Anderson, Bonds' childhood friend and personal trainer who has sat in prison for contempt of court for nearly a year because of his refusal to testify about Bonds. The question yet to be answered: was Anderson's release contingent upon cooperation with a grand jury that otherwise lacked sufficient proof to indict Bonds?
Or was Anderson released because the grand jury has enough evidence without his testimony? Article 9 of the background section of the indictment states, "During the criminal investigation, evidence was obtained including positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds and other professional athletes." Maybe the presence of this "evidence" means that Anderson is not needed to prove that Bonds perjured himself.
Upon closer examination of the ten-page indictment, three of the four counts of perjury against Bonds pertain to his answers to questions concerning Greg Anderson. Before analyzing what this could mean, let's pause to summarize each count:
* Count One: Bonds denies that Anderson ever gave him anything that he knew to be a steroid, and Bonds continues to profess innocence even when the grand jury proceeded to show him documents with his name and/or initials pertaining to positive test results for two anabolic steroids. * Count Two: Bonds denies that Anderson (or any of his associates) ever injected him with anything, or gave him anything that required Barry to use a syringe to inject himself. * Count Three: Bonds denies that Anderson ever gave or helped Barry obtain human growth hormone (HGH) or testosterone, in January 2002 or at any time. * Count Four: Barry admits to using "the cream" and "the clear," but claims that it didn't happen until 2003, while the grand jury maintains that it happened at least as early as December 2001, according to the date of a calendar with his "BB" initials on it. * Count Five (Obstruction of Justice): The one count of obstruction of justice is the product of Bonds' "evasive, false, and misleading" testimony as noted in the aforementioned four counts of perjury.
At first glance, it seems difficult for the government to prove that Bonds lied about his dealings with Anderson if Anderson himself doesn't refute Bonds' testimony. Then again, Anderson has already chosen to sit in prison indefinitely, so why would he suddenly squeal now? It seems that the calendars and documents that allegedly outline Bonds' drug use are not weighty enough on their own to merit the indictment; if they were, Bonds could have been indicted years ago. If that's the case, then the government would need another witness to verify Bonds' use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Kimberly Bell, Bonds' former mistress, has claimed that Bonds both told her about his steroid use and acknowledged Anderson's role in administering the drugs, so it is possible that she could back up the first three counts of perjury. The fourth count of perjury is a matter of timing: not whether Bonds used the cream and the clear, but rather when he used them. Even Barry admitted he "could be wrong" about this time frame, and it's possible that Gary Sheffield, who trained with Bonds before the start of the 2002 season and admitted he had also used the cream, could verify the time period in question. The Steroid Era All things considered, it seems unlikely that Anderson came clean about Bonds. In any case, the grand jury believes it can prove Bonds was definitively and irrefutably a drug cheat. Yet it's worth remembering that Bonds isn't actually being indicted for illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs; he's being indicted for lying about it. Certainly, lying before a grand jury is no small matter, but in return for his agreement to testify in 2003, he received immunity from criminal prosecution for anything other than perjury. If Bonds can't be punished for using substances that weren't banned by major league baseball at the time (steroids were added to baseball's list of banned substances in 2003; drug testing actually began in 2005, when HGH was added to the list, though no reliable HGH test exists yet), doesn't it seem that he's being unfairly singled out? Other baseball MVPs Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti, and Jason Giambi have admitted to past steroid use, and since 2005, many minor and major leaguers, including Jason Grimsley, Alex Sanchez, Guillermo Mota, Rafael Betancourt, and Rafael Palmeiro, have all served suspensions after testing positive. Moreover, these players only represent a fraction of those who have been implicated or suspected of PED use. How can Bonds alone be targeted when the evidence indicates that so many other baseball players also benefited from PEDs? Is Bonds really any different than Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Juan Gonzalez, Troy Glaus, or Rick Ankiel? Maybe the only real difference is that Bonds possessed more natural talent than any of these stars. If other guys had to cheat to catch up, why do we focus our scorn on someone who was already the best player in the game? Is it because Bonds didn't need to cheat? Is it because the best player deserves the bulk of the blame? Or is it because Bonds in the biggest jerk in the history of sports interviews, and people are pissed that a lying megalomaniac now possesses not just the single-season home run record (73 in 2001, beating McGwire's 70 in 1998) but also the career home run record previously held by Hank Aaron, a principled man of dignity and honor?
After Bonds hit his 756th homer, fashion designer Marc Ecko, the owner by auction of the historic baseball, put the fate of the ball up for an internet vote. Fans were given three options: one, send it to Cooperstown, home of the Baseball Hame of Fame; two, permanently brand it with an asterisk and then send it to Cooperstown; or three, blast it into outer space. Sadly, the asterisk option won with 47% of the 10 million votes cast. Worse, the Hall has tentatively agreed to accept the ball with an asterisk affixed. The asterisk is an insult not just to Bonds' personal legacy. More importantly, it's an insult to the integrity of the American pastime. Bonds doesn't "theoretically" hold the home run record; he has physically launched more bombs in major league games than anyone else in history. That's a fact. It's also a fact that he's never been suspended for violating baseball's PED testing program. It's also an indisputable fact that Bonds competed against other players who did test positive, and still more who undoubtedly used PEDs before they were officially banned in 2005. For better or worse, baseball's lack of drug testing spawned the now-infamous Steroid Era. While we can lament the fact that PEDs plagued baseball for about twenty years from sometime in the 1980's until 2005, we can't pick and choose who gets punished and who gets pardoned for their involvement. It's inconsistent to condemn McGwire and Bonds, and then forgive Cardinals pitcher-turned-slugger Rick Ankiel and Indians hurler Paul Byrd for their use of HGH.
The Dope on HGH
Jintropin is a popular strand of HGH synthesized by Chinese chemist Jin Lei, who learned his craft while getting a Ph.D. from UC-San Francisco in the '90s. Jin returned to China and opened a government-sponsored company, GenSci, which manufactures and sells Jintropin. Check out Shawn Assael's full story here. dp says don't be like Sylvester Stallone, who was detained for two days after trying to enter Australia without a prescription for his 48 vials of Jintropin.
Yes, both Ankiel and Byrd were initially prescribed HGH by doctors for medical reasons. Yes, Ankiel was recovering from elbow ligament replacement surgery, as was Byrd, who also claimed that he suffered from a pituitary gland disorder that accounted for why he continued to buy nearly $25,000 of HGH over a three-year period. HGH is typically given to children with dwarfism and adults who suffer from AIDs-related "wasting," a degenerative condition. HGH is also FDA-approved for adults with adult growth hormone deficiency. It's possible that Byrd could fall under this last category, but it still wouldn't explain how he twice filled prescriptions for HGH from a dentist who was subsequently suspended for "fraud and incompetence" in 2003. That same dentist prescribed HGH to other baseball players, including Matt Williams, Ismael Valdez and Jose Guillen. All four players obtained the drugs from the Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center (PBRC), an anti-aging clinic. On Feb. 27, a slew of law-enforcement agencies led by the Albany County (NY) District Attorney's Office and the Drug Enforcement Agency raided the PBRC as part of "Operation Which Doctor," a major investigation into an Internet-based steroid distribution ring. Meanwhile, agents in Orlando simultaneously raided the investigation's main target, Signature Pharmacy, which manufactured and distributed millions of dollars of drugs to PBRC, other anti-aging clinics, and other pro athletes including Ankiel, Glaus, and Jay Gibbons. All told, more than two dozen doctors, pharmacists, and business owners (including those of PBRC and of Signature Pharmacy) face a multitude of felony charges, including the illegal distribution of steroids and HGH. Some-- including PBRC co-owner Joseph Raich and his brother-in-law, heart surgeon Robert G. Carlson-- have already plead guilty.
Some of these anti-aging clinics have liberally expanded the use of HGH to combat the "disease" of getting older, and trumpet anecdotal evidence that suggests HGH's performance-enhancing effects include more red blood cells, healthier heart function, improved eyesight, higher energy levels and increased sex drive. Yet the larger medical community doesn't consider these claims legitimate, and no reputable doctor would prescribe HGH to a healthy adult. While HGH very well may help athletes recover faster from serious sports injuries by regenerating stronger connective tissue like tendons and ligaments, this use is not approved by the FDA, much less considered standard practice. Accordingly, MLB has never granted Byrd or any player a "Therapeutic Use Exemption" for HGH.
Baseball's Tarnished Legacy* What does this all mean for baseball? The BALCO investigation, "Operation Which Doctor," and “Operation Raw Deal” (a series of raids conducted by more than 100 D.E.A. agents in 27 states from Sept. 20-24 that resulted in 124 arrests and the closing of 56 labs) focused on manufacturers and distributors at the top of the PED food chain, meaning that users would not be targeted for prosecution. But this certainly does not mean that professional athletes are off the hook. Patriots safety Rodney Harrison was suspended for four games by the NFL after he admitted to the Albany County D.A.'s Office that he used HGH prescribed by Carlson and obtained online from PBRC. Barry Bonds is not the only major league baseball player that has to worry. The Mitchell Report on Steroids, an investigation of PED use in baseball conducted by former Senator George Mitchell, is expected to be released sometime in the next month. The player's union has apparently learned that Mitchell's Report will name 11 current free agents. Bonds makes one, as the Giants dropped Bonds like a dirty habit. Paul "Crazy" Byrd no longer makes two, for the Indians exercised their $7.5 million team option. (We await the publication of "The Free Byrd Project," Paul's upcoming autobiography, for his full story.) It's unclear how many additional players already under contract will be named, but Commissioner Bud Selig has said that teams "ought to be prepared for (the) eventuality" of naming names. In a conference call with representatives from all 30 teams, Thomas Carlucci, a lawyer for the firm that represents MLB, said that Mitchell's report would be "salacious" (translation: "obscene"). Clearly, the Steroid Era has tarnished baseball's legacy, but it would be truly obscene to make Bonds the scapegoat for baseball's systemic sins. Bonds may be a lot of things, including a drug user, a jerk, an adulterer, and a liar, but he didn't create the Steroid Era; he just participated in it like so many of his competitors. While the history books should rightfully note the impact of PEDs on professional sport, there need be no asterisk on his record-setting ball. After all, we've got the image of Barry's enlarged head burned in our minds. We don't need punctuation.
New Jersey Nets (4-4, three-game losing streak since Vince Carter's ankle injury) Still without Vinsanity Wednesday night in the Boston Bank Gahden, New York(B) got hosed 91-69 by the new-look Celtics, who moved to 7-0. Bringing irony to their moniker on on off-shooting night, the Nets were hitting anything but, scattering bricks all evening en route to scoring 34 points on 36% shooting in the first half then "exploding" for 35 points on 31% shooting in the second. Amazingly, Boston only led by two at halftime before blowing Joisy away in the third quarter.
Los Angeles Clippers (5-2, zero Shaun Livingstons and Elton Brands) While LA(1) moved to 4-3 with an impressive road victory in Houston Wednesday, the LA(2) Clippers buried NY(A) 84-81 at the Staples Center despite shooting only 36.5%. Luckily for the Clips, the Knicks shot only 34.6% for the game and put up a grand total of nine points in the third quarter.
At this point, New York sports fans should expect A-Rod and Mariano Rivera to sign with the Dodgers.
With the NBA season having reached as many as eight games for some teams, it's time for dp's NBA 10% Season Report. Three cities have dominated the hoops scene thus far: the Big Three of Boston, Los Angeles, and New York. Fittingly, both New York(/New Jersey) and L.A. are two-team cities, a fact that only feeds the unassisted double player's penchant for two-fisted slopping. (In other words, dp, to be geographically judicious, will also mention the Nets and Clippers, thereby supersizing his Tri-City coverage to a Five-Team peek). But in terms of story lines in the fist tenth, only one is actually about on-court performance: the Boston Celtics' resurgence behind their Big Three of KG, Paul Pierce, and Jesus Shuttlesworth. Meanwhile, the ongoing Kobe Byrant trade speculation in Los Angeles and the Knicks' circus in the Big Apple not only don't have happy endings, they don't have much hope of ending at all anytime soon.
Even before the season began, New York was generating most of the off-season NBA news. New York Post headlines have featured, in turn, the fallout from Tim Donagy and the NBA referee betting scandal; the lawsuit brought by Anucha Browne, former senior vice president of marketing for the Knicks, against Isiah Thomas for sexual harassment and against Knicks owner and Madison Square Garden President James Dolan for failing to protect her in a "hostile" work environment; and the latest, StephonMarbury's disappearing act in Phoenix Tuesday, when he went AWOL and failed to show up for morning shootaround. With his customary smile frozen in place, Isiah reacts to Starbury's no-show in the video below.
New York Knicks(2-4; three-game losing streak, two megalomaniacal leaders, one missing person) StephonMarbury, reportedly back in New York as of 4 p.m. Tuesday and telling The Post that he received Isaiah's permission, might be crazy, but Isiah Thomas is definitely crazy. The annual Zeke-Starbury flareup is the inevitable image of two doppelgangers battling to determine who is whose alter ego. Imagine two attention-seeking point guards playing one-on-one for center position in front of an HD fishbowl. Of course, Zeke considers their tiff itself to be a private matter. When Thomas talks about this latest controversy as an "in-house" matter, he's talking about how things are handled inside the crazy house.
Earlier this summer, Thomas seemed to monopolize the spotlight when he was found guilty of sexual harassing former Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders, but as the sordid trial wound down to judgment, Marbury managed to pop up in the testimony of Knicks employee Kathleen Decker, who stated that she had backseat sex with the married Marbury in his SUV while parked outside a night club in 2005. She, unlike Sanders, consented to her superior's advance. Six weeks before the trial began, Decker received a big promotion.
Meanwhile, Sanders' saga goes something like this: First, in executive meetings, she complained of Thomas' unprofessional behavior and then threatened to sue if something wasn't done. The Knicks suspended her pending an internal investigation, then Knicks owner and MSG president James Dolan, concerned that the “overall health of the Garden was in jeopardy,” fired her after he determined that her allegations were unfounded. Amazingly, Dolan was able to do so without even bothering to talk to legal counsel or look at a report on the investigation of Sanders' claims. Now that's great leadership, Jimmy! Sanders subsequently sued Thomas, MSG and Dolan in January 2006, and on Oct. 2 a civil court jury found Thomas guilty and awarded Sanders $11.6 million.
Dolan, the mad doctor in charge of this loony bin, is crazy himself. All told, basketball in the Big Apple is more than a few dashes of cinnamon shy of apple pie. On the other hand, there's nothing more American than a good-old family feud. And that's exactly what the show at the Garden looks like these days.
While Thomas' guilty verdict represents the point of terminal velocity for the Knicks' disaster, who can say when it all began to unravel? It's like trying to identify the first snowflake in an avalanche. Did it begin in September 1999, when Isiah honed his franchise-killing skills by buying the CBA only for it to declare bankruptcy less than two years later? Or maybe October 1999 when Dolan first assumed managing control of the Knicks? Was it in December 2003 when Dolan named Thomas president of basketball operations? Or in the 2005-06 season, when their managerial strategery of accumulating huge contracts of overpaid underachievers resulted in a 23-59 record paired with the league's highest payroll of $130 million? (Head coach Larry Brown, axed after that awful season, is no dummy; perhaps he loathed associating with these guys so much that he purposely tanked in order to be "fired"/bought out of his misery for $18.5 million.) Or was it when the buyouts didn't end there, and Dolan shelled out another $14 million and then $30 million (both amounts including luxury tax penalties) to Maurice Taylor and Jalen Rose, respectively, in order to secure their unconditional releases and allow the Knicks to acquire more players and incur additional luxury taxes? For a full litany of the Knicks's struggles since the volatile Dolan, a recovering addict prone to "treating people like shit," was named CEO of Cablevision by his father in 1995, check out Sean Cunningham's History of the Decline and Fall of the New York Knickerbockers for Esquire.
Back to the present hostile environment, Thomas of course vehemently asserted that he was "extremely disappointed that the jury could not see the facts" and will appeal the decision. Meanwhile, SportsCenter reported early Wednesday morning that the NY Daily News quoted Marbury as saying, "Isiah has to start me. I've got so much (stuff) on Isiah and he knows it. He thinks he can (get) me. But I'll (get) him first. You have no idea what I know."
At least Isiah isn't on the hook for Sanders' $11 million settlement. That bill also goes Dolan, the richest and most entitled daddy-made man in professional sports and sketchy Zeke's staunchest supporter. On the brighter side of things, now Dolan finally has personal inspiration to sing the blues and play rhythm guitar in his band, JD and the Straight Shot.
Nonetheless, Isiah narrowly edges out Martina Hingis on dp's Sick Six List of Over-Emphatic Protestations of Innocence:
6. Martina Hingis: The tennis star retired last week in the wake of a positive test for cocaine on June 29 at Wimbledon. She says, "I have tested positive but I have never taken drugs and I feel 100 percent innocent.... I have no desire to spend the next several years of my life reduced to fighting against the doping officials.... I am frustrated and angry. I believe that I am absolutely, 100 percent innocent.
Here's what the PTI guys have to say:
Adding to the sense that she was overdoing her claim of "absolute, 100 percent" innocence, Hingis verbosely rambled on to say, "I find this accusation so horrendous, so monstrous, that I have decided to confront it head-on by talking to the press.... They say that cocaine increases self-confidence and creates a type of euphoria. I don't know. I only know that if I were to try to hit the ball while in any state of euphoria, it simply wouldn't work. I would think that it would be impossible for anyone to maintain the coordination required to play top class tennis while under the influence of drugs," Hingis added, displaying accurate knowledge of the drug's effects. Hingis lost in the third round on the day she tested positive, but she assures us that her lawyers can prove her innocence. Who knows? Perhaps the "Swiss Miss" consumed a tainted packet of instant hot chocolate powder.
5. Original "Bad Boy" Isiah Thomas:
Concerning his sexual harassment conviction, Isiah told a throng of reporters outside the courtroom, "I want to say it as loud as I possibly can. I'm innocent. I'm very innocent." Of course, true innocence need not be qualified with the redundant "very" and would thus only be used by a (very) guilty criminal.
4. Rafael Palmeiro: Just months before being suspended for testing positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol, Palmeiro wagged his finger before Congress and testified, "I have never used steroids. Period. I don't know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never." Of course, the second never negates the first, and the resulting double-negative equals a positive steroid test. If only Palmeiro had taken elementary math (or non-juiced Vitamin B-12 shots) instead of simple reverse-psychology.
3. Pete Rose: "I never bet on baseball." Oh, wait, actually he did, and he'll tell you all about it in his best-selling autobiography, My Prison Without Bars. Seriously, go buy a copy. One dollar of every copy sold goes directly to the IRS, and two dollars go toward Rose's "lock" in the daily No. 9 race at Santa Anita. Come 0n, give the old boy something to do while he waits in vain to be reinstated by Bud Selig and consequently enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
2. Marion Jones: Perhaps the saddest story of all, fool's golden girl Jones recently came clean about using performance-enhancing drugs during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where she won five medals, including three golds.
1. O.J. Simpson: Even though he's admitted to "masterminding" a plot to forcibly enter a Las Vegas hotel room with the intent of taking sports memorabilia "stolen" from him by unscrupulous dealers, doesn't everyone believe O.J's claims that there were no guns involved and that all of the junk was rightfully his anyway? In a move familiar to amateur poker players, Simpson practically invented the old "act strong when you're weak, and act weak when you're strong" tactic. (Remember the defense's argument that the battered Juice was too debilitated after his Hall of Fame pro football career to even wield a knife in the manner required to violently murder Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman? "Your honor, I'm only able to powerfully stiff arm, not vengefully stab, defenders to the ground.")
To steer dp's meandering scope back where it started, dp hopes that Zeke and Starbury don't stop at the kissing part of making up; they should continue their love affair indefinitely. This makes sense on multiple levels:
1. Both playmakers have already expressed a desire to pursue sexual relationships in the work place. 2. Both know how to score off a backdoor cut. 3. The ensuing media bonanza celebrating the NBA's first open gay relationship would generate huge interest and expand the Knick's fan base, which would in turn increase revenue that could supplement Dolan's operational costs of poor performance, payroll mismanagement, executive favoritism/nepotism/sexism, and professional lechery. Not to mention the fact that this backcourt combo would transcend even the metrosexual model of modern man and take coolness to a whole new level. Short of the Knicks winning the NBA championship (Vegas has optimistically posted 60-1 odds), this is the best possible news for which fans can hope.
Boston Celtics (6-0, three synergistic superstars, two previously embattled but currently thrilled leaders)
Simply put, KG and the Celtics are killing it. dp was there for The Big Three's home opener versus Washington on Friday, Nov. 2. Check out the energy of the TD Banknorth (bleh!) Garden during introductions:
dp attended the game with three of his college roommates, Boston's original Flickster trio, Ron "Jeremy" Mazza, John "Not Ryan" Flynn, and Zed Fong-Torres. Predictably, Milwaukee native dp was the only one of the bunch to pick Ray Allen as the best-looking member of Boston's Big Three when surveyed by an ESPN Magazine reporter. Presumably, the NBA's last undefeated team will lose at some point, but possibly never to a (L)Eastern Conference team. Boston GM Kevin McHale, er, Danny Ainge, and "coach" Doc Rivers rejoice.
Los Angeles Lakers(3-3, tenth in Western conference, one superstar's impossible trade demand) Paradoxically, Los Angeles has almost no chance of completing a Kobe trade because Bryant holds the NBA's only active no-trade clause and will only approve a deal that he thinks will enable his prospective team to compete for a championship; the Lakers would consider any such deal patently unfair to their own future interests and thus fail to pull the trigger. Despite the unlikelihood of a deal happening, speculation will continue unchecked because the Lakers cannot come out and declare that Kobe won't be traded. They are prevented from doing so by the terms of the pact that Kobe and Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss hashed out this summer in Barcelona. Buss promised Kobe that he would at least listen to trade offers, while in return Kobe promised to play hard and publicly support the Lakers. Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of the Kobe trade drama is watching other teams implode. The Bulls have been intensely scrutinized as having the inside track in the Kobe sweepstakes, and the talented team (49-33 last year) has fallen apart on the court with an atrocious 1-5 start. Meanwhile, Kobe's former companion, ShaquilleO'Neal, isn't even a shade of his former self, and the Heat, desperate for Dwyane Wade's return, are playing so badly in accumulating a 1-6 record that Pat Riley is considering suiting up himself.
That's about the tenth of it. Check back in three weeks for dp's 20% Season Report: Five Surprises a Fifth of the Way, which will include:
-dp's first Double Deuce Slotter, his Top 22 teams (11 each in the East and West)
- First quarter Division Grades for the Atlantic (Boston, Toronto, Jersey, New York, Philly); the Central (Detroit, Cleveland, Indiana, Milwaukee, Chicago); the Southeast (Washington, Orlando, Charlotte, Atlanta, Miami); the Northwest (Utah, Denver, Portland, Minny, Seattle); the Texas Blues (San Antonio, New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, Memphis); and CaliZona (Phoenix, Clippers, Lakers, Sactown, Golden State)
dp's disappointing performance in Week 10 predictions (2-3 record) marked his second losing week of the season (also 2-3 in Week 5).
But sometimes, like the kids say, bad is good.
Overall, dp went 6-8 in Week 10, tied with Week 4 for his worst record of the year. Yet even with this seemingly underwhelming performance, dp finished fourth (of 22) in his weekly picks league. How, you ask? Well, the answer is easy. Even though dp didn't have the gumption to predict any of the rash of upsets in Week 10 (including the Saints' loss to previously winless St. Louis, Tennessee's loss to Jacksonville, Baltimore's loss to Cincy, Indy's loss to San Diego, Kansas City's loss to Denver, Carolina's loss to Atlanta, and Washington's loss to Philly), he also didn't feel all that good in backing these prohibitive "favorites," and therefore devalued the confidence index accordingly. Granted, New Orleans was dp's lock of the week (16 points on the confidence index), which hurt, but no one else pick them to lose either, so it didn't matter too much.
From professional leagues to personal extremes, FLICKsport's got the scoop. I'm your humble host, the digital producer, the unassisted double play, the deep poet: dp.
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The miracle is simply the easy money that was out there at the beginning of the week when you could pick the Giants and still be getting points. So many gamblers did so that the line has jumped four points. New York will roar past the Lions, whose remaining schedule includes two games with Green Bay, plus Dallas and at San Diego. If 6-4 Detroit wants to make the playoffs, they better keep praying in Kitna's bible study groups.
