SimonOnSports

Dear Lebron James, Hi Lebron, with the NBA season just around the corner it must be an exciting time for you. You get to concentrate on being a basketball player and riding the coattails playing with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. You must be so excited that you.... do an interview and foolishly say that race played a factor in why people hate you now. [Internal Screaming] Ok We're better now. Lebron, we really have no care in the world for whether you are black, white, asian, latino or some version of this . The reason why we lowered your approval rating so much this offseason is because you are a self promoting asshole who had zero difficulty throwing a knife into the hearts of his former fanbase nor had any problem creating a "Super" team for which all of us will have zero issues rooting against. We Americans like to vilify and you did a fantastic job of making that easy for us to do with "The Decision". You were the local super hero. You were t...

Last offseason the Cavs had a few options, they could either A) go for it in 09-10 and try to convince Lebron that they were doing whatever they could to get him a championship or they could have B) not so discretely told Lebron that they were going to build a roster in 09-10 that would allow him to pick from the litter of free agent buddies that he might want to bring with him to Cleveland. I wrote about this exact issue last June and stated that of the two B was vastly more important than option A. Unfortunately for Cavaliers fans, they went with option A and came up well short of an NBA title. Let's just rewind and look at some of the decisions which are forcing the Cavs to bank on hometown loyalty and not "Opportunity to Win". Last year the Cavs biggest offseason decision was what to do with free agent Anderson Varejao. They could let him go and save the cap room or they could keep him on the roster to appease Lebron, they chose to sign him to a 6 year deal. Wh...

As one can easily see on the chart above, sometimes the Pink line is the only line that matters. Mike Brown is coming off back to back 60+ win seasons and back to back #1 seeds in the East, yet the pink playoff line has been on the decrease since the Cavs unlikely trip to the Finals a few years back. As a result, he found himself on the chopping block this week with his only saving grace being a public vote of confidence from Lebron James. The vote of confidence did not come, Mike Brown is now fired, and the Cavs will hire whichever coach they think is most likely to keep Lebron in Cleveland. Let the Lebron games begin...

This post is brought to you by SPORTSBETTING.com. Get best online sports betting bonuses at this sportsbook . And now we can all officially speculate about something that we all have been speculating about for nearly 3 years now, where will Lebron James be signing a contract in the summer of 2010. As of right now your early favorites are still the Cavaliers. They are closely followed by the Knicks who are followed more distantly by the Bulls, Nets, Clipshow and Heat. The odds will obviously change throughout the offseason as more news comes out but let's just give some thoughts to each of the 6 squads. Cavs - The Cavs are the favorites for the obvious reason, he is currently a member of the Cavs, he is an Ohio lifer, and his legacy will never be as strong winning championships as it would be if he won them in Cleveland. Even though the team he would go to would be a completely rebuilt ship (outside of Chicago) it will always feel like he bailed for a better scenario and co...

This post is brought to you by SPORTSBETTING.com. Get best online sports betting bonuses at this sportsbook . With the NHL picks out of the way, we bring a quick bracket of NBA brilliance. Or not... In a shocking maneuver I'm going King James for the win. The Cavs have been the best team in the NBA this season. They should be able to get revenge on the Magic. The Celtics and Lakers are getting old and worse throughout the year and the Mavericks have no one that can stop the King. I desire not to pick the Lakers so the Mavs make it to the finals to watch the crown be put on King James skull making him free to rule any city in the US, including Manhattan or Brooklyn.

Every year I take a look across the major 4 American Professional leagues to see just what kind of superb merchandise they are trying to pawn off on you on St. Patrick's day. Buy this shirt which you can wear in relevance for exactly one day during the year. Every other day you will look like an idiot for wearing green apparel for a team who's actual colors are Black and Gold. NHL The NHL Provides you with some of the worst of the St. Patty's day merchandise. First you have the boy shorts for the lady of your life with a bunch of clovers and then a random Blackhawks logo (These are available for NFL Teams as well). Next you have the puck which for whatever reason I actually like, probably because its not something you wear. Finally and worst of all, you have the new GRAPHIC-T which is god awful. Nothing says St. Patrick's Day like the San Jose Sharks.

Back on December 29th I had a semi original and decently well thought out post* surrounding a potential Knicks Rockets deal surrounding a combination of T-Mac going to the Knicks and a package going to the Rockets. Who knew that just a few months later the deal just might actually go through. See it's not that hard to be a GM. The current puported deal is Larry Hughes, Jordan Hill, Jared Jeffries and a some 1st round pick swapping for T-Mac, Brian Cook and Joey Dorsey. The deal would free up just enough cap space for the Knicks to divy out two max contracts this offseason which is unquestionably the New York Knickerbocker's desire. The Rockets want to rid themselves of T-Mac, likely understand that they won;t be able to sign anyone this offseason and this deal gives them better draft picks as well as a rookie lottery pick and maybe a semi-small improvement for this season. I'm sure every Knick fan would have liked to somehow include Eddy Curry and I'm sure every Ro...

To me all All Star games have morphed into events that are never "Must See". They all have major issues that make the games relative jokes and if I have anything better to do than the games shall be bypassed. The NFL and NHL are sports that are built too solidly around contact for any of the athletes to want to play full speed. The NFL additionally suffers from a mass pullout from some of their Superstars that frankly don't give a damn about the game as well as a list of plays so simple a 3rd grade pop warner player could learn them in a week. Major League baseball teams would never agree to the All Star game using just one ace starter for more than 2 innings and no All Star manager would ever just utilize his 9 starting fielders throughout the entirety of the game thus insulting the remainder of the huge roster he has at his hands.. Of the 4 Major Sports All Star games just one truly has the potential to truly show off the best of the best in a showdown without any l...

I know New Orleans is getting ready for Mardi Gras and is in Super Bowl celebration mode, but how can anyone explain these? Purple on the front, yellow on the sides and green in the back with maybe a little rhinestone trimming? Paul Lukas must be rolling in his grave... wait he loves it ? I'm confused. At least David West looks disgusted by it.

The New Jersey Nets are currently on pace to post the WORST RECORD IN NBA HISTORY . Currently the Nets are on pace for 7 wins, yes this means less than double digit wins on the season, yes this is 1/10th the win total of the great Bulls Jordan-Rodman-Pippen squad, yes 7 wins in the playoffs won't even get you out of the 2nd round. So what the hell happenned? Why has this team gone from Eastern Conference Champs at the start of the decade to one of the worst teams in the history of the NBA? Well first they sold off their "Big 3" for youth and hope of the future. They traded Jason Kidd for Devin Harris, a move that seemed great to me at the time but Harris has been injured and regressed this year. They traded Richard Jefferson for Yi, who also was injured for much of this season and really isn't more than an average player at this point of his career. Finally they traded Vince Carter for Courtney Lee, who also hasn't really emrged as anything more than a role play...

When I have a few random topics I feel like discussing but none of the topic deserve a whole post, then you get the quick notes. Michigan Be Done Well the Michigan season is about as good as over now that they have fallen to 10-10 and lost maybe their best opportunity to pick up a landmark victory. First off they choked and not necessarily on the defenses last possession. Up three their last two actual full possessions ended in a shot clock violation and a DeShawn Sims airballed three. Mr. Bielien, you need to draw up something better than that. Oh and how the hell was this not a foul? Since when can you full out grab someones jersey when they go up for a shot?

Thanks to NBA.com's new and nifty +/- stat tracking site , we can now get Brian Scalabrine's season +/- without adding it up ourselves. Quite obviously Scalabrine has the lowest +/- of anyone on the roster, coming in at -27 through 33 games played. GO SCALS!

Why is Deron so Sad and Carlos so Happy? It's pretty simple. The Jazz reto Green Jerseys are pure awesome while their typical uniform with the purplie-blue and navy is absolutely horrendous. Not to mention that the old Jazz logo is ten times better than the new "lightning" inspired Jazz print. If Karl Malone and John Stockton wore these jerseys the Jazz would have won an NBA title, instead they wore purple and were Michael Jordan's bitch.

Yesterday provided us with two potential stories which are both mind boggling and humorous. Story #1 , Stephon Marbury to Play in China The first story is basically hilarious. Stephon Marbury is no longer retired, instead Marbury is going to become the 1st big name player to head over to China. Of all people to be a pioneer for American Basketball in China it quite obviously needed to the player whom is arguably the least sane. Could any basketball player have more of an odd career path than Marbury? He came into the NBA after one season at Georgia Tech and looked to form a dynamic duo with Kevin Garnett. But he decided he wanted to play at home and get the money so he was sent to New Jersey. In New Jersey he failed miserably just to see himself traded to Phoenix for Jason Kidd. In Phoenix he got the team into the playoffs but then was traded after a few seasons to the Knicks so they could bring in Steve Nash. All the while Marbury is averaging nearly 20 & 10 every sea...

The Scalabrine Watch grew a bit too much and too boring to handle over its two seasons of existence so I decided to scrap it as a weekly column and focus on other things. But since there's a bit of dead air here I figure why not take a look at Scals season thus far. And well, he just might be having the WORST season of his career. I know you are baffled. How could a man do worse than a season with 1.8 points per game, 1.7 rebounds per game while shooting just over 30% from the field. Well Scals makes it possible. Here's his season line thus far. Games Played: 26, Minutes Per Game: 9:41, FG%: 30.6, 3PT FG%: 23.8, FT%: 75.0, Rebounds: 0.7, Pts: 1.2 In around 10 minutes of burn per game, Scalabrine is averaging less than 1 rebound and barely over 1 point while shooting dreadful percentages from basically everywhere except the free throw line and that doesn't really even count because he's taken just 4 free throws. I think its likely safe to say that with this b...

Part of me feels like Jay Marioti for saying this, but Gilbert Arenas should be suspended for the entire year. The Wizards should be allowed to void his contract with cause. And Gilbert should start applying for some serious gun safety based community service. If any individual person went into their place of work and pulled out three guns during an argument "as a joke" they would be fired on the spot. If Gilbert Arenas did this while at Arizona he likely would have been expelled. While most of the time I feel as if I'm on the side of leniency when it comes towards players suspended for their moronic actions, bringing guns and whipping them out in the work place is a line that never should be crossed. I honestly don't care that the guns weren't loaded and nothing was going the happen, you don't store multiple guns in your locker in any circumstance and you don't pull them out ever. Gilbert Arenas should pay a price for his blatant stupidity and that...

Over the weekend the University of Southern California concluded that O.J. Mayo while a basketball player at the school was improperly paid and as of such ineligible during the 07-08 season. As a result of these finding USC imposed these following punishments: • No postseason play in 2009-10, including the Pac-10 Conference Tournament. • A reduction of one scholarship for the 2009-10 and 2010-11 academic years. • Reducing the number of coaches permitted to recruit off-campus by one during the summer of 2010. • Reducing the number of recruiting days for the 2010-11 academic year, to 110 from 130. • USC said it will vacate all wins during the 2007-08 regular season, which was when Mayo competed while ineligible. It will also return the money it received through the Pac-10 for taking part in the 2008 NCAA tournament. [ ESPN ]

The Rockets are obviously interested in getting rid of Tracy McGrady and the Knicks are obviously interested in getting rid of Eddy Curry and clearing up the entirety of their 2010 free agent cap space. The only way this possibly works is if the Knicks can convince the Rockets of two things: 1) It will improve them this season. 2) There is a piece of the pie in the future that will be a nice shiny chip for them.

It's the end of the decade. So it's time for some lists. Today's list is the Worst NBA Teams of the past decade. 11. 01-02 Golden State Warriors , 21-61 - The 01-02 Warriors were essentially a young version of the Wizards. The team wasn't quite sure it knew what Agent Zero was as he only played 24 minutes. Antawn Jamison led the team in everything with Larry Hughes and Jason Richardson not far behind. 10. 03-04 Orlando Magic , 21-61 - It's the "I'm gonna be such an ass and shoot so much that my general manager is going to feel compelled to trade for Steve Francis" Tracy McGrady season. A year after McGrady said "It feels so good to be in the 2nd round" he decided to shoot shoot shoot his team all the way to 21-61. 9. 00-01 Chicago Bulls , 15-67 - This version of the Bulls was just too young to get Ws. They had some solid pieces with Elton Brand (21), Ron Artest (21) and Brad Miller (24) holding down the paint but their point gu...

It's the end of the decade. So it's time for some lists. Today's list is the Worst NBA Draft Picks of the past decade. 11. Jordan Hill, #8 2009, Knicks: It's very very early to proclaim Jordan Hill one of the worst draft picks of the decade, but I'm going to do it anyway. The Knicks needed a point guard and Brandon Jennings was on the board. With all D'Antoni's ties to the Italian League you would have thought he might have had a good scouting report, apparently not. Hill already has 12 DNP-CDs while Brandon Jennings is the new big thing in the NBA. 10. Yaroslav Korolev, #12 2005, Clippers: Korolev totaled just 34 career games with the Clippers before running back to Russia to play for Moscow. The Clippers could have gone in the right direction and grabbed Danny Granger. Instead they got 34 games of 39 total points and 16 total rebounds. Woo. 9. Fran Vázquez, #11 2005, Magic: Maybe you've heard of Fran Vázquez and maybe you haven't. ...