Combine Notes 2/27/11

THOUGHTS ON NBA TRADE DEADLINE

Melo-Drama's Over

Just a few days ago I had told you that even thought the Nuggets and Nets had a preliminary agreement in place, that all of the power belonged to Carmelo Anthony. Well last night around 10:30 pm Eastern Time the Denver Post reported that Anthony had been traded to the Knicks, I was on twitter at the time and was waiting for a bigger Media outlet to confirm it, it didn't get confirmed until well after 11 pm. Anthony and Billups were the headliners in the multi-player deal for the Nuggets, the Knicks gave up Gallinari, Chandler, Felton, Mozgov and draft picks. The Knicks also traded Randoph and Curry to the Timberwolves for Brewer. Last night a lot of people were saying that the Knicks gave up too much. are you serious you gave up a bunch of players who haven't really carved their niche out in this league for arguably one of the NBA's best scorers!! Carmelo Anthony might not be the complete players that Kobe, Wade, or Lebon are but he is very good at something that matters in the League....PUTTING THE BALL IN THE BASKET!! What impressed me about this trade is that the Knicks were able to hold on to Landry Fields, as a Knicks fan that is the only player I didn't want to part with. The Knicks now have 2 big time scorers on their team in Amare and Carmelo, they were able to land a very good floor leader in Billups and someone who's just fine doing the little things in Corey Brewer. I don't expect much this year, maybe making the playoffs. If they do end up in the playoffs they will be one of the toughest outs as a lower seed in the Eastern Conference. There's not many great small fowards in the East outside of LeBron and Paul Pierce, Carmelo is going to do what he wants on a nightly basis. The question is whether or not D'Antoni can get this team to play defense, if he can't hopefully Chauncey Billups can. I was reading today that the Clippers are offerring a 1st Round pick to the Nuggets to acquire Gallinari. I'd also like to note that Wilson Chandler is an unrestricted Free Agent when this season is over, so there is a possibility he doesn't return to Denver although we'll find out shortly because he and Gallinari play the same position. So who do you think made out better, the Knicks or Nuggets??

Now that the trade is complete, big game Sunday night: Knicks-Heat at 8pm!!

Ovechkin Ends Drought, Caps Beat Pens

Alex Ovechkin hasn't exactly been lighting the lamp on a regular basis against the Pittsburgh Penguins, he hadn't scored in the last 4 Caps-Pens games. Not only did he score last night, but it was the ONLY goal scored in the game as the Caps beat the Pens 1-0! Even more impressive then Ovechkin breaking out of this slump against the Pens, was the incredible play of Michal Neuvirth. Neuvirth did had a stellar game between the pipes for the Caps, he stopped 39 shots en route to a shut out!! This was Neuvirth's 3rd shutout THIS season, this was the 7th straight road win against the Pens for the Capitals. In this year's season series, the Caps have won 3 of the 4 games with the 4th resulting in a draw. Now I don't want to paint only half of this picture, the Pens were much more agressive then the Caps on offense out-shooting them 39-24. Pens goalie Marc Andre Fleury had a very good game other than Ovechkin's top shelf rocket in the 2nd period. The Pens are in something of a drought against the Caps, they haven't scored in 157:47 with the last goal being in the Winter Classic where they got blasted 3-1. Last night's win has the Caps at 32-19-10, that means 2nd place in their division. The great news for the Caps is that they are only 1 POINT behind the Tampa Bay Lightning, will the Caps continue their recent dominance over the Pens?? Will the Pens be able to snap out of their current slide, they are in 4th place in the Conference at the moment and only 3 points ahead of the Caps. I usually don't cover hockey until it's the stretch run close to the playoffs, but due to a request from my good friend Josh I will try to make an attempt to comment on it more.

Uconn Great Cleared

Diana Taurasi was suspended from play in a Turkish Basketball League, this was Taurasi's first time playing in this League. Supposedly she had tested positive for both her A and B samples during a drug test, Taurasi was banned and has been in the States for some time now. Once this story broke, she vehemently denied these allegations and swore that she has been clean her entire career. She was not the only top flight athlete that was cleared this week, Top Cyclist Alberto Contrador was cleared as well. I have been very leery of these tiny labs that are responsible for the testing in Europe for a while now, almost every year we get news that an athlete has been doping and they then get vilified. Than some time passes and they are cleared, when they are cleared it happens very quietly unlike when their results are leaked to the public when they test positive. They need to make sure all of these tiny labs are up to par and are all consistent, the only reason this was a big story is because of who Taurasi is. If it was a lesser known player it might of been news, but not nearly on the same level as this was. It happened several months ago, yet ESPN didn't put it on blast until a couple of weeks ago. She is officially cleared, that news is not nearly as important as when she was accused of testing positive. It's not fair to the truly clean athletes who get affected by poorly run labs in Europe, the Anti Doping Agency needs to get this right!! This cost Tauraisi a lot of negative attention for nothing, not to mention the time off the court due to the suspension. What do you think should be done to a lab when they are wrong, if anything??

Nets-Nuggets Agree, But....

So there's a tentative agreement in place, the Nuggets would be receive their King's Ransom for Carmelo Anthony. Except there's a problem, Carmelo Anthony hasn't signed that extension. Remember that 3 year $65 million dollar extension that the Nuggets offered Mr. Anthony at the start of the season? Well the Nets aren't as foolish as they seem, they're willing to give all of their assets up as long as they are assured Melo's services for the next 4 years. The Nets are offering FOUR 1ST ROUND PICKS in addition to Devin Harris, Derrick Favors and a couple lesser known players. So the 2 teams are in total agreement, now we get to find out if Melo just wants out of Denver or really wants to be a New York Knick. The clocks ticking... What do you think Melo's going to do??

Ronaldo Retires

Due to my absence this past week, I didn't get a chance to share with you how deeply saddened I was by the retirement of one of my all time favorite soccer players. Ronaldo...not Cristiano, but the original Ronaldo one of the greatest forwards to ever play the game of futbol!! He gave us 18 years of Beautiful Fubol, any time he touched the ball you thought it was going to the back of the net!! I still think he had the greatest "turn" of any striker ever, he was unstoppable once he had position!! He scored over 400 goals in his career and still holds the World Cup Record for scoring 15 goals during just 1 World Cup!! Ronaldo scored 62 goals in 97 appearences (Caps) for Brazil, he officially retired on Valentines Day. Thank you R9 for the 18 years of brilliant creativity you provided us with, do you think Ronaldo is the one of the best strikers ever??