Best Since Jordan?

I think its almost a definite consensus that Michael Jordan was the best player of the 90s, and quite possibly any era. What is not determined is who has been the best since him. Yes, I did say it was not determined. Most people are going to point the arrow towards Kobe Bean Bryant, but let us give that some real thought; you may be surprised.

Michael Jordan left the Bulls, for the last time, after the 1998 season. Since then, there have been 13 mvps. Everyone's favorite, Mr. Bryant only has one of those. Meanwhile, Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, and Lebron James only have 2.

Has Kobe been the best scorer since Jordan, too? He's certainly got the rep of the best. However, Kobe has only won a whole 2 scoring titles since 1998. About the same amount as young Kevin Durant. The once great and much richer Allen Iverson has 4, thats easily forgotten. Lets not forget about McGrady having a couple before the injury bug hit and later decimated his career.

I know what the next thought will be, rings perhaps? Yes, 24 has accumulated 5 of those. I suppose you cannot take those away. You can mention the fact that Duncan has 4. While mentioning that, you have to note that Duncan was the main option on all 4 of those championship teams. He certainly did not have the luxury of being the big deferent to a massive and beyond dominant Shaquille O'neal for 3 rings. In his 7 trips to the finals, he has 2 finals' mvps. Duncan has 3 in 4 trips.

Have we overrated Kobe? I don't think we have, and I won't dispute the force he is in the league. My point is that the league has also had other great players. Just because Tim Duncan hasn't tried to clone Jordan doesn't mean he's not worthy of the title "best since Jordan". Flash shouldn't be the answer, and neither should high price divorces. However, productivity should be.

Peyton or Eli? Really?!

This past Sunday, Eli Manning won his second super bowl. When I say second, I do mean more than one but less than three. This has sparked several debates about which quarterback is better, Eli or his brother Peyton. Is this debate necessary? Here is what I think.

Here is the simple solution. Even if Peyton does not play another game, he will go down as one of the greatest to ever play the position. Peyton has thrown for 4,000 yards in every season with the exception of 2. Eli only has 3 total 4,000 yard seasons. Is that enough?

Do we have to bring actual wins in the equation? MVPs? Or any stat that proves if a QB is actually good or not? The bottom line is that Peyton has been possibly the league’s best for quite some time now. That has never been said about his younger brother, who has always been closer to the middle of the pack than he has the top.

To Eli’s credit, he has always played better in the Playoffs than his older brother. The only thing about that is you are not guaranteed to get to the postseason with Eli under the helm. If not for the Cowboys practically putting the Giants in this year it would not even be the least bit a debate. Even in the games where the Giants controlled their own postseason destiny Eli had an “Eli” type game. He threw the ball to a Washington Redskins’ player 4 times in a blowout loss. Lets not act like he was flawless in that win against his fellow New Jersey mates. His stats read 9 for 27 for 127 yards. Oh yeah, 99 of those yards came from a Victor Cruz catch and run.

What Eli did do? He talked his smack and he brought great play behind it. One season does not make him Peyton, and I’m sorry to say that two rings don’t either. What he has done is assert himself as one of the league’s top quarterbacks. But there are still at least 5 I’d take in front of him. Mr. Rodgers in the neighborhood, Cool Brees, Big Ben, the guy he’s beat in the big game twice, and his big brother would all get my selection before Mr. Elijah Manning. That is no knock on Eli, in fact its progress. He can certainly add the elusive “t e” to the end of his first name. As far as the debate with his brother, not so fast!

intro to me (youtube)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mDhmmDxdBY

Football in Ashland???

The people of Benton County Mississippi can finally say that football has arrived. The newly formed Ashland Buccaneers will be playing their first game this upcoming week. This game will be the precedent and beginning of a long wait for the initiation of America’s most profitable sport.

The Buccaneers were not granted to the town of Ashland without some very consistent, hard, and determined work. The citizens of the town and the county put in their highly devoted time, year after year, in hopes of providing the kids with football.

The establishment known as the Ashland Raiders helped initiate the charge for football in Benton County. Parents, showing their drive, came out and devoted their time and hard earned dollars to the town’s children pursuing the sport. For about a half-decade, supporters like Corinthian Cole, Sherwin Thomas, the man everybody knows as “Big Joe”, Charles Williams, Terry Henderson, and Curtis Hoyle put in a collaborated coaching effort. They were not alone in the efforts, as from time to time different football fans and parents would come out to show their support.

The proverbial “blood, sweat, and tears” that were laid down by those past volunteers have now turned into tears of joy. Football has indeed arrived, bringing with it optimism and a new joy. The people of this area finally attained something they wanted. There is finally big news in the county outside of a massive voter fraud bust and false STD information.

However, it also brings curiosity. No matter how much people of any race try to deny it, this town is still segregated. Black kids do not go to school with white kids and vice versa. I shall not talk about the reasoning for this separation of the races, simply because I already have and we all know the real reasons.

This football team is not just a football team, it is the first thing blacks and whites of Benton County, MS have done together in recent memory. Whether both sides actually want to or not is out of the question. The want for football is greater, and has so far prevailed. The curiosity comes in when there has to be a wondering to how long this will last. Not saying that blacks and whites are at each others’ throats, we all get along for the most part. However, we have not worked well together. In fact, we have barely worked together at all.

How long will this last? Hopefully this will be something unprecedented. Hopefully this will do something even the great Dr. King could not completely do. With the right attitudes and a winning environment, little black boys can definitely play with little white boys. In the brotherhood of football, that is definitely a possibility. My only issue with it is, what in the hell took so long?!

Merger?

Here we stand, in the year 2011, and most blacks and most whites are still going to different schools. Now lets not over-analyze the situation, because there are not any laws preventing the conjoining of the races. Even without those laws, there are indeed provisions/boundaries that most people in the area don’t want to talk about. THAT’S WHERE I COME IN! I want to know exactly what the reason is, and here are my thoughts.
1, most black students go to school there because they have to. Its really not a choice, if it were they’d probably all choose elsewhere. There is nothing there intriguing to blacks, except for more blacks. There is no football (until now hopefully), no major academic programs, and the opportunities to excel at anything because of the school is not very promising. 2, maybe some of you will say basketball. That thought is quickly diminishing. The reality is that, we haven’t won much lately. And with football possibly on the rise, basketball is at a risk of losing the best athletes. What we do know is that no matter the sport, no matter the accolades of any of the surrounding schools, black kids and white kids are not in the same classrooms.
My honest opinion, the white parents in the surrounding area DO NOT want their kids going to school with black kids. It is basically legal segregation. Not calling them racist, or prejudice, maybe there is just some sort of hidden agenda. Maybe all the things I mentioned before was enough of a reason for them to ship their kids off to other schools, hoping for them to have better opportunities.
Then again, maybe there is a hidden racism. Kanye West said “racism’s still alive, they just be concealing it”. Maybe the supreme court decision to over turn segregation did absolutely nothing for the town of Ashland, except make the fact that white parents will never send their kids to school with black kids.
By breaking down the town’s demographic, maybe most will agree. Most of the kids I went to school with stayed on the OUTSIDE of Ashland. For us, it was about a 25 minute commute. There were the areas of Lamar, highway 5, Michigan City, and our area that honestly has no name. We made up the majority of Ashland’s school system, but why? Why were the only kids that went to school in Ashland, not from Ashland? Why is it that the kids that actually stay in Ashland don’t go to Ashland? I think that once it is completely analyzed, the answer becomes obvious.
My purpose for writing this is not completely to ruffle any feathers. It is more of a challenge than an attempt at angering the people of Ashland. If my beliefs are wrong, if what I say is inaccurate, then lets work on merging the schools! There is no need to have two 2A schools, when they can have 1 school and have all the resources they need. It will kill any shortage on teachers because of the larger classes. Students will be challenged like never before, and will not be incredibly lost upon entering college. And last but not least, sports would benefit tremendously. Baseball, basketball and football would have the opportunities to be some of the best in the state, and possibly the whole region. Merging the schools is the only, and definitely the best way!

Desire? Or Lack There of?

Obviously, the NBA is staring a new trend right in the face. Since the Boston Celtics, seemingly broke the mold on how NBA teams are constructed, other players have been bending, twisting, and drastically cutting salaries to play alongside other superstars.
The most notable of these moves occured this summer when Lebron James and Chris Bosh both decided to take paycuts to pay alongside Dwayne Wade in Miami. Since then all three, mainly Lebron, has taken enormous heat! Lebron, has since become the villain of the league. Quite possibly suffering the biggest popularity drop in all of sports history. One has to ask the question, is all this hate warranted?
From my perspective, yes and no. Yes in the sense that Lebron was always held to a different standard. He was sort of the typical fan's lure away from anything negative about basketball. He was all of the "Kobe fans" bright light. A way to be able to argue about who was the league's best. He was seemingly a role model, playing for his home team.
No, only because he never asked for any of that. He never once begged to be liked, and he's never really been the one seemingly crying for attention. Of course, he has never been the best sport. Walking off the court in Orlando, basically giving up in last year's playoffs.
But i guess my main question is, do the "greats"of today's NBA lack desire? Do they lack the heart it takes to be a true champion. People praise Lebron cause they say he was on a bad team! Tell me how many teams won 60 games two years in a row. Im sure the answer to that is not many.
In the case of the Celtics, those guys had already played their careers out. Garnett, never really wanted to leave Minnesota. He wanted to win, but it was only until Ray Allen came over to Boston that Garnett signed off on that trade. We can bring up past greats like Reggie, Ewing, Barkely, and even Iverson and the conversation would go the same now even if they had won a ring. Reggie, one of the greatest shooters ever. Ewing, quite possibly the best center for a good stretch of time and was a true leader for that Knicks franchise. Barkely, the only man I know thats 6'6 and can go toe to toe with any power forward in the history of the game. Iverson, the best small player in the history of the game.
But what are all these guys missing, rings! And you can bring their name up a thousand times but that will never come up! That is because they were warriors, they had desire! Along with that came respect and admiration. Their careers are celebrated alongside the most highest, selling out to go play alongside two more superstars would have only tarnished that.
I can only hope that 10 or 20 years from now, people will remember Lebron for the exciting and great basketball talent he is. Right now, he is literally a man amongst boys. But, father time moves fast. There will come a day when those legs dont jump as high, nor move as quick. When that comes, hopefully the stinch he left the league with wont be the most important thing on his resume'.

Stereotypical

Sports at my alma mater are sort of vague. Not that there aren’t any athletes, but that the athletes limit themselves. It has seemingly been a contagious theme for decades that basketball is the only sport that’s important. However that was initiated, may indeed but forever unknown. What is really unknown is when will that unjust cycle be broken. There are way too many athletes dedicating themselves to a sport that only has two rounds of a professional draft. Not that I am against basketball, I like imitating Jordan every once in a while myself. But when it comes to a future, I know that if I’m not one of those kids highly publicized by the age of 12 then my chances are very slim to make it anywhere let alone to a professional level. I have been around this area for quite some time now, and I can honestly say that some of the kids are quite talented. Due to them inadequately overly dedicating themselves, they never get the work in it takes to play a sport like baseball.
Until this past season, no one person can even remember the last time the school had won a baseball game. Even when I played, the coaches would move the few dedicated players aside just to play the basketball players because they were a tad more athletic and maybe a little more respected. Oh yeah, I did say a few dedicated players. Even the kids that played baseball took basketball more serious. There would be a conversation that goes something like, “come on, lets go play catch. Play catch! Baseball is for white boys, but we’re hooping around 5:30.” Unfortunately we’re implanted with thoughts like those, and they are honestly a shame. The last time I checked an African American, Barry Bonds, held the all-time home run record. Now there’s going to be somebody that’s going to say, “he took steroids”. To that person or people, Hank Aaron had the record before he did. Basically, it never matters about the color of our skin. What we have to remember is that dedication is key.
To that person that has those dreams of playing pro ball, then be a dedicated STUDENT OF THE GAME! Don’t be arrogant just because you can flash a jump shot, or because you can score 10 points in a dirt ball game. Develop a work ethic, and go for it with all you have. My only point, that I hope is well taken; use that dedication to give yourself deserving opportunities. Don’t limit yourself, and most certainly don’t do it in the aspect of playing what is supposedly a white man’s sport. Tell that to the Japanese, after they have won the WORLD Baseball classic its first two years. Tell that to a good friend of mine by the name of James Gillmore. When he first started playing, he couldn’t even catch a simple pop fly. But he used that dedication he had and by my senior year he smacked one about 380 feet over the left field wall. He scored yours truly so I had to give him that shout out.
Now of course, its not all the kids’ faults. Until a few years ago, there were zero programs in place to enhance any athletic possibilities. No little league, nor were there any summer baseball camps and there still aren’t any of those in place. Luckily we had a few brilliant minds that brought a community football team to a town that didn’t even own a football field. To the same town that could have probably built a football dynasty, but mysteriously chose not to. I suppose that will be a later topic. Just to keep it short for these old people in the area, give these kids what they need! They can’t go out there and do it themselves, so its up to you. Its not fair that we have just as much athletic talent as any school, quite possibly in the state, but because of stubborn, ridiculous, and pitiful so called leaders in the community we can’t supply these kids with the help and opportunities they need. Make something happen, immediately. I’m almost certain that there are several kids who’s life may actually be depending on that one opportunity. Just keep in mind, there will always be trouble out there whether these kids get things in place or not. There’s a reason detention and alternative classes are full everyday of every year. Maybe its time that coffee got smelled……………