Jason Terry can say whatever he wants, but I don’t think falling off in the fourth quarter is the only problem that he has. LeBron James has an issue with that because he’s a superstar. He wants the ball–he wants to be the man–so he has to step up and score when it counts. Jason Terry, yeah, we’d like to see more of him, but I don’t think we can say that him not being fully there in the fourth quarter is a problem that is causing the Mavs to not succeed.
Listen to the vow:
When you call it a “stiff back,” that could mean just about anything. Honestly. It could mean anything under the sun. Some people just get a stiff back every now and then and it doesn’t mean anything more than they had a bad day. Josh Hamilton had a stiff back. So, he sat out. However, rushing him back when the Rangers are playing so well is not a good idea. While he’s an older guy, he’s still the future of the franchise. He’s more meaningful to the Rangers than anybody else on the team simply because he was there when all of this started.
“Well, we can improve in every area of our football team. We have our eyes open to that. And you have to look at every way to do that. We felt like we did a lot of that in free agency and we were certainly ready to do that in that draft. We didn’t feel like our backs were to the wall where we had to take this position or that position.”
With all of the Japanese media swarming around the Rangers, there’s bound to be some Japenese traditions finding their way into the way that the Rangers live this season. Well, Ron Washington turned 60, and, lo and behold, the Japanese media members who are in Texas to follow Yu Darvish got him a gigantic cake for his birthday! Pretty nice, huh? Apparently, it’s part of a larger tradition.
The Mavs have a pretty good shot at handling the Thunder if they do a couple things right over the next couple of games. At first, I was skeptical because I just didn’t think that the Mavs would be able to stick to it. I mean, yes, they forced the Thunder to take and make a game-winning shot, but, that was game one, right?
Well, if you look at the way the Mavs play basketball, they can win this series if they:
The Rangers are on fire right now, and this is a wonderful precursor to a season that could, again, end in a berth in the World Series. How can they ensure that they can make this another run to the playoffs and the World Series instead of having a letdown? Well, it all goes back to hitting.
I clapped and jumped for joy when I read this. There’s nothing wrong with teams and players moving on, even after a long time, but, when that team honors an honorable guy and has him back for just one more look, and so that he can retire with a team whose cap he will likely wear in the hall of fame, that’s pretty special.
Ivan Rodriguez is one of the best defensive catchers I’ve ever seen. He was just so good that I couldn’t believe it most of the time. He fearlessly blocked the plate. He hit for power. He sprayed the ball all over the place. He was the man.
Lamar Odom had already been late to a game and a team meeting. The team started discussions with Odom that would lead him to be deactivated. Oh, and Mark Cuban went to talk to Odom in the locker room. Then, it got heated as Cuban, apparently, wanted a commitment from Odom.
It rubbed Cuban the wrong way:
“Just his response to it. Everybody goes through ups and downs. Every player does. We tried to put him in a position to succeed. You guys saw it, saw what we did. It didn’t work.”
No. We should not. I said this yesterday, but I want to say it again. We should not be upset with Lamar Odom because this thing didn’t work out. The Mavs have enough money to give him a buyout and move on. Not only do you need to have a way to move on when you are in a bad situation, but you also must have a way to be happy. Lamar was very unhappy, and he was a square peg that was being fit, unsuccessfully, into a round hole. So, now both sides have decided it’s over, and that’s ok.
I know they aren’t the same player, but let’s be real for a minute. The Mavs kind of wanted to replace Tyson Chandler with Lamar Odom. Or, that was the backup plan when Chandler jumped ship.
So, I know that wasn’t the original plan, but, I think it might be time to stop blaming Lamar Odom and send a thank you note to Tyson Chandler. Basically, Tyson Chandler is the reason the Mavs won a title last season. He’s the Terrell Davis to Dirk’s John Elway. He was the missing link. He comes in and suddenly everything clicks. I mean, you have to admit that that does not happen everyday. So, when you find yourself trying to figure out what’s going on, you can blame Lamar for not meeting expectations, or you can look back at Chandler and see what a beast he was and how important he really was to this franchise.
