You know, it’s easy — very easy — to ridicule, pile on and generally just kill the Winnipeg Blue Bombers this season with public opinion but oh what it must be like to cheer for the Hamilton Tiger Cats.

Wowee.

To recap the saga of the past 48 hours or so. Winnipeg DE Tom Canada was traded to Hamilton for MLB Zeke Moreno late Monday. Canada, in an interview that appeared Monday night on the Winnipeg Free Press web site, essentially said “uhhhh, no” and initially balked at reporting to the Ticats (understandable for about 40,000 reasons). Moreno, meanwhile, wasn’t elated about leaving Hamilton but reported to Winnipeg anyway and was holed up in a Winnipeg hotel room while the trade sat in limbo. Canada had been admitted to a hospital with complications in his spleen, an injury that would have killed the deal anyway. Canada’s objections were no longer even in play after the spleen stepped up.

Yet Tuesday night the deal went without Canada’s name on the papers. Moreno was a Blue Bomber and the Ticats, in turn, received the negotiation rights to DE Corey Mace. Now Mace is, by all accounts, a complete beast and one of the more treasured Canadian draft picks the Bombers have used (one of the few Canadian draft picks they’ve used, actually).

But Mace is on the practice roster of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and that move by the Bills is enough to suggest that they at least have some hope for him. This is not a Jesse Lumsden situation where the Ticats were questioned for picking the homeboy running back in 2005 because of his NFL aspirations. He was hardly a threat to make the league. Mace, meanwhile, is being kept around on the Bills’ tab, meaning the door is at least slightly ajar and the Ticats aren’t getting their hands on him in the immediate future.

So here are the Ticats, who have already got a jumpstart on the award for worst CFL operation of the 21st century, they of five coaches in the past five seasons and a loyal fan base shaking their heads, trading their best defensive player — easily one of the best in the league — away for a player they may never see north of the border.

In Winnipeg, Canada fans were outraged at the thought of shipping off one of the more loved players on the team, only a week after they had sent Charles Roberts to B.C. It was a little too much to take, apparently. But given what happened against Saskatchewan last weekend, the Bombers weren’t lunatics for making the deal. Joe Lobendahn, who has been brilliant in filling in at the MLB for Barrin Simpson, goes down with a knee injury and suddenly the Bombers second layer is playing a rookie from Sherbrooke at one of the most critical positions on that side of the ball.

In any sport, you deal from depth and the hand that was dealt to the Bombers was that they were suddenly painfully thin at the linebacker spot (OLB Ike Charlton was injured as well) while they had some wiggle room on their front four. Canada was an attractive figure to other teams, Moreno was on the board and the chance to get him is tough to pass up.

I picked up the Free Press today, its front-page lug teasing a story about the whole saga with the question “who got the best of the deal?”

Turns out I couldn’t find a story inside that actually answered that question, although I didn’t look too hard for it, admittedly.

No one should have to tell you the answer to such a painfully obvious question.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are close to my heart. I have a history with them within my family for the better part of five decades. The old championship teams of the late 1950s would convene at times in my grandparents’ house in Selkirk and our family continues to hold season tickets for the better part of the last three decades.

We obtained season tickets in the early 80s and the lineage from there has never broken. I’m still a proud Winnipeg Blue Bomber fan, and I can’t, and won’t, hide that. If you’re covering sports, you’re not good at it if you don’t admit that you have some allegiances.

When you cover a team, however, you need to put that aside and, hopefully, assess that group with an unbiased perspective.

When you live and work in a city like Winnipeg — there is truly only a small handful of media outlets working diligently on the local football team — perhaps that tight-knit relationship between the media and the subjects makes it difficult for anyone to really say their piece. These days, however, someone has to.

TV stations — especially local networks of any city — aren’t in the position to editorialize stories. Newspapers are granted the most space and liberty to unleash opinion and incite debate.

Still waiting for that to happen in Winnipeg.

Charles Roberts was dealt to the B.C. Lions late Monday night, ending a Bomber era that sends one of its finest running backs into the colours of another team. And all in the name of a shake up to try to right the wrongs of a 2-7 outfit.

Surely the Roberts deal is a wake-up punch in the face to those team members who still remain, a reminder that no one is untouchable, especially when playing like garbage. That doesn’t mean it’s not a deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic
kind of move.

Yet here are the Bombers 10 weeks into a CFL season that held such promise from the outset, wasting away in an embarrassing effort that smacks of the Jeff Reinbold era. Problem No. 1? This team, almost entirely the same from a year ago, fooled followers and media into believing that it was legit because of last season’s run to the Grey Cup game. Yet it’s not true when considering the same glaring deficiencies that exist now were also there last season.

The names have changed in places, but the picture remains the same.

Kevin Glenn is still the same quarterback who stares into the eye of one receiver — and one receiver alone — before releasing a pass. Ryan Dinwiddie is still raw and unrefined and Brian Randall is still .. not getting a look whatsoever. Timmy Chang, for heaven’s sake, was brought in this weekend, the Bombers essentially saying we’d rather roll the dice with a complete newcomer than give our third-stringer the slightest sniff.

And we’re still waiting for the one Winnipeg media outlet — just one — to step up and call it as it is: No more abstract terms, no more searching for answers, no more letting the players and coaches off the hook, no more “it’s one play here or there-” type B.S. And no letting it slide that the trade of Roberts is somehow going to make this team better.

We all know it won’t.

General manager Brendan Taman has battled to find the right mix but his latest efforts come off more as a guy trying to save his Tetris game: Quick moves and shuffles with no reason other than to stave off the end. Month after month has been spent trying to find a kicker and that’s produced absolute bubkus. A gigantic contract was handed to Glenn even though he hadn’t shown a consistent ability to be one of the league’s marquis pivots. And there’s been absolutely no sign of Winnipeg developing a future option at QB when it’s been painfully obvious that Dinwiddie isn’t the cure here.

As good as Taman has been in unearthing talent, perhaps this year’s rendition of the Bombers is the bleaching spotlight that exposes everyone, and he’s the head of it all.

A stalwart defence, a promising crop of youngsters and easily the best receiver stable in the CFL and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have two wins to show for it.

There’s failure on many levels and blind optimism everywhere. Would someone in Winnipeg please step up and say so?

The non-waiver trade deadline in Major League Baseball has passed and once again it is the usual suspects who are making all the noise.

The Red Sox, Yankees, Tigers, Dodgers and White Sox all dipped their feet into significant transactions over the past couple of days but it was the Yankees who — big surprise — were the most active.

Active doesn’t always mean most successful but you’d be hard-pressed to argue with what the Yankees did in their attempt to stay competitive in the American League East. The Yanks ripped Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady from the Pirates, then shifted mediocre hurler Kyle Farnsworth to Detroit to get catcher Ivan Rodriguez who suddenly became quite valuable when the Yanks learned they were losing Jorge Posada for the season.

Yet, in terms of media hype, the Red Sox trumped what the Yankees did (and that’s not easy to do) with the assistance of Manny Ramirez and his very public trade demand. Sending Ramirez out of the AL to the Dodgers and getting Jason Bay back in return from Pittsburgh doesn’t seem like Executive of the Year type material for GM Theo Epstein, but the young gun deserves some love here. After all, he isn’t getting it anywhere else on the Internet.

Sportsnet.ca’s Scott Carson said the Red Sox “regressed” at the deadline while ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark put them in his “losers” column of deadline winners and not-winners. Stark’s opinion is a respected one but his logic for lumping the Sox into that category is pretty thin. Stark says the Sox lose “because this trade marks the end of a special era in the life of their team. They have a different aura now than they had a week ago.” He goes on to quote an unnamed AL GM as saying “I’ve seen what he does to pitchers. I’ve seen how he changes games. They’ll miss that. That’s all I can say.”

I can accept that but I’m not overly high on abstract arguments like “this ends a special era in Boston.”

But here’s why Epstein should be given at least a small tip of the hat: When your megastar goes into the media and says he’s ready to leave, that his team should trade him and that he’s not happy in his situation, it suddenly handcuffs the organization that is now being asked to make a move. If you’re hanging by your fingernails, you won’t often find a lot of opposing teams willing to lend an extra hand to pull you back up. The Red Sox parlayed Ramirez into a player who is, by all accounts, a good lockerroom guy and a positive influence with numbers that are only slightly lower than ManRam’s over the past two seasons. He’s younger, cheaper and he’ll be around next year too.

With all that being said, the Dodgers are also a team pleased with their stature now as they try to chase down Arizona in the NL West even though there is at least a 40 per cent chance that this blows up in their face. Does Ramirez suddenly make the Dodgers a World Series contender? Likely not but he makes them an intriguing team to watch over the final half of the season and easily one of the National League teams that you wouldn’t want to face in the post-season. I suppose that’s what Manny epitomizes: A big question mark.

As Stark writes: “No one knows what the Dodgers are going to get from their man Manny these next two months. Not Joe Torre. Not Scott Boras. Not even Manny himself. But it won’t be all good. We know that. Not when you have a slightly whacked-out man on a shameless money mission. Not when the manager has to figure out how to play five “regular” outfielders on one roster. And not, certainly, when Manny puts a glove on his hand.”

And that’s a WINNER in his column. So L.A. meet Mr. Ramirez.

The only other team with more things to juggle now is the White Sox who had Ken Griffey, Jr., greenlight a deal to the South Side that took him away from the Cincinnatti Reds.

(Quick side bar here: Listening to Bob McCown’s Primetime Sports yesterday with ESPN’s Dan Schulman on as a guest and it has forced me to plea with sportscasters around the continent to please, on second and ensuing references, just call him Griffey or, even, Griffey, Jr. Schulman, whom I really like, and McCown, whom I tolerate, went back and forth in a 10 to 15-minute interview and on 98% of references to the slugger insisted on referring to him as Ken Griffey, Jr., over and over and over. “This is not the Ken Griffey, Jr., of the Seattle Mariners, it’s not the Ken Griffey, Jr., that arrived in Cincinnatti hoping to resurrect that team, it is an older Ken Griffey, Jr., and I’m not sure that Ken Griffey, Jr., has the kind of impact that the White Sox believe they’ll get out of Ken Griffey, Jr. I don’t know why the White Sox are interested in trading for Ken Griffey, Jr., or where they even have a spot in their lineup now for Ken Griffey, Jr.” … My point is: We get it. He’s the younger son of Ken Griffey, Sr.)

Unfortunately McCown is somewhat right. (I hate it when people make logical points but do it in an annoying fashion that just begs you to disagree.) The White Sox are flush in the outfield, but Griff isn’t an everyday outfielder anymore, anyway. And they’re already set to go at designated hitter with Jim Thome, so the only spot that really seems logical for him is to split time with Paul Konerko at first base. So there isn’t a NEED for Griffey, Jr., but in the world of the MLB, necessity isn’t always the fuel that runs the machine. These are teams that have money to throw around and Griffey, Jr., is the type of player who usually inherits that cash. “The Aging Veteran Whose Legend Is Big Enough To Make Him An Intriguing Option To See If He Still Has Anything Left In The Tank Guy.”  OR TAVWLIBETMHAIOTSIHSHALITG for short.

The Blue Jays *yawn* stood pat and found no takers for … well, anyone. The team that was in need of offence the most didn’t make a push, once again proving that while the media and fans like to think they’re still in the race for a post-season spot, the Jays — and logic — are telling you differently.

See you in 2009.

Watched the ESPY’s on Sunday night and learned a few things other than the very obvious fact that we have way too many award shows and the only thing we needed less than more award shows was more people covering what people at award shows are wearing.

If an actual human being is at the far right of Darwin’s Evolution of Man chart, then entertainment reporters are the far left with sports reporters walking a little more upright. Although, when sports networks start setting up shop on or near a red carpet, that disparity becomes a little more blurred.

Now, that being said, there were some things to be learned from this year’s ESPY’s. And here, in easy to read point-form, are what those things are:

• America still loves a feel-good story: The Western Oregon-Central Washington women’s softball game won the Best Moment category giving every sports columnist in North America the chance to write the following:
> “The triumph of the human spirit…”
> “This is what sports is really about …”
> “The love of the game …”
> Any comparisons between “greedy” professional athletes and amateurs who “get it.”

None of this is to degrade the moment. Great moment. Just sayin’: These are the stories that pave the moral high road that a lot of columnists use to get to work.

• America doesn’t like snow: Want an ESPY? Skiers and hockey players need not apply. In fact, ice skaters, snowboarders, bobsledders, lugers, skeleton…uhhh skeleton-ers… you all can RSVP without feeling guilty too. Snow-sport athletes were 0-for-4 in categories that weren’t specific to their sports.

• Justin Timberlake is *glub* not all that putrid. Seriously: This isn’t going to go over well with the testosterone-loaded sports reader who sees weakness in a man who sings even a note higher than Johnny Cash. But the odd and dice-rolling decision to let N-Sync’s most (only) successful export host the show didn’t end up in mass failure. Sure, there was an uncomfortable song-and-dance routine in the middle of the show that didn’t have the over-the-top charm of last year’s LeBron James-Bobby Brown send-up, but all in all Timberlake was … Oh lord here I go … he was pretty good, OK? He was funny. There I said it. Get off me.

• Still searching: While all the PR types and image consultants finally found a way to make Peyton Manning likable and appear to have a modicum of personality, those same people haven’t found the cure for whatever afflicts brother Eli. One moment that showed it perfectly was early on when Timberlake riffed on Eli for finally “getting to see a naked lady” after his Super Bowl win and it took the younger Manning a good four to five seconds to realize he should at least fake a laugh. Um, he’s uncomfortable with being out in society it would appear.

• Greg Oden is the next Shaq: Yes, this revelation was big enough to title the whole dang post. The Ohio State big man may never play a game in the NBA and with his knee troubles already having wrecked his rookie year, there’s a 10-1 bet in Vegas that he won’t, but if he at least hovers around the Association he might just be able to take over Shaq’s role as “Lovable Big Man With Goofy Disposition Who Appears To Have No Personality But Is Actually Really Funny.” Shaq’s the best quote in the NBA and when the Diesel decides to walk away, Oden can move in. Keep your eye on this and tell me how right I was five years from now.

And finally …

• The Little Guy can’t win: I love ESPN. Go to its web site. Read its magazine. Curse my country because we have TSN instead. But the Worldwide Leader got off on the wrong foot with me during the broadcast, awarding the Best Upset award to the New York Giants, resulting in me actually groaning in disagreement and then feeling shame because I displayed a visceral human emotion elicited by the ESPY’s.

The Giants Super Bowl win over the previously undefeated New England Patriots (you heard about that game, yes?) won the Best Upset award over the likes of Appalachian State beating Michigan in the Big House, 38-1 shot Da’Tara winning the Belmont, and Fresno State beating Georgia for the College World Series.

First off, because horse racing isn’t a sport, I can understand Da’Tara not getting the ESPY oat bag here.

Now, because college baseball hasn’t ever garnered the same unconditional love, interest and attention as its post-secondary brother, it’s understandable that Fresno State’s victory didn’t quite register. Unfortunate as that is because the Fresno run to the CWS was arguably one of the great underdog stories in the history of sports: 33-27 unranked team? Check. Needed to win conference tournament just to get in the NCAAs? Check. No MLB draft picks in the post-season lineup? Check. Win SIX elimination games to stay alive? Check. Knock off Nos. 2, 3, 6, 8 to become first ever 4-seed to win title? Check, check, check, check.

Heck, their flight to Omaha was re-routed and landed 50 miles outside the city on their way to the tournament and they were even forced out of their regular stadium for practices because it was damaged when a stolen car had crashed into the blessed thing!

Buuuuut, maybe that’s too many upsets to qualify for the singular upset award.

Appalachian State? Going on the road as a 1-AA school to a stadium of 110,000 people to beat the winningest program in NCAA history should trump the Giants considering that two NFL teams are, for the most part, on even footing. No one even knew where they were from. Heck, watch the YouTube clip and the announcer pronounces the school’s name two different ways.

When AppState dropped the big M, it took mere minutes for the “greatest upset in sports history” arguments to begin.

It likely was. Just not on Sunday on a big stage when the big leagues get the big hype.

For this category, I’ll gladly take Coco Hillary over Plaxico Burress.

So the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have gotten off to a rotten start in the Canadian Football League but even they pulled off a major victory on Wednesday.

The CFL announced that Bombers safety Jason Nugent would not face any disciplinary action for his head-to-head hit on B.C. Lions slotback Jason Clermont during Friday’s loss at Canad Inns Stadium. Nugent absolutely destroyed Clermont, who left his feet over the middle and left himself vulnerable to the charging Nugent, who laid his helmet straight into the mask of Clermont.

As a lifelong CFL fan and a lifelong Bomber fan, I know that to be a fan of the Canadian Football League is to know frustrating idiocy. It is to know the feeling of mind-blowing mistakes and incorrect interpretations.

In his words to the Vancouver Province, director of officiating Tom Higgins spoke in hindsight and said Nugent could/should have been tagged with an unnecessary roughness penalty, which of course he wasn’t. Yet saying what could have or should have been done is irrelevant. Higgins, then, essentially confessed that there was an infraction on the play but wouldn’t go so far as to actually penalize the player. That is the point of post-incident reviews: To go back and right a wrong, not to shrug it off with shoulda-beens.

Furthermore, he says this to the Province:

“We’re going to try and clean this up, because we don’t want people to be head-hunting. (Nugent) could have laid a pretty good lick without his helmet.”

In one breath he says the CFL wants to “clean this up” and then admits that a helmet was used. Yet none of that is worthy of disciplinary action?

So if the CFL is adamant about cleaning this type of behaviour up, it has a funny way of showing it. With a chance to make a necessary statement that would indicate an intent on penalizing such hits, the league and its officiating ombudsman kept the flag in their collective pocket. Shocking: Another blown call.

So, no, I’m not quitting my job just because the Knicks went Italian on Thursday and drafted Danilo Gallinari with the sixth pick overall in the NBA Draft.

I still stand by my assertion that the Knicks needed to do something to curb that fan base’s frustrations and anger with what has been a joke franchise for nearly a decade. Sure the fans don’t always (in fact rarely) have the right answers and you can find a fast way to sink your ship by reacting based on cheers and boos, but I thought this was a chance to throw the faithful a bone. Was he the best player available at that point in the draft (very debatable) or did they draft on need?

In the post the other day talking about busters and sleepers, I bunged up and forgot to mention Texas’ D.J. Augustin, who went No. 9 to Charlotte. That spot appears to be a bit higher than a lot of people figured he would go, but getting a capable and talented point can rarely be seen as a bad move. As we’ve seen recently (see: New Orleans, Utah), getting a guy who can run your show can mean the world. With Chris Paul and Deron Williams, the aforementioned two teams turned their fortunes pretty drastically and while Augustin might not end up in the category of those other two, I think he gives Charlotte a lot of hope that he can have the same affect on the Bobcats fortunes as the other two did with theirs.

I will begrudgingly say that one of the deals I liked the most was the one the Boston Celtics did in the second round to get Bill Walker. The C’s dropped some cash off for Washington in return for the K-State product who went 47th overall. Walker, you might remember, was once upon a time getting big-time pub as a potential lottery pick before an ACL injury slightly sidetracked that promise. What the Celtics get here is a complete steal. Think about it: If he doesn’t ever get back to the skill level for which he once was regarded, then all you’ve done is drop a bit of change. However, if he pans out to be a solid, contributing NBAer — and his athleticism, past headline-making and pure ability seem to say he could do that at the least — well then you’ve just pillaged another role player who should fit nicely in the Boston plans. Because, let’s face it, the Celts aren’t a team that needed a revamping or help right away anyway. With that luxury in their hands, they can take a flyer on a player like Walker and if it pans out, it was genius.

We’re hours away (let’s say 30-ish upon writing this) from the NBA Draft and, of course, the biggest debate is over who goes No. 1 to the Chicago Bulls. It’s not as enticing a debate as last year’s Greg Oden-or-Kevin Durant discussion, but it is decidedly more intriguing than 2006 when the Toronto Raptors took Andrea Bargnani with the No. 1 pick and Adam Morrison whent to Charlotte with the No. 3. Lamarcus Aldridge went No. 2 but ended up in Portland, which took Tyrus Thomas and sent him east to Chi-City.

And even though this year’s draft is far from the finest group of potential pros, it’s nowhere near as wretched as the 2000 version which featured, among other dogs, the likes of Darius Miles (LA Clippers, 3rd), DeMarr Johnson (Atlanta, 6th), Jerome Moiso (Boston, 11th), Etan Thomas (Dallas, 12th), Mateen Cleaves (Detroit, 14th) and Jake Tsakalidis (Phoenix, 25th).

But the Bulls have to feel like they can do much better this year than that 2000 class when they absolutely crapped their picks away with … wait for it …: Marcus Fizer (4th), Chris Mihm (7th, traded to Chicago for Jamal Crawford), Dalibor Bagaric (24th), A.J. Guyton (32nd), Jake Voskhul (33rd), Kalid El-Amin (34th).

Fizer was the NCAA player of the year that season at Iowa State but never averaged more than 12.3 points per game, which he did in his second year with the Bulls.

So rather than mock draft like every other blogger and sports site seems to do, I’m going a different route here at The Scrum. (Side note: Mock drafts from web sites with no particular affiliation are some of the most pointless things you can possibly read. If we don’t know who you are, why are we reading who you think is going where?)

Instead, let me just guess — because from owners to GMs to analysts to reporters, that’s all anyone is doing — at who is going to be the most likely busters (using ESPN.com’s mock draft as a rough outline for who might go when. The closer they are to the top, the more buster points they get).

Brook/Robin Lopez, C, Stanford: One half of a nearly-dynamic brother duo, TSN.ca (yeah I went to another site) has Brook going at No. 5 to the Memphis Grizzlies, proving once again that TSN should stay away from talking about basketball and is better off covering guys named Markus rather than guys named Marcus. Anyway, Chad Ford’s mock on ESPN has Brook going No. 10 to New Jersey.

Do we even know which Lopez brother is better? Ford later has younger brother Robin going to Toronto at No. 17, which should make Raptors fans sufficiently nauseous.

Here’s Ford’s logic on Robin, who averaged a less than inspiring 10 ppg/5 rpg at Stanford: The Raptors really need size, toughness and rebounding. While Lopez doesn’t project as a great scorer in the pros, he’s a big, rugged player who could solidify the Raptors’ front line.

Yeah, those guys really go over well. There is no doubt that is the exact type of player the Raptors need — right now as a team they’re pillowy soft — but if you’re already accepting that he can’t score the ball at this level, well that’s a pretty big acceptance.

Meanwhile, Brook seems to translate as an average NBA player. He’s an inside-out 7-foot-1 centre who has been knocked for his rebounding. If he goes in the top five of this draft, consider him the bust of the year.

Kevin Love, C, UCLA: I know, I know. Everyone LOVES Kevin Love. He’s the best NBA-ready big man in the draft. He sees the floor as well as any big man in the past 10 years (or something). He reminds everyone of Bill Walton.  It isn’t 1978 anymore, however. Love’s back-to-the-basket ability in the NCAA is one thing, but there’s red flags with him that stand out on an NBA stage. There’s not much explosiveness, his athleticism is middling and … I’m sorry to say this … he’s white. OK, there you go. White big men aren’t effective. Can we all just acknowledge that now? I don’t care if it’s the aforementioned Voskhul or Mihm, Todd MacCulloch, Travis Knight, or Spencer Hawes, there’s a murderer’s row of guys who had a light complexion who, at best, were one-year wonders. And get off me about MacCulloch. I know he had bad feet and had to retire early and I know NBC did an opening-montage piece on him during the NBA Finals one year. It doesn’t mean you’d draft him and lean your team’s hopes on the pick.

When you’re lauded mainly for your outlet pass, as Love is, that doesn’t translate into big-time difference-maker in the NBA.

Danilo Gallinari, SF, Italy: Ford has him going No. 6 to the Knicks. I think the long-suffering NYK fans deserve better than this. I’ll admit to ignorance here — as I would like other analysts to also do — and fully confess that this opinion is based solely on the “I am very worried if my team drafts a Euro because no one ever sees them and, well, they play in Europe” theorem. Say what you want, but it’s a pretty air-tight theorem.

And don’t start arguing the cases of Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili or Leandro Barbosa who, while not all Europeans are still foreign to the U.S., because for every one of those players you reference, there’s at least two or three names we can find that none of us have ever heard of.

One last thought: Ford believes Gallinari goes to the Knicks. If he’s still on the board when New York approaches to pick I will bet my career that they don’t take him. Why? Because one of the most passionate, loyal and devout fan bases in sports might actually set the place on fire. Listen, Gallinari could end up being a great pro (see, you don’t know either) but if you’re the Knicks and you are wanting to assuage the frustration in that infuriated fan base, which has been put through the wringer, are you seriously going to pick a player who will require you to dig up grainy scouting video to show your fans just to prove that he did, in fact, play basketball somewhere last season? It might be fairly weak reasoning but I honestly think you need to do some PR work there and grabbing a good player who the fans have actually heard of is the way to do that.  

Joe Alexander, SF, West Virginia: Similar logic here to above with the Knicks and Gallinari, because Ford has Alexander going No. 8 to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Bucks fans are a tortured group, so much so that they happily latched on to ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons and his half-joking quest to become the new Milwaukee GM. That’s a desperate group right there. If the Bucks take Alexander, who is 6-foot-8 and weighs in at a svelte 220 pounds, those fans too might revolt. Alexander is an inside-out style player who struggles shooting the three. So, y’know, kinda struggling with the ‘out’ in that description. And he’s 220 sooooooo ‘inside’ might be a problem, too.

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That’s a few of the guys who I think are going to get picked and become marginally to utterly useless for the poor saps who pick them. But every year there’s a few guys who go unnoticed, don’t get the pre-draft hype and eventually turn into great players and everyone is left standing around asking “how did we let him pass us by?” So who might those guys be? Well, we’ll go to the other end of the mock and go from there with a couple players who might make some noise:

Donte Greene, SF, Syracuse: A guy who once upon a time was regarded as a lottery pick, he’s free-falling because scouts are hesititant about his unrefined game. He might be leaving too early. Then again, he could be falling late to a team that would be very lucky to get a guy of his ability in the final picks of the first round.

Roy Hibbert, C, Georgetown: Hibbert is being projected in the mid-to-late first round area but most mocks have him going much later than Ohio State’s Kostas Koufos, who may have more skills than Hibbert. Yet if you’re trying to get a big man late in the first round Hibbert would be someone you’d have to be happy with.

Brandon Rush, G, Kansas: Ford has Rush going in the middle of the first round (15 to Phoenix) and this is that perfect spot in the draft to find guys who are real good but for whatever reasons aren’t gaining the attention of the lottery guys. So, Rush isn’t a lottery-area guy so he’s not being raved about or garnering all the publicity but he’s a player who has gained extended playing experience in college (he’s a junior, which for underclassmen in this day and age is downright veteran). He’s a 6-foot-7 shooting guard, tremendous size for the ‘2′ and he knocks the three down at a good clip. He’s an underrated player who can play a couple of positions and could step in right away in the right situation. If you consider him a sleeper, then consider him MY sleeper of the draft.

For whatever that’s worth.

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So there’s a few names and I’m fully admitting to guesswork here because, after all, that’s what drafts are. You roll your dice and hope for the best.

So that sucked.

It’s now two days removed from the Boston Celtics comeback in Game 4 at Staples Centre and I’m still not even in a place where I can speak about it like an adult. See, that’s the thing: I’m an adult in age only when it comes to these things.

So I was pretty much inconsolable all Wednesday night after the Lakers epic collapse and I’ve only graduated slightly from those depths.

That said, the comment on our last post provides a good discussion for today’s post in advance of Game 5 back in L.A.

So where does the Zen Master’s role in all this lay? Winning all those games and all those titles grants you some — often unneccesary — slack and shelter from the wrath. Probably isn’t right considering any other coach would have been lambasted for coaching misdeeds had they been in Phillip’s position overseeing such a monumental breakdown.

The thing folks have always said about Jackson is that he lets his guys play through the tough times rather than calling timeouts and asserting his will into the game. He would rather his players work it out on their own and he’s been doing it for years. Trust me, as a Laker fan it can be maddening to watch gigantic runs go against your team and your coach seemingly not try to do something to stop it.

That said, I’m not sure what it was Phil could have done to stop what was going on. Momentum is a funny lady, as Phil said in the third-quarter interview, and it just wasn’t coming back L.A.’s way. Why? Well for one, Kobe Bryant looked genuinely beaten down and just didn’t have that “I’m taking this thing over” look that we’re so used to seeing at those stages of games. And no one else — and I mean no one — on that Laker team seemed willing or capable to step up and make a big play when it was needed. The Lakers played like they were in panic mode for most of, if not all, of the fourth quarter, while the Celtics came out looking like they were pre-destined to stomp them out.

In hindsight should Jackson wear some blame? I can’t see why not. Could any coach have stopped what was happening? I’m not so sure. That game, I think, went beyond Xs and Os and trying to scheme to beat the other guys. At some point the players on the court just have to play and it was clear that wasn’t happening with L.A.

Just one last point: The last post wasn’t truly meant to arrogantly extol  the virtues of Jackson. Truth be told, I’ve never had a particular affinity for him, dating back to when he was with Chicago and I was one of the folks who was dead-set in the belief that he was just a fortunate coach in the right place and right time. I’m not 17 anymore, however, and I can see a little better and understand better what it is he does with the teams he coaches. As I said in the last post, to get this Laker team in the final, is nothing to scoff at. So it’s hard to make the point without coming off as the homer to your team, but let’s be real here, anyone who could ever suggest that this coaching match-up is “even” is truly off base. It’s almost not worthy of an argument.

Me being me, however, I apparently had to devote 1000 words to it and put my curse on my beloved team.

Now do you see why I don’t want to talk about these things?

Before the NBA Final began, the Boston Herald had the audacity to suggest — in its playoff position-by-position comparisons — that the coaching match-up of Doc Rivers v. Phil Jackson was … wait for it …Even.Jackson, who has long been slapped with the ‘pick-a-winner’ label, nonetheless has nine titles to his name and has undertaken a pretty impressive coaching effort to get this L.A. Lakers team into the championship series.Rivers, on the other hand, once worked for ABC.And so it seems that anyone considering the coaching match-up (Jackson has coached for 17 seasons, Rivers nine; Jackson has nine titles, Rivers none; Jackson is 976-418-.700 liftime, Rivers is 339-328-.508) as even, can’t possibly be competent enough to cover that particular sport for a living.Now Rivers has taken some heat for his coaching style — although never in the Boston media it would seem — and the closing moments of Tuesday’s Game 3 should be an indication of why that particular match-up is nowhere near even.Rivers, after temporarily double-teaming, allowed the NBA’s greatest closer to go one-on-one against arguably Boston’s poorest perimeter defender. So there was Kobe Bryant, with one minute to go in the game and the result still in the balance, allowed to go head-to-head with Ray Allen and he promptly proceeded to hit a deep step-back ‘J’ followed by a pump-fake-up-and-under in the lane that essentially sealed things. Allen was barely noticeable.But what led to that decision? Rivers had double-teamed Bryant in the fourth to get the ball out of the hands of the MVP and it worked marginally and forced the Lakers to get their points elsewhere (Pau Gasol tipped in a Lamar Odom miss after Odom was the generator of the set play out of a time out). However, with about 1:40 to go in the game and the Lakers up two, that double team was extended well out past the top of the key, almost near halfcourt. Kevin Garnett joined Allen in trapping Bryant. The thought here is likely that Garnett brings some length to make passes out of the double team tougher and the double should take away Bryant’s ability to dribble out of the trap.So what happens? Bryant merely makes a simple pass to Odom at the top of the key — he’s free because of Garnett doubling — a slight penetration towards the hoop draws the remaining Boston defenders and Odom kicks to a waiting Sasha Vujacic who hits a three in the corner that allowed the Lakers to breathe a sigh of relief with 1:36 to go.The next time down, the Celtics were going one-up on Bryant and No. 24 assumed his usual role of icing a game.The Celtics still have to feel fine about their situation. They can look at Garnett’s subpar effort, Paul Pierce being invisible and then check the scoreboard and still know, despite all that, they were right there with a chance to win the game. Plus, it’s still 2-1 with, at the very least, two games in Boston possibly as their fall-back.The Lakers, meanwhile, got one. It’s nothing more than that. Well, that and they’ve succeeded in injecting at least an ounce of life into a series that, with a Boston win on Tuesday, would have been well on its way to being a corpse.

With the Celtics taking a 2-0 lead in the NBA Final, time to re-visit the four keys The Scrum provided last week and see how they’ve played out in the first two games in Boston.

• Los Angeles’ so-called depth: A lot of experts had L.A. winning this series and a big reason, in their minds, was the Lakers’ depth and ability to go nine or 10 deep on their bench. We questioned the veracity of that given the lack of big-game experience on that bench and some of those players’ penchant to waver in the category of consistency. The Lakers did in fact go nine deep in Game 1 but got just 15 points on 5-for-13 shooting from their bench. Game 2 was marginally better but not nearly enough and, on top of that, starting forward Vlad Radmanovic did his space-cadet thing for extended periods of both games, looking like he didn’t know how to spell NBA, never mind play in it.

• Who has the bigger big-gamers?: Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol weren’t involved nearly enough in Game 1 and, after a solid start for Gasol in Game 2, L.A. virtually abandoned its inside game on the offensive end. Kevin Garnett, meanwhile, had a big double-double, Paul Pierce hit big shots and Ray Allen, although still not quite himself, seems to have a dagger to deliver when the Celtics truly need it.

• Who can win on the road?: Well, apparently not the Lakers who were abysmal in Game 2 and only slightly better in Game 1. Now the Lake Show pretty much HAS to win all three in a row at home before heading back to Boston for what they hope is Games 6-7. Even winning two of three in L.A. would mean the Lakers would be down 3-2 and needing both in Boston to win it all and that is not a good proposition.

• Which team’s “other guy” steps up?: If you watched Game 2, then all that needs to be said to answer this question is “LEON FREAKING POWE?!?!?” The rookie from Cal had 21 points in under 15 minutes off the bench and the Lakers were tortured inside. In Game 1 it was Rajon Rondo who had 15 points and Sam Cassell, off the bench, who added eight early on as the Celts went inside-out effectively.

The concern for the Lakers heading into the series was their ability to match the physicality of the Celtics, especially down low. Game 1 they absolutely did not do that, losing the rebound battle 46-33 and 10-7 in O-boards. Game 2 was better, but the Lakers still got bossed around and the Celtics took 38 free throws to 10 by the Lakers.

The free-throw disparity rightfully annoyed the Lakers after the game. This was not a team settling for jump shots and residing on the perimeter. While Boston attacked, it’s not accurate to say the Lakers didn’t do the same. Were the Celtics more disciplined on the defensive end? Perhaps. But in any game — never mind during the championship final — you’d better have a clear-cut example that one team deserved 28 more free throws than another, and I don’t think you saw that in Game 2.

Game 3 on Tuesday at least allows the Lakers their friendly confines, but only one day to make any adjustments they need. Unfortunately for them, it’s hard to alter a psyche in 24 hours.