Holy hell

So I've only been meaning to write something for about 3 weeks now, but so much stuff has happened that I've gotten a bit... overwhelmed.  For those of you who don't know me, my wife and I celebrated the birth of our first child on June 30th, and my time has been pretty devoted to taking care of him ever since.

Ain't he cute?

Anyways, that's been the main factor in my life so far, and fortunately for me, the doldrums of summer sports are upon us, so in that vein I feel like I haven't been missing out on much.

Except for all the bat ass crazy shit that has been happening in the NBA.

Nearing the end of Game 6 of the finals, I was getting ready to write on how the age and wisdom of the spurs prevailed over the youth and flash of the heat... until the oldest player on Miami decided to get all Jesus Shuttlesworth on the Spurs and make a game 7 happen.  Then the 2nd oldest player on the heat, Shane Battier, went completely apeshit for the first time all season and helped the Heat get their second title in as many years.

A much, much younger Ray Allen

A lot of people focused on the Lebron James angle, but for me Lebron did what he always does, what we expect him to do.  Hell, he was the guy that forced Ray Allen's hand in game 6 with an absolutely atrocious turnover in the final minute of that game.  Did Lebron play great in game 6 and 7?  Absolutely.  Did he do anything we didn't expect him to do?  In game 6, no, in game 7, yes.  Did anyone see Shane Battier coming?  Hell no!

The Lebron show in game 7 was a brilliant piece of adaption by James.  Kawhi Leonard had been guarding him loose all series, begging him to take those mid and long range jumpers.  Except in game 7, James finally started making them.  And making them.  Once he found his groove at that distance, a spectacular game was needed from someone in the Parker/Duncan/Ginobli trifecta, and the old man Tim Duncan delivered.  This would have worked in San Antonio's favor except for one thing.

Shane Battier.

Battier decided to remember how to play basketball for the first time all season, and it won the Heat the title.  Lebron's the MVP, and rightly so, but Battier's performance in game 7 is what put Miami over the top and earned them their second title.

I can rant more about this, but it's very old news by now, so I'll jump into the next thing that is mind blowing to me.

Dwight Howard.

"What, I gotta try?"

Did anyone pay attention to all the crap he's pulled before?  He was a complete and utter dick in Orlando, but he tried to hide it by smiling all the time.  Countless times he would say something and do the opposite, and when he landed in LA, I wept with joy.  I hate the Lakers, and them taking on this troubled superstar I thought would doom them.  Then I had a scary thought.

While Howard has his personality issues, he does have one major flaw on the court - his lack of effort.  Howard should dominate every.single.game he plays down low, but he only does that when he feels like it.  A guy like that should be terrifying in the low post, and Howard doesn't do it.  But then I realized who else is on the Lakers.

Kobe Bryant.

"FUCKING WIN DAMMIT!"

I'm not a Kobe fan either, but nobody works harder then him.  Lebron had a mild case of Howard-itis before, but in 2008 when he played with Kobe in the Olympics, he saw how hard the then best player in the game was working.  And working.  And working.  Lebron had an epiphany there.  If this guy, who was on top of the basketball world, was working this hard, why wasn't he?  Lebron's career, and his game, changed from then, and he became the monster we see on the court today.

Howard was lazy, unmotivated.  And he was going to play with Kobe.  For a whole year.

Crap.

But wait!  Dwight Howard exhibited the same crap we've seen from him his entire career even with the influence of Kobe.  If Kobe couldn't influence Howard for the better, then nobody can.  His move to Houston is a little odd, but I kinda see some non-Howard logic in that move, but the real reason Howard went to the Rockets is to be top banana.  He doesn't give two shits about winning, about playing his heart out, about leaving everything on the court.  He wants to be the best guy on his team.

And when he can't earn it by actually playing better, he leaves for somewhere else.

And in other sports, I still get angry watching soccer, the Mariners are really, really, bad (but are scoring now, who'd a thunk?) the Coyotes didn't move to Seattle, and there was something else happening, what was that...

Bum bum BUUUM

Oh right.  An overpriveleged NFL player killed a guy.  How'd I forget about that?  I know, I know, innocent until proven guilty, but damn, the timetable the cops and prosecution have laid out looks bad, his priors are attrocious, and the fact that he's still a person of interest in another shooting investigation is just icing on the cake.

For me, this feels like an epicly bad case of "Do you know who I am?" syndrome, but with the caveat of "I can get away with anything."  Apparently he roomed with the second coming of Christ himself, Tim Tebow, down in Florida, and that did nothing to temper his mentality or derail his massively destructive path.  The Hernandez arrest did make me think of something else though.

How pissed off is Tom Brady right now?

This mad?  Probably more.

Brady is going to be without his top five receiving targets from last year.  Five!  That's nuts!  Welker is on the Broncos, Brandon Lloyd was cut, Danny Woodhead is on the Chargers, Aaron Hernandez was cut, and Rob Gronkowski is broken.  The only guy he might have any familiarity with is Gronk, and he's expected to be out at the beginning of the season.  I know, I know, they signed Danny Amendola after letting Welker go, but a similar skill set doesn't mean he's the same player.  Welker was Brady's go-to guy, when shit hit the fan and the blitz was in his face, the ball got heaved towards Welker.  Hot reads?  Welker.  Need a first down?  Welker.  Amendola is a very similar player to Welker, but he doesn't have that repoire with Brady that Welker did.  And Welker was fearless.  Amendola is not.  Amendola has an injury history that has got to make him resistant to run a crossing pattern at linebacker depth.  Welker didn't care.  Throw him the ball, punch him in the teeth, he'll pop back up, run back to the huddle and ask Brady to do it again.

But hey, the Pats have at least one thing going for them this year. 

They're not the Jets.

Whomp whomp.