Monta Ball

Monta Ellis is a Dallas Maverick. I've been intrigued by Ellis ever since he came into the league in '05. I remember watching him put a ton of points up on some poor school on ESPN his senior year. The kid was so fast and athletic with very deep range on his jumper. Of course, I thought to myself that it was really dumb when he declared. I just thought that he was too slight to survive, but the prevailing thought I had was that he was a pure scorer. Pure scorers are born. They are not made. Monta Ellis was put on this earth to throw a round leather ball through an iron hoop.....

Last week at media day for the Mavs, Ellis gave a qoute that a lot of people found very interesting. What he said was, "I'm going to play Monta Basketball" , "If ya'll want to criticize, criticize". Well then.....Hmmmm? Reporters, Bloggers, and Fans alike are always attempting to play shrinks when it comes to athletes. What did he REALLY mean by that? This type of question doesn't matter when you really think about it deeper. We can make this really simple. Monta is going to take a lot of shots. Monta is going to make a lot of shots. Carlisle is going to try to find a way to help Monta become more efficient. I, for one, think that it will work.....offensively, that it is. Calderon will help, as will Dirty and the Matrix. He will, I repeat, WILL be more efficient than last year. He will attack the basketball more, and he will be happier because he will win more. He actually has people on his team who understand offensive tactics.

MFFL's should just embrace "Monta Ball". It's what we have bean yearning for, for a while now. It's finally here. You can't beg for a nice pair of jeans for Christmas and open the gift and it's True Religion, but you mad cause you ain't get Tom Ford. Come on man. Monta will be Monta, let's revel in it. He's ours now. We are working on a "Monta Ball" tshirt right now!



-tshurn

Oh and Three.

I am stinkin' oh and three. 'Stinkin' being the extremely PG-rated word chosen to express my frustration and disappointment in my winless start to the 2013 Fantasy Football season in my ESPN league. I belong to the not-so-elite club of an 0-3 start. Three weeks into the season, three losses. No one wants to be in this hole. Questions are asked, eyebrows are raised, more beers are consumed, playoff hopes seem dismal.

Everyone gets to where they are differently. It is all about the matchups. Who your players are faced with on the field, and who you play against in your respective leagues...and luck when it comes to avoiding injuries. Sometimes mediocre performances are enough to win a matchup. Othertimes, your players better play like they are fighting for the wildcard spot just to be contenders.

Week one I was plagued with a weak RB core. Week two my wide receivers forgot to show up. Week three Drew Brees tried to get me my first win, but my Buffalo defense had other plans. It has been rough. I cannot say I am very pleased to be in the same company as the Vikings, Steelers, Giants, Bucs, Jaguars, and underacheiving Redskins.

I wish I could say this week I was going to turn it around, but it is not looking good. ESPN is projecting a blowout - not in my favor. With a waiver wire pretty thin with lottery handcuffs and a lack of trade-worthy players (aside from Brees), it seems I may be sitting ugly with the Jacksonville Jaguars this year.

This is uncharted territory for me. Crowned Champion last year in the same league I am currently struggling in, I have managed winning seasons in my other leagues. I have never started 0-3, let alone 0-4. It is hard to be hopeful, especially when this year's record/standing in the league has no bearing on next year's draft. As if the first pick promises a magical season...

I've got no coaching staff to blame, no one to fire. Poor drafting and poor sleeper suspicions have left me with a D-League team, at best. No excuses - I've got to find a way to win. The Cleveland Browns won when they traded away their franchise back, and everyone thought they had given up. I, too, shall find a way...it just won't be this week.

-bObD.

Football Sexy.

The much adorned hat trick. In darts, it's throwing 3 bulls eyes. In hockey, it's scoring 3 goals. For football fanatics, it's your college team winning, your hometown team winning, and at least one of your fantasy football teams winning all in the same week(end). If you happen to win more than one of your fantasy match-ups, then you're sitting on top of the world, and no one can touch you. You're Johnny Football, minus the demand for autographs, the oil money...the Heisman.

Everyone is aware of the excuse of a rebuilding season the Texas Longhorns are going through. A team with incredible talent cannot seem to win. Ranked at the start of the season, it did not take long for the Longhorns to fall. Going into week 4, the unranked team faced Kansas State. This was a conference game most disappointed fans figured to be over before it even kicked off. But the Burnt Orange prevailed 31-21; the coaching staff can rest easy another week.

Now while I am not a die hard Cowboys fan (a loss won't ruin my weekend like a Longhorn loss will), I am a homer, nonetheless. I hate Jerry Jones just as much as the next fan, and I have a love/hate relationship with Romo the entire season. Through 3 weeks, the Dallas Cowboys are 2-1. The 2 wins were quite convincing, with this past Sunday's being against the less than dominating Rams. Romo was on point, and a healthy Murray was doing his thing on the ground. The Cowboys won 31-7; it was quite refreshing.

Going into Monday night's game, the hat trick was very much alive. This was it - I didn't forsee the Longhorns and the Cowboys winning together many more weekends. I was up in points in all 3 leagues, with Peyton Manning, Decker, and Julius Thomas left to play. It was looking pretty solid. The Fantasy Gods were determined to challenge me. I needed Oakland to be shutout (or Janikowski to miss 2 FGs) to sweep my leagues. Pryor would not be a part of any shutout, and I unfortunately took a loss in my ESPN league. 2.4 points...maybe I can get a generous point adjustment somewhere in there? Not likely, and I shouldn't let such a defeat take away from my outstanding accomplishment.

I am feeling football sexy.

-bObD.

Anxiety Rules

It's football season and I got money on this shit. In my world money on the line equals anxiety. You see, I don't have much money to be just throwing around willy nilly and I'm naturally a bit of a cheapskate no matter how much cheese I have. Here in lies the conundrum....I don't like losing money, but I love the rush, strategy, and braggin rights that go along with winning anything. Basically I'm a penny pincher who has all the tenants that can lead to gamblers anonymous. bObD knows that my lifelong ambition is to become a professional gambler and live out my twilight years in Vegas. Of course those two parts of me clash violently into one another thus rendering my ambition a pipe dream.

It's okay tho, I try to live in the NOW and what's happening now is that I have a grand total of $70.00 on the line in three gambling ventures involving our great American sport called football. She took $50.00 for a fantasy league, $15.00 for another fantasy league, and $5.00 for a pick'em league. The exhilarating feeling of making a good pick on draft day or picking the perfect fit off the waiver wire that makes me high. She knows I'm a feign, call me Pooky.....but it's that in between lingering anxiety wondering whether or not you actually made that right pick that kills me. It's the waiting and I'm so impatient. I've started having stomach problems and I'm wondering if she's the cause. Somethings got to give, but I know it's too late for me. Football has me and she's not letting go.



-tshurn

Let's Kick This Off.

The first week of the NFL season is behind us, and what a first week it was. I feel like I just shotgunned a bunch of beers. The number of beers is in question; it's a blur, they all seem to run together. So do all the football games when you induldge in NFL RedZone. So let me attempt to recap Week 1...


Peyton Manning made it clear on Thursday that football is what he is good at, rapping is just a past-time. 7 touchdown passes thrown. A huge fantasy night for owners. If you did not win your match-up with Peyton as your quarterback this week, good luck with the rest of the season - it seems the rest of your team may need some work.

Kickoffs to Sunday's games were subsequently followed by safeties in three of the early games. The Titans, Bucs, and Chiefs each gave up 2 points in the opening minutes of the season. Poor Jacksonville didn't see much action after that, with a final score of 28-2 Chiefs.

Looks like Detroit has finally got a winning game from a running back since...Barry Sanders days. Reggie Bush looked extremely comfortable in pale blue. 191 yards, 1 touchdown - pretty impressive. They'll need it to fall back on if Calvin Johnson keeps getting touchdowns called back.

AD was anything but All Day on Sunday. I cannot even imagine how all the hundreds of first pick fantasy players felt when their sure pick Peterson took his first touch 79 yards for a touchdown. They probably all saw the trophy/prize money at the end of the road - the season was theirs! But wait, he only ended with 98 yards. Terrell Pryor got more. Purple Jesus got some yards to make up to beat that record...

Brandon Weeden doesn't know how to start a season without throwing picks. 4 in Game 1 of 2012 and 3 in Game 1 of 2013. Fantasy note: Don't start Weeden Week 1. Correction, don't start Weeden, ever.

Between Welker having a field day with Manning and Danny day-to-day Amendola contantly holding his groin, Brady is going to have one hell of a challenging season. The challenge seem to have started with Buffalo. Is Buffalo's defense really that stout?

The New York Jets won. WAIT, WHAT?!

Thank you Eli Manning for kick-starting another Cowboys season full of high hopes. It couldn't have been fueled any better than by an interception on the first throw. And the remaining 5 turnovers pretty much guaranteed a win. The Dallas Cowboys are undefeated. Start planning the parade.

I told you all about Vick this season! Chip Kelly is doing amazing things in Philly, and if Vick can stay healthy...

The Texans/Chargers game looked a lot like the Patriots/Bills game. Chargers looked like they were on PEDs...Rivers played like he had an 'S' on his chest and connected with every receiver he had. They had their way with the respected Houston defense. But solid and reliable Andre Johnson brought the Texans back. Oh, and the predictable Chargers fell apart.

It is amazing how much joy football can bring to one's life. Life is good right now.


-bObD.

Pigskin Shots!

It's finally here - football season! Whether you are one of the many fanatics playing fantasy football or you just love to innocently watch the sport, tonight is a national holiday to be celebrated. Before we kick off the season, I wanted to throw out some bold predictions, some bolder than others...

• Kaepernick will get capped this year. Defenses will find a way to stop him.
  
• Lamar Miller will single-handedly carry the Dolphins to an over .500 season.
  
• Danny day-to-day Amendola will only miss one game this year due to unspecified injuries.
  
• Atlanta will be one play away from making the Conference Championship this year.
  
• DeMarco Murray will be healthy this year. Dez and DeMarco will take the Cowboys to the playoffs.
  
• Cam Newton and Michael Vick will be fantasy phenoms this season. Start them every week.
  
• Gronkowski will have one more surgery sometime during this season.

That's all I have time for...Broncos over the Ravens by 7 tonight. Let's go!


-bObD.

Random shots...take 'em, don't waste 'em.

The real world has me tied up. So many drafts of thoughts have been started, with little or no time to complete them. Here are some random thoughts to throw at you...

• Today is National Draft Day. If you're not down with draft day, then I don't know why you bother living during the months of September through January. For those who haven't drafted yet, good luck!

• Tomorrow is the MTV Video Music Awards, and I'm kind of hyped about it. Over the past few years, artists have taken performance to a whole different level - a level which demands respect and leaves absolutely no room for mediocre. With JT, Lady Gaga, and Kanye in the line-up to perform...there will be no disappointing.

• Oh, Aziz, you are so funny...

• Someone buy me a Gold iPhone when it comes out next month, please?

• If 'Blurred Lines' ends up winning the Battle for the Best Song of the Millennium then I swear I will change all my car stereo presets to Sports...or Gospel. I wouldn't be surprised if idiots take the song to win the 2011-2013 region. That is upsetting.

• It may be off-season, but Basketball Does Not Stop when it comes to the Mavericks. Mark Cuban makes sure all the fans know it. 

On if this is a rebuilding year...“Oh no. Hell no. Don’t even go there. Look, there’s no template for winning in the NBA. … Dirk’s got to be healthy and he’s working hard. He’s been in the gym every single day looking great. Then we’ve got to come together as a team. We’ve got Samuel Dalembert, Monta Ellis, Wayne Ellington, DeJuan Blair. We brought in a lot of really good players and now it’s up to Coach Carlisle to make it all work together.”

• You win some, you lose some. Challenge yourself. 

-bObD.

What's Beef??

One verse blew Twitter up last night and all day today. One verse. I got on Twitter last night around midnight like I usually do just to saturate my mind with needless information, mostly about sports, reality tv relationships and lately a lot of racial ignorance :( , but this night was different. This night was.....refreshing. Yeah, that's the word....refreshing, like a really thirsty chick on twitter getting a follow from a celebrity, the thing trending on Twitter that quenched my thirst? Yes, you all know what I'm talking about, unless you have been in twitter jail for at least 48 hours you know that Kendrick Lamar called some people out on Big Sean's song "Control". He basically called out all the new school rap kids that are popular right now on the radio and mixtapes and shits. These cats are basically guys that rap on each otha's records and break bread together, make money together, go on tour together. Shit, two of the guys that he mentions on the verse are in the same song with him. It's Big Sean's fucking song!

I'm saying all of this to say this really. This verse was a ploy. There are a few reasons for it. Big Sean is promoting his new album coming out. Now, I don't know if it hurt him or helped him, being that his verse was the weakest of the lot with Jay Elec going in hard as well with his verse. Also, being that all the guys he mentions are basically his homeboys, he is giving them credit for being around his league, but he is saying that he is still heads and heels above them. Typical gregarious battle rap talk. Also, K. Dot wants mothafuckas to step they game up and come with real bars. Of the people he mentions I think that J. Cole and Jay Electronica are the ones that can do it......That being said, the last reason he did it was to re-energize an over saturated product. To shine up a dirty gem....it's name is Hip Hop.

Maybe it will work and maybe it won't. This isn't real Beef you see. Maybe real Beef will arise from it maybe it won't. I hope it does. The competition that real Hip Hop re enforces makes REAL MC's step their game up and this is exactly what Hip Hop needs right now.....it badly needs it. We (hip hop heads), dont need any more cute dance songs or sing along hooks bruh. We need substance! Real Bars! We need Jay Z vs. Nas type beef, LL vs. Moe D type beef, Eminem vs..... uh, nevermind, no one was that stupid. Anyway, that's the type of comp that we need today. Real lyrical beef.

That dude Joel Ortiz from Em's slaughterhouse crew came right back at Kendrick, and that track was dope. I love it, because that whole crew can spit and they are on some real lyrical shit but they are slept on. Maybe, this will wake people up and then we can stop hearing rappers singing they own hooks and start hearing rappers spit bars that make the hairs on the back of ur neck stand up when you hear them, just like mine did when I heard Kendrick last night.



-tshurn

The Johnny Football thing....

Okay, I admit it. I lied. I tweeted that I wouldn't post about all this Johnny Football stuff until it was resolved or whatever it was that I tweeted late one night. I'm going back on all of that because, number 1, I can't wait, and number 2, I came to the realization that this shit is just gonna drag on and on prolly. I really have a patience problem so I have to get these views off of my chest right now. Johnny Manziel likes to party. We can tell this from watching Sportscenter most nights or from his twitter feed. Either or take your pick. So what???, is what I was saying a few weeks ago. Dude is a 20 year old college student who just won the Heisman trophy. Let him do his thing. Then came SEC media day and it hit me. This guy plays a team sport. The unwanted media attention on him and his actions affect his team in a negative manor. It's hard enough for teenagers and youngmen to stay on task as it is. His coach looks so beat down that I actually feel sorry for him. My view began to change after SEC media day. Then came Wright Thompson's poignant interview and article with the Manziel family. I started thinking that Johnny Football was really heading for trouble. Not 7 days later did the latest Manziel "scandal" come out. Turns out the NCAA is investigating whether or not Johnny accepted cash for autographing merchandise. In the NCAA's eyes that action is a big no no. One that could lead to no Johnny Football this fall. I don't think ya'll heard me. THIS FALL! First and foremost, here on the rocks we are Sports fans. We want to see Johnny play against Alabama, and LSU. We want to see if he can accomplish the daunting task of equaling last season's Heisman campaign. These are the things that make sports so marketable. Now, with marketability comes the cheese...the cash. A&M is definitely taking a piece of it. The NCAA is taking a piece of it.....Now it seems as if Johnny himself, with the help of his personal assistant/best friend Uncle Nate, is getting it EARLY too. Johnny comes from a rich oil family. He has money. Johnny wants play money so he can live the NFL lifestyle now. There are no real villains or heroes in this Texas tall tale. It seems that everyday more information is coming out. If you ask this blogger of his humble opinion it would be this. Johnny will play this year, but the distractions will pull his production down a bit. Saban will be ready for A&M this year and he is a very vengeful person. Johnny football may even get hurt that game. The NCAA will have a hard time finding evidence that Manziel took money for his signature.  If he did take money it was cash. However this fiasco ends, I hope it ends with Johnny playing football again. The very thing that made us all take notice in the first place.



-tshurn

Not Top 10. Don't do it, WNBA.

A dunk contest, huh? Just because you get a talented player that can dunk with ease and at will in the league doesn't mean you can round up enough talent to hold an actual contest. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of talent in the WNBA, but due to the God-given physical limitations, dunking is not one of the more accomplished skills among women ball players. In order to have a contest, you have to have a winner and a loser. At least 2 contestants. Brittney Griner and Candace Parker...maybe a few Nate Robinson-like sleepers? Even if you had viable contestants, would they risk injury and their season? Mavericks draft pick Shane Larkin recently broke his ankle going up for a dunk, and just like that he's out 8-12 weeks.

Come on, over the years, the men's dunk contest has been getting pretty lame. Between blowing out candles and jumping over Kias, the contest has become more about the props than the athletic prowess. Air Jordan will forever have his mark soaring from behind the free throw line, and Superman will always have his cape. But until they demoralize the sport by lowering the basket (I already despise the use of a smaller ball), there should not be a women's dunk contest. Fans will just need to settle for the already impressive, occasional drop-step dunks from phenom Griner.

Here's an idea: Why don't we try getting more teams in the league first. The league stands with 12 current teams, 6 of which are independently owned. This year is a breakout year with All-Stars Brittney Griner, Elena Delle Donne, and Skylar Diggins showcasing their talents as rookies. The league has a chance to grow and expand their fan base. A dunk contest, I fear, would be disastrous and only set back the league's growth and the respect it has earned.


-bObD.