Bleacher Report - Articles by Mike Piellucci

Nine Worth Noting: Breaking Down the Champions League Contenders

Mike Piellucci — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:23:01 -0400

With the group stages of the Champions League opening today, fans from team across the globe have their hearts aflutter over the romantic notion that their club could take home the claret jug and be crowned the best team in Europe.

While that’s adorable, it’s also delusional. Soccer is a game of economic haves and have-nots and the occasional 2004 Porto notwithstanding, the haves win.

Every. Damn. Time.

I’m a pragmatist, so rather than go into detail about all thirty two teams, let’s instead delve into discussion over the real contenders for European glory. By my count, there are nine and only nine.

Below is the breakdown of why each team can, or cannot win, as well as the player that will make or break their fortunes. Enjoy.

Arsenal

Why They Can: Creativity. Arsenal have long been lauded for playing attractive football and this group is no different. Cesc Fabergas and Andrei Arshavin are two of the game’s premier attacking midfielders while the versatile Robin Van Persie can stymie defenses either from the wing or more commonly up front as a striker.

It will only get better for the Gunners, as Czech midfielder Tomas Rosicky just returned from a lengthy injury layoff while 21-year-old French wizard Samir Nasri should be back on the pitch by late October, giving them a group whose technical ability is rivaled only by Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Why They Can’t: Strength. For all their skill, Arsenal can be easily bullied. The center back pairing of William Gallas and Thomas Vermaelen are technically sound but neither is taller than 5’10’’, making them ripe for bigger strikers to out-jump and out-muscle.

Of even greater concern is the glaring lack of a powerful ball winner in the midfield, a weakness that has gone unaddressed since Patrick Vieira’s departure in 2005. None of Arsenal’s great playmakers play much defense, so if they lose possession it takes a while to get it back.

Put it together and Arsenal could really struggle should they run into physical sides from England or Italy, having already lost league matches to Manchester United and Manchester City this season.

X Factor: Manuel Almunia. Given their reliance on highly skilled young players, the understated 34 year old keeper seemingly flies in the face of Arsenal’s entire philosophy. The former backup to Jens Lehmann, Almunia has done just fine since being promoted into the first team midway through the 2007-2008 campaign.

Yet given the Gunner’s struggles with fitness and the aforementioned problems with bigger and stronger teams, Almunia could face a much heavier workload in this year’s European campaign. How he fares could be the difference between being an above average shot stopper and a potentially great one.

Barcelona

Why They Can: Because they’re even better than last year. Barcelona already won the treble in 2008-2009, and that was before they added Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose ball skills and ability to play with his back to the goal are a better fit for the Catalans’ up-tempo style than the departed Samuel Eto’o.

Why They Can’t: Barcelona is the most complete side in the world, so any criticism really is nitpicking. That being said, Barcelona’s defense is very rarely tested and given the individual qualities of their backline, could show some leaks if it was.

Both Dani Alves and the left back duo of Eric Abidal and Maxwell are subpar in defense, while Victor Valdes has never inspired full confidence among the Blaugrana faithful.

Of course, much of this is conjecture. Barcelona boasts such a superior possession rate that the defense seldom has much work to do. Until someone applies consistent pressure to it, it will be impossible to tell just how good—or bad—the backline truly is.

X Factor: Valdes. Seemingly every transfer campaign begins the same way for FCB: Valdes to be sold, ______ to replace him. Yet when the summer ends, there stands Valdes between the pipes.

Though the keeper has been prone to the occasional mental lapse, he is still a very solid player who has more than earned his blue and maroon stripes. But like an erratic closer in baseball, you never feel fully safe with Valdes in goal and if one of those errors comes at the wrong time....

Bayern Munich

Why They Can: “Robbery” aka wingers Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery. They give Bayern the world’s best pair of wide men, bar none, and together give Bayern the rare ability to wreak havoc on either flank.

Indeed, since Robben’s arrival just before the transfer window closed in late August, Bayern have gone from sputtering to sensational in the blink of an eye, most recently dominating Borussia Dortmund 5-1.

Why They Can’t: Goalkeeping. When German legend Oliver Kahn retired after the 2007 season, everyone knew that he would leave some big boots to fill but nobody expected Germany’s most flagship club to struggle so mightily in filling them.

Twenty-five year old Michael Rensing was seen as Kahn’s successor both at Bayern and with the German national team, yet he has struggled under the weight of those expectations and was replaced by veteran Hans-Georg Butt. While Butt is solid, he is hardly spectacular and coupled with an often shaky backline, will struggle against Europe’s elite attacking units.

X Factor: Daniel Van Buyten. Bayern was defensively suspect last season, which made the sale of long time defensive stalwart Lucio to Inter Milan that much more puzzling.

If the Bavarians are to make a serious run at the Champions League crown, they will need the Belgian international to shepherd the defense as well as marking some of Europe’s top strikers. No small task to say the least, but unless youngster Holger Badstuber plays well beyond his years, Van Buyten is the only man fit for the job.

Chelsea

Why They Can: Balance. If Barcelona is the most complete team in the world, Chelsea is a close second, with no discernible weakness. They boast two prolific strikers in Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka; an outstanding keeper in Petr Cech; an elite center back tandem in John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho; perhaps the world’s finest left back in Ashley Cole; and quality midfielders galore in Michael Essien, Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack, John Obi Mikel, Deco, and Florent Malouda.

On top of that, it’s an experienced group, both in the amount of time played with each other and the games spent competing at the game’s highest level.

Why They Can’t: Age. For all those prolific names mentioned, many of them are entering the latter stages of their prime. In particular, Lampard, Ballack, Drogba, Anelka, Carvalho, and Deco are all on the wrong side of 30, with Terry and Cole each turning 29 before the year is out.

The problem is exacerbated by FIFA’s recent ruling that the Blues can’t transfer in any players until January 2011, a brutal blow should anyone in Chelsea’s aging squad go down with an injury.

The cherry on the sundae? Drogba, Mikel, and Essien will miss nearly all of January playing in the African Cup of Nations.

X Factor: Mikel. New Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti has been determined to put his stamp on the side by importing his signature 4-1-2-1 “diamond” formation from AC Milan, irrespective of the fact that the personnel at hand might be better suited for a different batch of tactics.

Indeed, while Lampard has had little problem slotting behind the strikers and though Essien is right at home in the holding midfielder role, John Obi Mikel has experienced difficulty replicating Andrea Pirlo’s role as the deep lying playmaker.

While his strengths (attacking runs through the middle of the park) are different than what the position calls for (deferential, visionary passing), Ancelotti has nonetheless slotted him into the position and likely will keep him there.

His success will be crucial, as none of the other midfielders have the technical skills to routinely beat defenders off the dribble. If he can catalyze from the back half of the midfield, they won’t have to worry about that.

Inter Milan

Why They Can: The world’s strongest defense. It starts in net, where Julio Cesar’s 2008 performance launched him into the elite stratosphere of keepers along with Iker Casillas and Gianluigi Buffon.

In front of him are any two of Lucio, Walter Samuel, Ivan Cordoba, or Christian Chivu; between the quartet’s depth, quality, and versatility, nobody has a better set of center backs than Inter.

The wingbacks are equally stout with Davide Santon, already a full Italy international at 18, on the left and Maicon, the world’s best at his position, on the right. As if that weren’t enough, Inter also features one of the world’s best holding midfielders in Esteban Cambiasso, and talismanic captain Javier Zanetti can play either wingback spot or as a defensive midfielder.

Put it all together and it’s a nightmare for even the strongest of attacks.

Why They Can’t: Creativity. Inter fans, stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Nerazzuri won’t win any European glory until they can find a link between their fearsome backline and the formidable strike force of Samuel Eto’o and Diego Milito.

For the past three years, Inter dominated Serie A thanks to the almost single handed efforts of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and far too often, their game plan revolved around giving the ball to Ibra and hoping something would happen.

But Ibrahimovic is now at Barcelona and while Eto’o is perhaps the world’s best finisher, he lacks the Swede’s technical abilities. To compensate, Inter will rely on Maicon as well as new midfield arrivals Wesley Sneijder and Thiago Motta. For Inter to have any chance at taking home the elusive title, they must to move the ball efficiently and effectively.

X Factor: Sneijder. After a seemingly endless transfer saga, the Dutchman became Inter’s latest bargain pickup from Real Madrid, following the path of club stalwarts Cambiasso, Samuel and the retired Luis Figo.

Needless to say, Inter will be thrilled if Sneijder plays as well as the other names on that list and if he does, Inter will be on the short list of serious title contenders. Should he live up to expectations, Sneijder will solve two long standing problems for the Beneamata—a trequarista and a dead ball specialist.

Great teams are built through the spine and with their plethora of center backs, Cambiasso, and Eto’o, Inter are set at three-fourths of those positions. Although Sneijder suffered through an injury prone 2008 season, he was one of the world’s best midfielders for Madrid in 2007 and is markedly better than anything Inter has enjoyed in that role in recent years.

More than any other player, his performance will determine how far Inter goes in the Champions League.

Juventus

Why They Can: The revamped midfield. Three years after being demoted to Serie B in the infamous Calciopioli match-fixing scandal, Juventus finally have a side capable of challenging for European glory, starting in the center of the park.

The Turin based side made possibly the best signing in Italy by bringing aboard Brazilian playmaker Diego, and already he has breathed life and unpredictability into a previously stale midfield. A relative bargain for £20 million, at least in the recent wildly inflated transfer market, the ex-Werder Bremen man is the next big star of the Italian game.

Joining him is countryman Felipe Melo, a revelation at Fiorentina this past season and with the Brazilian national team in the Confederations Cup this past summer. A true box-to-box midfielder, Melo’s relentless running, stiff tackling, and crackling long shot make him an asset in any area of the pitch.

They are joined by Malian tackling machine Momo Sissoko and club staple Mauro Cameronasi. The foursome is a perfect blend of technical skill and strength, allowing the team to succeed in any style of play.

Why They Can’t: The backline. There’s no doubting Gianluigi Buffon between the posts but the group in front of him has its warts, despite (or perhaps due to) featuring three-fourths of the Italy’s starting defense.

For all his exploits with the national team, newly signed left back Fabio Grosso hasn’t come close to replicating that form at the club level, flopping out at Inter last time he featured for an Italian club team.

Giorgio Chiellini is quickly becoming one of the world’s elite center backs, but he’s reckless and prone to accruing costly penalties while his partner, Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro, is 36 and was seemingly fit for pasture just four months ago.

At right back, Jonathan Zebina is, well, Jonathan Zebina—how the man is employed by a club of this stature, let alone starting, is a mystery that may never be solved.

X Factor: Cannavaro. He’s been nothing short of sensational since his controversial return to Turin, but one has to wonder how sustainable this run is, given his horrendous form at Real Madrid last season.

If he keeps it up, Juventus has a center back pair that can rival anyone’s; if he doesn’t, Buffon is going to have to be on top of his game to keep the Old Lady in title contention.

Liverpool

Why They Can: Steven Gerrard. Fernando Torres. Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres. Does anything else really need to be said? Two of the world’s absolute best, a nearly guaranteed 50 goals between them, and two of the most clutch players in the sport.

Regardless of who else occupies the other nine places in the lineup card, Liverpool always bears mentioning in the discussion of title contenders by virtue of such an outstanding combination.

Why They Can’t: Not enough match winners. As brilliant as Gerrard and Torres are, their teammates too often let them down, leaving countless matches in the hands of the dynamic duo to pull late game magic out of a hat and steal victory in the waning moments.

It’s exciting, sure, but Liverpool walks the razor’s edge too often to go through the brutal Champions League gauntlet.

The loss of Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid only exacerbated the problem, as the Spaniard was the only other player consistently able to manufacture attacks for the Merseyside club.

Players like Yossi Benayoun, Glen Johnson, and Alberto Aquilani must take the next step from good league players to consistent continental performers if Liverpool has a chance of earning their second Champions League title of the decade.

X Factor: Aquilani. The direct replacement for Alonso, it’s up the 25-year-old Italian international to inject some much needed playmaking into the midfield alongside (or behind, depending on the day) Gerrard.

Aquilani demonstrated flashes of brilliance for his former club Roma, to the point where he was considered a key building block in the future of the Italian national side. But he’s battled injuries for the better part of three seasons, dimming his once bright star and keeping him out of the Azzurri altogether.

Liverpool took a huge gamble by spending much of their transfer budget on him, but there’s no doubting his talent; if healthy, Aquilani could become the third big time player for the Reds.

Manchester United

Why They Can: The back line. While Inter has the world’s best overall defense, the best defensive foursome resides in Manchester. Nemanja Vidic is the world’s top center back while his partner Rio Ferdinand is not far behind; both players are big, fast, and strong enough to matchup against the world’s elite strikers.

Left back Patrice Evra, himself on the shortlist for top honors at his position, provides attacking flair down the flank while right back is rotated between the equally capable captain Gary Neville, Wes Brown, and Jonny Evans, with the latter two also deputizing at center back.

While the individual quality of the key ingredients is admirable, what makes this group special is that they’ve had time to marinate together; the group has played together for the better part of four seasons and is the major reason for the club’s massive trophy haul that includes three consecutive Premier League titles to go with a 2008 Champions League title and 2009 runner-up finish.

Why They Can’t: The midfield. Cristiano Ronaldo was responsible for a much of Manchester United’s success but perhaps his greatest accomplishment was masking the relative mediocrity that is the rest of United’s midfield.

Michael Carrick is a nice player who makes all the right passes but is too easily forced off the ball and can’t create chances on his own. Ryan Giggs is stellar for a 36 year old but has lost the pace that was once one of his calling cards. Darren Fletcher is a glorified utility player.

Nani and Anderson are transfer disappointments bordering on busts. Paul Scholes is too old. Owen Hargreaves would add the steel so sorely lacking in the center of the pitch, but he hasn’t played in 16 months and there’s no guarantee that he will again.

Now Ronaldo is in Madrid, replaced by the erratic Antonio Valencia, and suddenly all eyes rest upon the elephant in the room that we should have noticed two years ago: United’s midfield may not rank among the top quarter of Premiership sides, let alone other European powerhouses.

United too closely resembles the disappointing Inter Milan teams of the past several years, with a woefully inadequate midfield sandwiched between its world class defense and attack. Unless two or more of the aforementioned players dramatically raise their game alongside Carrick, Man U is heading toward an early knockout round exit.

X Factor: Really, this should be Hargreaves but until he steps foot on a pitch, it isn’t worth discussing. Instead, the honor goes to Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov, who has everything to prove in his second season with the Red Devils after a disappointing 14 goal 2008-2009 campaign.

On paper, the 6’2’’ Berbatov is the perfect complement to Wayne Rooney, the powerful target man who should benefit from Rooney’s workaholic runs and great dribbling. He’d better be, as Sir Alex Ferguson no longer has Ronaldo nor Carlos Tevez to keep the Red Devils on the score sheet and defenders off Rooney’s back.

A minimum of 20 goals is needed for United’s offense to keep pace with its previous lofty standards.

Real Madrid

Why They Can: Firepower, and lots of it. You’d certainly hope so after they spent a world record 254 million euros in the summer transfer window. At the very least, though, Madrid appeared to choose their targets wisely as Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, and Xabi Alonso are among the world’s best players with plenty of great football ahead of them—Alonso’s the oldest and he doesn’t turn 28 until November.

Plenty more can be said about each one but all you really need to know is that 21 year old Argentine sensation Gonzalo Higuain scored 24 goals last season and yet he’s rooted to the bench as the third choice striker. Simply put, Madrid is loaded up front.

Why They Can’t: Too many cooks in the kitchen. Having a ton of offense is all well and good but at the end of the day, there’s only one ball to share between them. Alonso, as the deep lying playmaker, needs the ball to orchestrate attacks further up the pitch.

Sergio Ramos needs the ball to make his often misguided runs from his right back position. Kaka needs the ball to play his hybrid trequarista-center forward role just as Raul and Benzema need the ball to score goals.

Ronaldo? Well, anyone who’s watched him play more than five minutes knows that he needs the ball, and he can get a bit testy when it doesn’t come his way.

The last era of Galacticos proved many things but chief among them was the futility in building a lineup fit for video games and expecting the titles to rain down in rapid succession. Madrid must lay down a pecking order very quickly or things are going to fall apart during the pressure packed knockout stages.

X Factor: Lassana Diarra. If that last paragraph was the first lesson to be taken from the Galacticos Mach I, then the second is the importance of defense, and in particular the role of the holding midfielder.

The transfer of Claude Makelele to Chelsea in 2003 not only provided the London club with one of the cornerstones of their rise to prominence but also stripped Madrid of the man who cleaned up the multitude of defensive messes that its attackers left behind. Not surprisingly, many pundits point to this as the catalyst of Madrid’s relative downfall.

Diarra was bought in the January 2009 transfer window and has been nothing short of tremendous for Madrid thus far. His performance in the so-called “Makelele role” is paramount, as he will be expected to provide enough steel for nearly half the side.

So who will win, you ask?

It’s far too early to guess, but the four teams that seem to be a cut above the rest are Barcelona, Chelsea, Inter Milan, and Real Madrid.

Without the benefit of foresight or the possession of crystal ball, I’ll cast out a way too premature prediction:

Barcelona 3-1 Chelsea in the Champions League final, making the Catalans the first team ever to repeat in the Champions League era.

Decision 2009: Why Matt Barkley Will Be USC's Starting Quarterback

Mike Piellucci — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 04:36:57 -0400

In case USC’s head football coach hasn’t made this abundantly clear already, allow me to do so for him: Pete Carroll has no problem relying on true freshmen.

They’ve been his go-to options on offense (Mike Williams and Dwayne Jarrett), and his stoppers on defense (Taylor Mays).

They’ve started season openers (Kris O’Dowd), and national title games (such as 2005, when Brian Cushing and Rey Maualuga composed two-thirds of the starting linebacker corps).

They’ve even started at the most storied position in school history, as running backs CJ Gable, Emmanuel Moody, and Joe McKnight all have at Tailback U in the past three years.

But there is one barrier even Pete Carroll hasn’t crossed. Quarterbacks at USC wait their turn.

Indeed, no matter what the King of Competition says, the facts remain that since Matt Leinart took over, USC’s starting quarterback is also its most experienced, irrespective of pedigree.

John David Booty knows. He was the best quarterback prospect in the country, the prize of one of the most intense recruiting wars in history in which the Trojans triumphed over home school LSU.

As if that weren’t enough, he did it in just three years of high school, becoming the only high school football player ever to graduate a full year early, leaving Louisiana prep powerhouse Evangel Christian Academy after his junior year to join USC.

Booty, to that point the best quarterback Pete Carroll had ever recruited, sat on the bench for three years before securing the starting job as a redshirt junior.

Mark Sanchez knows it as well. He too was the best quarterback prospect in the country when he signed with USC in 2005.

Coming from the Trojans’ backyard in nearby Mission Viejo, USC beat out virtually every top program in the country for his services, and as the best Orange County signal caller since Carson Palmer, Sanchez had the Trojan faithful hanging on his every practice snap in hopeful expectation.

Sanchez surpassed Booty as the best quarterback Pete Carroll had ever recruited. He too sat on the bench for three years before getting his chance as a redshirt junior.

Given that, you can forgive longtime Trojan fans for scoffing at the gradually building hype train following 18-year-old Matt Barkley.

For those unfamiliar with his background (no, he’s not related to Charles), he enters the gates of Troy with similar pomp and circumstance to his predecessors.

A four year starter at Santa Ana powerhouse Mater Dei, he three was the best quarterback prospect in the country (aren’t they all?) upon enrolling early at USC in January.

Along the way, he not only Gatorade National Player of the Year honors, but did so as a junior, the first one ever to hold the accolade.

He has been compared to a young Peyton Manning, with recruiting expert Jamie Newberg going so far as to call him as “the top pro-style QB of the decade.”

It is Barkley’s turn now to hold the mantle of the best quarterback Pete Carroll has ever recruited.

Do not, however, expect him to sit on the bench for three years.

Originally expected to carry the same clipboard that Booty and Sanchez became so intimately acquainted with in their first few years, Barkley scrapped those plans by blowing the doors off USC’s spring camp just as the coaches were getting him fitted for a redshirt.

As a result, he leapfrogged Arkansas transfer Mitch Mustain, himself a former Gatorade POY, into a head-to-head battle with redshirt sophomore Aaron Corp for the vacant starting quarterback job at a time when most kids his age were at their senior prom.

Needless to say, Matt Barkley is not most kids, or for that matter, most football players. At 6’2’’, 225 lbs, his body is already as developed at 18 as Sanchez’ was at 21, and with a rocket launcher of a right arm to boot.

Mentally, he’s already neck-and-neck with players going into their third year in the system, which is surprising to say the least. Then again, the guy’s been calling his own audibles since he was 14, so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised after all.

Very few quarterbacks are as proficient in either facet of the game at such a young age, much less both.

Put them together, and Matt Barkley is special even by USC quarterback standards, which is up there with saying that Marissa Miller is special even by supermodel standards.

Pete Carroll said so himself, asserting that Barkley “[is] able to perform at a level we’ve never seen at this stage.” Now, with Corp shelved for the next two to three weeks with a knee injury, Barkley is running the first team offense while the rest of his classmates are just getting their feet wet.

It says here that he won’t be giving them up as long as he’s in a USC uniform.

Despite Corp being named the starter out of spring camp, Barkley’s unparalleled rate of development will eventually force the coaching staff’s hand and put him under center.

By this time next year, many around the program believe that Barkley will be the undisputed best quarterback on the team, a highly likely proposition given how the once gaping chasm between him and Corp has narrowed to a sidewalk crack in a mere few months.

Assuming Corp remains the starter throughout the course of the season, Carroll will face a daunting choice come next fall; keep the best quarterback off the field, or strip Corp of his job and hand it over to someone with zero college starts.

Realistically, either path will result in a transfer; Barkley wouldn’t want to sit on the bench knowing that he is the best quarterback on the team, while Corp wouldn’t want to hand over his job after returning to school as the incumbent.

While such a scenario is a full year away, this season brings with it an even greater concern—the dreaded quarterback controversy.

An agonizing conundrum for any team, no school is riper for hullabaloo than USC, between its status as the de facto pro team in the country’s second largest media market and the quality of its recent signal callers.

Such potential was realized two seasons ago, when the incumbent Booty spent most of the season under siege from angry fans clamoring for his understudy, Sanchez.

Unfortunately, any misstep from Corp would likely result in the same treatment.

Don’t forget, Trojan fans jeered Booty in the Coliseum less than a year removed from a dominating performance in a Rose Bowl rout; if they were vicious to a player with that kind of track record, they would have no problem being vicious to a player with no track record at all.

None of this is fair to Corp, who has enough on his plate with the traditional pitfalls of a rookie starter, not to mention the Trojans’ brutal road schedule that includes games at Ohio State, Cal, Oregon, and Notre Dame.

But America loves it’s phenoms, and as Matt Stafford, Terrelle Pryor, and even Mustain demonstrated in their first year of college, the media—and fans—will have a much longer leash with freshman mistakes than a veteran’s so long as the team wins games.

Pete Carroll knows all of this, which is why he’ll name Matt Barkley his starting quarterback heading into the season. Corp’s brief absence may be all Barkley needs to claim the job but even if it isn’t, Carroll will deal whatever growing pains he may have now because doing so is the only way to avoid much larger, potentially crippling problems in the long term.

Helping matters is a running game that returns its top four backs from last season as well as the entire two deep on the offensive line, enabling new offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates to pound opponents into submission on the ground rather than rely on his young quarterback to win him games.

Of course, there’s no shortage of weapons in the passing game either in the form of receivers Damien Williams and Ronald Johnson, tight end Anthony McCoy, and fullback Stanley Havili, all of whom will contend for All-Pac 10 honors, or in Williams’ and Havili’s case, All-American status.

Regardless of who starts, both Barkley and Corp will have more than enough at their disposal to win games.

But when making a decision that will alter the course of the program for the next several years, Barkley is the obvious choice, something Pete Carroll unquestionably did not anticipate six months ago.

We already knew Pete Carroll liked starting freshmen. Now we—and he—are about to be reminded in a whole new way.

Everything's Bigger In Texas, Especially Its Playoff Chances If It Gets Halladay

Mike Piellucci — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 07:07:19 -0400

Put up or shut up.

Do or die.

Sink or swim.

This time two years ago, those hackneyed forks in the road were staring down Jon Daniels like the barrel of a loaded gun. He was 29 then, and only in his second season as the Texas Rangers GM, yet the luster had long worn off his once incandescent star.

Bad trades will do that to you. You flip an All-Star second baseman (Alfonso Soriano) here, a couple wunderkind prospects (John Danks and Adrian Gonzalez) there, with nothing to show for it, and soon the same baby face that once got you branded a young genius begets labels such as “naïve” and “overmatched.”

Ahead of the July 31, 2007 MLB trade deadline, Daniels had an opportunity to redeem himself—or destroy his career for good. He was dangling Mark Teixeira and Eric Gagne, the best available position player and relief pitcher respectively, and badly needed an infusion of prospects to stimulate a barren farm system.

For the next two weeks, Jon Daniels would be trading for his job. But more than that, he would be trading for his image, his reputation, his legacy. He would be trading to put his career on a fast track down one of those forks in the road.

Make or break.

Kill or be killed.

Theo Epstein or Paul DePodesta.

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Today, the Rangers are on their way to becoming the darlings of baseball. They boast one of the best offenses in baseball—no surprise there—but also feature Baseball America’s top farm system, stocked to the brim with promising minor league arms that could potentially slake the franchise’s eternal thirst for quality pitching.

No less than four established every day players—Ian Kinsler, Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, and Elvis Andrus—are core guys on the right side of 30, with team leader Michael Young capable of providing solid play at third base for another three to four years as a complementary player.

The bullpen runs five deep in quality arms, including baseball’s statistically best 7-8-9 combo in Darren O’Day, CJ Wilson, and Frankie Francisco.

Even the rotation has improved by leaps and bounds under the tutelage of pitching coach Mike Maddux, unearthing a potential long term building block named Scott Feldman while slowly developing uber-prospect Derek Holland.

All of that with nary a mention of the individual star-caliber talents lurking in the minor leagues, and for good reason; even a brief synopsis includes enough names to warrant a completely separate column.

For the first time in a long time, the Rangers have a plan; patiently acquire long term assets, build through the draft while aggressively pursuing Latin American talent, curb spending in the free agent market, and trade any non-essential assets while they have peak value.

Even more important than the plan itself, though, is the franchise’s commitment to it.

Over the past eight years, the organization’s pendulum has swung back and forth from trying to buy a team through free agency (think A-Rod and Chan Ho Park), to developing from within (Hank Blalock and Mark Teixeira), back to buying a team through free agency (Kevin Millwood), back to developing from within (the ballyhooed trio of John Danks, Edinson Volquez, and Thomas Diamond—none of whom experienced success in a Ranger uniform), with a few meek attempts at balancing the two approaches in between.

None of it worked.

Not even close.

Yet here they are, on the right track and for once, showing no signs of veering off the road.

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All of this can be traced back to July 31, 2007, Daniels’s day of reckoning. It’s the day that changed everything, a line in the sand that created “before” and “after;” “then” and “now;” “B.C.” and “A.D.”

By the time the trade deadline had passed, Daniels turned Teixeira, Gagne, and Kenny Lofton into nine players.

Already, four of them (Andrus, David Murphy, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and Matt Harrison) have become big league regulars, while three more (Neftali Feliz, Max Ramirez, and Engel Beltre) rank among the team’s top ten prospects. An eighth, Kason Gabbard, made a half season’s worth of starts before eventually being jettisoned.

The immediate impact was akin to a meteor’s in that it was big, and easy to spot; three trades, three wins, and quickie-remodel of the farm system.

But the ripple effect was even greater, and the team has ridden the wave of momentum ever since, and they have Jon Daniels to thank for it.

Post D-Day 2007, the man just can’t seem to miss. Fresh off striking out in his courtship of Torii Hunter, Daniels turned around and flipped Volquez to Cincinnati for Hamilton, who instantly filled the voids in center field, the middle of the batting order, and as the face of the franchise.

He brought in Milton Bradley, fresh off the worst year of his career, and watched him have his best one. Milton might be gone now, but the two first-round picks he brought as free agency compensation certainly will not be forgotten.

He turned others’ trash into his treasure, plucking key relievers O’Day and Jason Grilli, each of whom sports a sub 2.00 ERA with the team, off waivers, as well as coaxing 15 home runs and counting from Andruw Jones, last seen decomposing in Dodger blue.

Most important of all, he shelled out for pitching coach Mike Maddux. Maddux has gotten a young pitching staff to be aggressive by trusting their stuff and the team’s much improved defense. Simply put, it’s working; the Rangers currently 12th in the majors in total pitching after finishing dead last in 2008 with an atrocious 5.37 ERA.

For two years and counting, Daniels has been building something special. It’s no longer a question of ‘if’, but rather a declarative of ‘when;’ soon, very soon, the Rangers will be a force to reckoned with.

***************************************************

‘When’ was supposed to be 2010, or at least that was the plan. Daniels said so himself during spring training, citing that as the date when some of that young pitching would not only trickle into the majors, but also begin to pay dividends.

What Daniels didn’t count on was the pieces coming together ahead of schedule. The Rangers are currently 54-42, good for 3.5 games back in the AL West. Given the sorry state of affairs that passed for a track record over the past decade, that would be impressive enough in its own right.

Yet it’s even more significant in how they’re accomplishing it. The Rangers aren’t playing out of their heads to get to this mark, nor are they even playing within them. If anything, the Rangers might be underachieving.

That’s the term I’d use when Kinsler, a career .280 hitter who raked to the tune of .320 in 2008, is plodding along at .244.

It’s the word that describes Josh Hamilton’s injury-plagued campaign; “Hambone” is hitting .228 with 7 HRs and 28 RBI.

Chris Davis barely staying above the Mendoza line? The switch-hitting Saltalamacchia, formerly the best hitting prospect in the minors, re-defining mediocrity at .246 with 7HRs? Yeah, I’d call that underachieving.

Here’s the thing, though: These guys are way too talented—and in Kinsler and Hamilton’s case, too accomplished—to be this bad. Soon, they’re going to turn it around. Considering that the Rangers are currently in the thick of a pennant race, all the while fighting off a collective slump at the plate, there is certainly reason for optimism.

It’s also evidence that this season is no fluke. While the finished product is still a ways away, it would be foolish to dismiss the 2009 Rangers’ accomplishments as anything less than the beginning stages of contention. Contention that wasn’t expected this soon.

This brings us to Friday’s trade deadline.

Despite the dramatic improvement that Mike Maddux has coaxed from the pitching staff, it’s apparent that the starting rotation isn’t strong enough to hold up down the stretch of a pennant race, much less on the battlefields of October.

The nominal ace, Kevin Millwood, is best suited to be a second starter, with Feldman and Vincente Padilla as the third and fourth starters rather than their current lot as two/thirds of a playoff rotation.

While Derek Holland’s talent is considerable, so too are his growing pains and at this stage of the season, he’s doing the team more harm than good during his starts.

Normally, these types of issues cannot be resolved until the offseason, when teams have time and energy exclusively devoted towards shoring up these shortcomings.

But these are not normal times. Not when Roy Halladay is available.

It’s been well-documented that the Toronto Blue Jays ace won’t come cheap, which is to be expected. Pitchers of his caliber are so rarely available, even less so when they still have two years on their contract remaining.

At age 32, Halladay is the total package; in his prime, under control, dominant, and capable of inducing ground balls, an absolute must at Rangers’ Ballpark in Arlington.

Acquiring Halladay requires the Rangers to part with one of the organization’s three elite prospects—Holland, Feliz, or first baseman Justin Smoak—as well as three other high-level minor leaguers.

That’s no small matter, considering:

A. The team has invested so much in building the farm system;

B. these prospects project as upper rotation starters (Holland and Neftali Feliz) or middle of the order bats with Gold Glove chops (Smoak);

and C. the issue of cash strapped Tom Hicks having to take on the remaining $22 million on Halladay’s deal.

In this case, the risks are worth the reward. For all these prospects’ talent, their best case scenario is becoming Halladay. Best case. Worst case—there are exponentially more of these—they go any number of other routes including injury, failure, or not being good enough.

Nobody knows for certain what Derek Holland and Neftali Feliz will ultimately give the Texas Rangers. We certainly didn’t with Mark Prior and Doc Gooden, the epitome of “can’t miss” pitching prospects who did just that.

But I do know what Halladay will give them: a true ace, and the best pitcher to grace Arlington since Nolan Ryan was on the mound over 15 years ago. A rotation of Halladay, Millwood, Feldman, Padilla, and Holland or the emerging Tommy Hunter ranks among the league’s stoutest and would make them the favorites in the AL West.

The farm system, while shaken, would still be overflowing with talent; in the words of Rangers insider Jamey Newberg, “Texas would have to make five blockbuster trades in the next six days to empty its system.”

Moreover, when those young pitchers reach the big leagues, they’d find no better role model than Halladay, who was sent down from the majors all the way to A ball only to then remake himself into arguably the best pitcher in the game.

Trading for Halladay would be the perfect blend of trying to win now while working towards the future, an approach that they are so unaccustomed to succeeding with. Surrender the right mix of prospects, and the Rangers can probably get Toronto to foot some of the bill on Halladay’s salary too.

Yes, the Rangers are on the right track, but standing still nonetheless will get them run over.

Thus, two years after that eventful trade deadline, Jon Daniels again has the chance to change his team’s fortunes. Will he capitalize?

***************************************************

So, no, this season wasn’t part of Daniels’ plan.

The thing with plans, however, is that they’re all projection. And projection only gets you so far in baseball, a sport where untold legions of tomorrows never see their day, yet teams still mar the present for a shot at such uncertain glory.

Sometimes, that’s fine. It was the right call two years ago, when the team needed a way out of baseball irrelevance. That time it worked, for everything that the Rangers are and will be stems from the decisions made during that week.

But it’s not now.

Not when the Rangers, for once, have a chance to win their division for the first time in over a decade.

Not when Texas, one of the great baseball states, is starved for a winner in the professional ranks to rival the success they’ve relished at the collegiate level.

Not when Roy Halladay is on the market.

Once again, Jon Daniels is staring down two paths.

Trade or stand pat.

Adapt, or stick to the plan.

Give it a shot, or wait ‘til next year.

Let’s hope he knows which one to take.

I Hate "That Guy": Who's the Devean George in Your Life?

Mike Piellucci — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:35:03 -0400

Last week, I waxed poetic about the numerous ways the Shawn Marion trade will improve my beloved Dallas Mavericks and as those of you who read the article know, there are many reasons to be excited.

I did, however, leave one out. Perhaps my favorite. And as you, dear reader, can probably guess, it involves my amateurish photo-shopping of Devean George's self-involved smirk.

See, as part of this deal, I now sleep content with the knowledge that Devean George will never again infest the locker room of my favorite sports franchise.

Let me assure you, this is no small victory; if I had to assign a dollar amount that I would have paid out of my own pocket to banish Devean George to the Island of Irksome Role Players, the ballpark figure would have been around $7,500.

So believe me when I say that the emotional payoff of the Mavs shipping him out while simultaneously acquiring one of my favorite players (Marion) is like Moses leading the Hebrews into a beer garden after their 40-year jaunt through the desert.

In case this hasn't clanked you over the head like an errant Devean George jump shot, allow me to make myself Crystal Taylor clear: I hate Devean George. A lot.

Ultimately, it's a pretty benign hatred, mostly because it would be pretty impractical to really do something about it; I don't intend to embarrass him publicly, slash his tires, or even TP his house. But it's as real as your worst college hookup and just like those "cold sores" you got a week later, it ain't going anywhere for a while.

Why do I hate Devean George, you ask? Because he's "that guy." We all have one, a bit player on your favorite team who is mostly inconsequential to it's success yet ekes out just enough playing time to drive you, and everyone around you, insane.

If he's a football player, he doesn't hit the hole hard, or he arm tackles, or he gets penalized way too often.

"That guy" in baseball takes called third strikes, nibbles around the strike zone, or constantly grounds into double plays.

If it's a basketball player, well, he's Devean George.

In my defense, it didn't have to be this way. I really had high hopes for Devean George and his career 5.6 ppg scoring average. It's not my fault that whenever he touched the ball, he had Kobe Bryant's shot selection with Bryant Reeves' game. Or that I trust his corner three less than Shawn Kemp at a buffet line.

I certainly can't be blamed for him unleashing his trademark defense, which involved pushing, pulling, grabbing, shoving, and sometimes punching opposing players in ways that I didn't think were legal in at least a dozen states, let alone the basketball court.

Yet he somehow was even more insufferable off the court. In February 2008, he sabotaged a package deal that would have sent him to New Jersey in exchange for Jason Kidd because he didn't want to hurt his market value in a contract year, apparently the last person to realize that his game would do that for him.

Five months later, there was Devean George, all to happy to slink back into a Mavs uniform for half his previous year's salary.

Don't even get me started on his theatrics whenever the Mavericks journeyed to the Staples Center, site of his glory years as the eighth man on the Lakers' title teams.

Between the incessant flirting with Penny Marshall and his sanctimonious preening for the six remaining fans that gave actually gave damn about him, Devean George's biannual homecoming was equal parts obnoxious and pathetic, an irrelevant piece of self-promotion rivaled only by Guns N'Roses' "Chinese Democracy."

I could go on, but why bother? Much like me 10 minutes into Devean George's Dallas career, you've probably seen enough.

Right now, I suspect some of you are disgusted. You're probably wondering why I get so worked up about a bit player who played 15 minutes per night. Fifteen agonizing minutes, I say, but point taken.

I've never met Devean George, and for all I know, he could be a really nice guy. He doesn't have a rap sheet, never runs his mouth to the media, and that the Dallas front office welcomed him back with open arms after he submarined their initial attempts to get Kidd definitely speaks to something.

Personally I'm of the opinion that "something" entails blackmail, but hey, I wasn't in the room when he signed the contract papers.

Yes, some of you are probably shaking your heads. But you know what? I know that a lot more of you are nodding in agreement.

Because let's be honest, this is about more than my loathing of one Devean Jamar George. No, this about every fan, of every team, and "that guy" who the front office deposited on their roster like a flaming bag of poo, rang the doorbell, and expected you, the loyal fan, to deal with the consequences.

East Coast; West Coast; Midwest; Southwest, we've all been there. Regardless of where your loyalties lie, you feel my pain on this one, and I, yours.

So I want to know: who's your Devean George? Think of this column as sports therapy, and the comments section as your safe space. It's OK, I don't like to judge.

Except Devean George. I hate that guy.

Enter the Matrix: Analyzing What Shawn Marion Means to the Dallas Mavs

Mike Piellucci — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:05:10 -0400

Confession time: ever since Shawn Marion’s second season in the NBA, I’ve been infatuated with his game. More than any forward not named ‘Garnett,’ Marion has been blessed with the ability to blend into the fabric of a game, skirting the line between taking over and slipping into the shadows.

On offense, he possesses the rare trifecta of three-point range, an ability to drive to the rim, and post up skills. Defensively, he’s one of the league’s premier defenders, equally adept at guarding twos, threes, and fours.

Up until now, I’ve followed Marion’s career via an admiring eye from afar, periodically wondering what if my beloved Dallas Mavericks kept the pick Phoenix used to draft him, and instead paired him with Dirk Nowitzki.

Now, a decade after he entered the league, I’ve got my chance to find out. And even though the 31 year-old Marion is reaching the latter stages of his prime, I’m giddy thinking of what he can add to this Dallas team.

Actually, giddy doesn’t nearly do it justice. Right now, I’m the kid in a Corn Pops commercial. “I gotta have my Pops!” Only instead of fructose-laced pellets of death, I gotta have a 6’7’’ combo forward. Probably better for my figure in the long run, anyway.

The reason I’m so excited about Marion is because he is the yin to Dallas’ yang, a one-size-fits-all solution to so many of this team’s problems. Consider the following:

Shawn Marion is an elite perimeter defender.

If the Mavs are serious about prying back open their window to an NBA title, and they are, it is imperative that they find a way to deal with the one constant among every serious contender: a pair of scoring wings.

Kobe and Artest; Ginobili and Jefferson; Carmelo and JR Smith; Rashard Lewis and Vince Carter; Allen and Pierce. Cleveland’s the exception to this rule, but LeBron more than compensates for this on his own.

Ignore, for a moment, the offensive potential of a Marion-Josh Howard combo (and yes, it’s considerable enough to perhaps warrant mention with the above group) and instead recall the difficulties Dallas had stopping some of these players last season.

Kobe, LeBron, Carmelo, and Vince ran roughshod while the others on this list gave the team fits in at least one game during the season.

Last year, against these types of pairings, the Mavs only means of countering was to play Antoine Wright together with Howard, which created two problems. First, Wright is a non-entity on offense that teams would give carte blanche to shoot in exchange for having an extra man to double Nowitzki, Howard, or Jason Terry; Antoine rarely made them pay.

Second, while Josh has the ability to be an exceptional player on both ends of the floor, counting on him to defend the opposing team’s top scorer while simultaneously expecting him to double as Dallas’ co-second option (along with Terry) is not only draining but extremely risky; if he endures a second consecutive injury prone season, Dallas is irrecoverably weakened on both ends of the floor.

Enter Marion. He’s an upgrade in every way over Wright, meaning that the team not only improves defensively, but also eliminates the need to play four vs. five on offense, a sacrifice they too often made in order to accommodate Wright’s defense.

Marion also makes Howard’s life a lot easier by drawing the task of covering the opposing team’s best player, which in turn eases the defensive burden on Josh and subsequently allows him to expend more energy on offense.

Finally, go back and read that list one more time. Apart from the Lakers, none of those teams has two defenders as good as Marion and Howard, and some of them don’t even have one.

Obviously, it’s a great thing for the Mavs offense, but it has even more disruptive potential on defense given the likelihood that Dallas will be one of the few teams capable of disturbing those aforementioned teams’ offensive rhythm. Come playoff time, that’s a huge, series-altering edge.

Shawn Marion will fit within the flow of the offense.

The now-exhausted tagline for those following the 2008-2009 Dallas Mavericks was “they need more firepower.” Believe me, I know. There were only three real scoring threats on last year’s team, and two of them, Howard and Terry, missed half the regular season between them.

That meant that for weeks at a time, the only way this team had a fighting chance of winning was if Dirk and Howard/Terry combined for at least fifty points. It was brutal to watch. Borderline soul crushing, even.

But did you know that despite that, the Mavs finished ninth in the league in scoring last season at 101.7 points per game? While only having three double digit scorers? What that means is as bad as things looked, the offense really isn’t that far off from resembling the elite units from the ghosts of Mavericks’ past.

It also means that the best way to maximize the offense’s potential isn’t to add another premium scoring option, because it could upset the balance of the offense by taking a chunk of shots away from Dirk, Howard, and Terry. Rather, the solution is to add a few complementary scorers, and nobody plays “complementary scorer” better than Shawn Marion.

In Phoenix, he was technically the fourth option who rarely had plays drawn up for him, yet he flirted with 20ppg in almost every season he played there by channeling the same tenacity that earned him his reputation on defense.

Using smarts, fantastic off-the-ball movement, and just plain hard work, Marion forced his way into the box score via putbacks, cuts to the basket, and the occasional three pointer. The proof is in the numbers; Marion is a career 17.8ppg scorer on 14.8 shots per game and 48.1 percent shooting. In other words, he puts the ball in the bucket at an efficient rate.

Analysts cite his decline by pointing at four consecutive years of decreased scoring, but what they omit is that Marion also posted the four lowest shot totals of his career as well during that period.

I’m not saying that he’s magically going to return to his Suns glory days overnight, but the rumors of his demise certainly appear to be over-exaggerated.

Acquiring Marion is an easy way to add offense without taking touches away from the team’s primary scoring options.

While he’s bristled in the past at being a third or fourth option, he’s also coming off back to back losing seasons and signed with Dallas after testing the free agent market for the first time in his career, meaning that he knows exactly what he’s getting into and is fine with it.

It wasn’t too long ago that Nick Van Exel and Jerry Stackhouse were also considered problem players, but both turned into veteran leaders during their tenure in a Mavs uniform; there’s no reason to think Marion won’t do the same.

Shawn Marion creates offensive versatility.

By this, I mean both in the personnel available on the floor as well as the style the team plays.

In all likelihood Marion’s arrival will shift Josh Howard to shooting guard, meaning that the Mavs’ starting lineup will be Jason Kidd-Howard-Marion-Nowitzki-Marcin Gortat with Jason Terry essentially playing starter’s minutes off the bench.

Thanks to Marion’s versatility, however, the looks that Rick Carlisle can throw at other teams are almost limitless.

They can go jumbo-sized, demonstrated by the aforementioned starting lineup that features above average to exceptional rebounders at all five positions.

They can play small and feature Marion at the four (where he made his bones in his Phoenix days), using a lineup of Kidd-Terry-Howard-Marion-Gortat.

Or they could even give Mike D’Antoni a wet dream by playing Nowitzki at center, simultaneously featuring five above average to exceptional shooters on the floor.

Simply by virtue of having Nowitzki, the Mavs were already an unconventional team that was tough to strategize against but adding Marion creates limitless offensive wrinkles to explore.

The biggest key to the 2005-2006 Finals team’s success was their versatility. Fast or slow, big or small, it didn’t matter what type of game their opponent played because the Mavs could exploit any weakness with equal effectiveness. That type of versatility has been missing since, and it’s evident in the team’s results.

Shawn Marion changes that. It’s an older squad, but teams once again are going to fear Dallas because they’ll once again be able to play any style, at any time—and win doing it.

So what does it all mean? In a nutshell, by acquiring Marion, the Dallas Mavericks just improved significantly on both ends of the floor without drastically altering their offensive structure.

Best of all, it cost them virtually nothing; Jerry Stackhouse and Devean George weren’t part of the team’s plans while the newly signed Quinton Ross replaces Antoine Wright’s contributions.

It’s too soon to pass judgment on where the Mavericks stand in the West until the offseason is over, but even just two weeks into free agency, it’s readily apparent that next year’s team is much, much improved over the 2008-2009 version—and Shawn Marion is the biggest reason for it.

Of Toolboxes, Focus, and Fed: How Roddick Redeemed Himself at Wimbledon

Mike Piellucci — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:52:42 -0400

I’d love to tell you that I woke up at 6:15 AM Pacific Standard Time, feverishly anticipating the Wimbledon Final.

I might have prepared myself a bowl of cereal and poured a tall glass of orange juice before parking myself on the couch, willing the minutes to go by faster.

I could have pontificated on Roger Federer’s legacy, wondering what kind of a match he would have had with legends such as Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, and Pete Sampras.

I would have nodded with the talking heads as they recounted how special last year’s final was, all the while wondering how a healthy Rafael Nadal would have affected Federer’s pursuit of supremacy.

But I did none of these things. Instead, I slept in, content with the knowledge that I would, in all likelihood, see the match results in box score form rather than watching them play out first hand.

I didn’t make that decision because I’d rather undergo a root canal than wake up any time in the 6:00 AM hour, although I’m only half-kidding about that. No, I didn’t watch it because I honestly didn’t feel like seeing Andy Roddick lose in straight sets.

And really, can you blame me?

Roddick entered Sunday with a career record of just 2-18 against Federer, including three losses in Grand Slam finals—the only ones Roddick has been to since his memorable 2001 US Open Title.

Those matches usually played out in the same, demoralizing fashion; Roddick pouring every bit of gasoline upon his house-on-fire serve, only to watch helplessly as Federer cleanly and efficiently ripped his heart out in any and every way imaginable.

Indeed, it wasn’t one overriding cause as much as it was an inundation of the little intricacies of Federer’s game, fitting together like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. While Roddick tried to bludgeon each opponent to death with brute strength, Federer dug into his toolbox and pulled out the specific shot he needed at that moment.

Backhand volley? Check. Drop shot at the net? Check. Winner down the line, pinpoint second serve, crosscourt forehand? Check, check, and check.

Try as Andy might, he couldn’t beat Roger Federer, because Federer, simply put, is much, much better at the sport of tennis.

So naturally, I was intrigued when I read the simple text message my buddy Matt sent me at 9:39 AM: "WAKE UP AND WATCH THE END OF WIMBLEDON."

When the TV flickered on and the numbers 10-10 stared back at me, that intrigue turned into a pleasant shock.

After watching a few points, and placing a phone call to my father (a former tennis teacher who knows more about the game than I know about anything), it became readily apparent that not only was Roddick holding his own with Fed, but he was actually giving the Swiss Maestro all he could handle.

As Roddick later pointed out, Federer was, “for the first time ever,” struggling to return Roddick’s serve.

In fact, equally important as what Roddick was accomplishing was how he was accomplishing it. As paramount as Roddick’s serve is to his identity as a player, the improvements made to the rest of his game were what got him this far.

Here was Roddick going to net, putting away a Federer drop shot.

There was Roddick flummoxing Federer with a drop shot of his own, no doubt leaving the 14 time Grand Slam Champion wondering when, exactly, Roddick started using a drop shot in the first place.

Roddick was everywhere, traversing the court with movement not seen since that US Open so many years ago.

Suddenly, Andy Roddick had a toolbox of his own. It wasn’t as diverse as Federer’s, but that’s hardly a fair comparison. At this point, we might as well start calling Fed “Black and Decker.”

Still, Roddick put on a display that few would have thought possible, finally playing balanced tennis rather than trying to blast the ball on every shot.

As Roddick’s 27th birthday approaches, one has to wonder whether we’re finally seeing him reach maturity. He’s married now, and the only headlines he’s made off the court recently were commenting about the music in his wife’s iPod, a far cry from the days where his picture would frequent the pages of tabloids newspapers.

On the court, he sucked up his pride and sucked in his gut, hiring accomplished coach Larry Stefanski and immediately obeying his request to drop 15 pounds.

Not surprisingly, that new-found focus produced results. After questioning his place in the sport just one year ago, Roddick demonstrated that he’s not only still here, but that he can hang with anyone, even against perhaps the greatest player ever.

Ultimately, Roddick couldn’t hold on at Wimbledon. But for once, a Roddick loss to Roger Federer didn’t leave us with a feeling of disappointment. Instead, it left us with hope and a promise. Andy Roddick is back to where he belongs.

Tower of Power: Breaking Down the NBA MVP Race

Mike Piellucci — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:01:30 -0400

One of the best things about the NBA is its MVP award and its permanence. Most people couldn’t tell you who the NFL MVP is more than two years after it’s been issued, and MLB’s significance is mitigated by there being an award for each league.

But the NBA’s is always hotly contested and possess additional merit; since the award was first handed out, every single NBA MVP is in the basketball Hall of Fame, the only sport with such a distinction.

The other thing that makes the award so fascinating is that there is no clear cut criteria for who ought to win, and different players have won for vastly different reasons. Thus, in order to break down who I believe should win the award, I’ve devised my own four rule criterion:

If you take the player off the team and replace them with an average player, how would the team perform? The award is Most Valuable, not Most Outstanding and this is the best test possible.

The closer to playoff time, the more important the stats. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. Unless the player’s team is the dominant team of the season, March and April games matter the most because of playoff races and positioning

Do they make the players around them better?

The player must be the best player on their own team. Often forgotten. If you aren’t the best player on your own team, there’s no way you are the most valuable player in the league.

One more thing, I don’t believe in creating arbitrary lists of contenders. So as an alternative, I’ve devised the “Tower of Power,” in which the contenders are ranked in different stratums. Not all MVP candidates are equal, and there is always a hierarchy.

2009 was one of the best races in recent memory, one in which a few performances could have won the award and several others would have been play in a different season. As such, I found 13 players that I felt bore mentioning in the discussion.

So without further ado…

Tier V: The Red Herrings (Otherwise known as “honorable mention”)

13. Chauncey Billups

Trendy consideration pick because of age old classic “the team played a lot better because he got there” defense. Which, and as Allen Iverson’s biggest fan outside of his immediate family it pains me to say this, is true. But Denver only got five more wins than last year and while that’s all well and good, they wound up as the No. 2 seed because the conference as a whole (apart from the Lakers obviously) took a dramatic step down.

He also gets a lot of consideration for Denver’s transformation from a soft, run and gun team into a gritty, defensive squad and this too is overblown.

No question that his steady presence is a big upgrade over Iverson’s free lancing into the passing lanes, but the Nuggets also made an under-the-radar acquisition getting hustle guy Renaldo Balkman, enjoyed the return of Chris Andersen (6.5 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 2.4 bpg in 20.5 mpg) and finally got a full season of health from Nene; that’s a third of a rotation right there.

So was Billups good? Absolutely. But there were much bigger factors at work, and that’s not even getting into the fact that he’s the second best player on his own team (Carmelo being the obvious first) and his numbers (17.7ppg/6.4apg) are nowhere near MVP worthy. Still, Denver’s very good and ironically enough, one Marcus Camby away from being a serious threat to the Lakers.

12. Tim Duncan

The era of him being among the elite players in the league has officially ended.

Want proof? In March, he averaged 16.5/7.5/1.4 on 45 percent shooting in 30.6 mpg. In April, it became 15.3/11.3/0.9 on 48 percent in 28.6 mpg. His career averages are 21.4/11.7/2.4 on 50 percent in 36.9 mpg.

And this isn’t a case of San Antonio resting him for a playoff stretch. Last week against Portland, in a game they HAD to win at home, he could only go for 24 minutes and put up four points and five boards on 2-for-8 shooting.

Sure, that’s one game but for arguably the most consistent player in league history, that just didn’t used to happen, especially in a game of that magnitude.

What is a more realistic gauge of what to expect of this Duncan came Wednesday against the Hornets. He put up 20/19 and carried San Antonio defensively down the stretch. But he took 11 shots to Tony Parker’s 21 (and 29 points) and in an overtime game, played 34 minutes to Parker’s 43.

In other words, he’s still capable of big performances from time to time, he’s still the face of the franchise, he’s still one of the best players in the league defensively… but it’s not his team anymore. With Duncan turning 33 in under two weeks and Ginobili falling apart, it’s very clear that San Antonio is now Parker’s team and will go as far as he’ll take them.

11. Deron Williams

He averaged 19.4 and 10.7 assists on 47 percent shooting. Not too shabby given that he was playing on a busted ankle all season, and he deserves a lot of credit for being Utah’s ballast in a year where Carlos Boozer slogged through a mere 37 games and Andrei Kirilenko had an emotional meltdown.

Regardless, Utah is a very soft No. 8 seed that can’t win on the road and despite the level of talent on the team, can be termed nothing short of a major disappointment.

Ultimately, Williams didn’t help his team overachieve but rather helped mitigate the degree of their underachievement. There’s a huge distinction between the two, and it’s the reason why he can’t be taken seriously in the MVP discussion.

Tier IV: Very, Very Good

10. Paul Pierce

Carried Boston on his back after Garnett went down for the season, to the tune of 23-6rpg-3apg for last three months of the season.

Boston’s bench, which was shaky during their title run last year, took a step back this season with virtually no reliable depth on the wing so he stepped up and played the more minutes than he had in three years while guarding the opposing team’s top perimeter scorer night after night.

The numbers aren’t as gaudy as they used to be, but he’s learned how to win and is a better player overall.

9. Yao Ming

All season long, I expected Houston melt down like they always do. First it was concerns about Ron Artest blending in as a third option...then it was Rafer Alston tearing up the locker room by calling out his own teammates...after that it was TMac settling into his all-to-predictable period of missing half the season due to injury...and finally it was who would run the point after the mercurial Alston, still the team’s starting point guard for over three years, was dealt at the trade deadline.

At one point, I was even entertaining the notion that they, not Phoenix, would be the odd team out in the West.

Except they just...kept...winning, in large part due to Yao playing in a whopping 77 games, his highest total since 2004-2005. Sad as it is to say, Houston became a much better team when McGrady went down for the year because it forced them to back to basics on offense.

Instead of trying to divide up shots between TMac, Yao, and the ball hungry Artest, the Rockets structured the offense through Yao and attacked defenses based off how they played him.

As a result, this is Houston’s best chance to get out of the first round. They’ve found an identity on offense; play tough D with three great man-up defenders in Artest, Shane Battier, and Chuck Hayes; and get solid production through the use of platoons at point guard (Kyle Lowry and Aaron Brooks) and power forward (Luis Scola and Carl Landry). But make no mistake; this team is built around Yao and is much better for it.

8. Brandon Roy

One of the useful new stats in the NBA’s information revolution is “effective age,” which averages the ages of a team’s players and weighs it against minutes played. I bring this up because Portland, at 24.7 years, is the youngest team to win 50 games since 1980, and they have Roy to thank for it.

Even crazier, Roy himself is only 24 yet here he is, leading a cadre of lottery talent whose bluest chip, Greg Oden, has barely made a blip since being hailed as the league’s next great center.

More significantly, Roy keeps improving his game; he’s raised his scoring average by three points in each of his three seasons in the league (16.8 to 19.1 to 22.6) while bumping his shooting percentage from a solid 45 percent in his first two years to an impressive 48 percent this season.

He’s one of the best passing off guards in the game and has shot himself into another stratosphere of crunch time scorers, the rarest of players who can drag his team to victory by sheer force of will. How he handles his first playoffs against the aforementioned Rockets will be among the most intriguing Round One plotlines.

7. Tony Parker

It’s scary to think of where the Spurs would be if Parker hadn’t made the leap to alpha dog status this season. He averaged 22ppg/6.9apg on an absurd 50 percent shooting for the season, which would be been impressive enough had he not gone absolutely incendiary at the down the stretch.

In March and April, when Duncan’s decline became most evident, Parker picked up the slack by averaging 24.7/7.3 on a mind-blowing 54.9 percent (!!!!!) shooting.

If that wasn’t enough, he also finished third in clutch shooting percentage.

It is no exaggeration to say that Parker might be the most deadly scoring point guard since Isiah Thomas. He doesn’t shoot the three but he’s almost automatic inside twenty feet between his ever improving jumper, sneaky effective floater, and famous, lighting quick drives towards the rim.

It’s worth repeating here that he’s shooting at a clip that rivals the league’s best interior players, only he’s taking some of the toughest shots in the league.

As I wrote earlier, this is his team now and at 26, he’s just entering his prime. He’s not the all around threat that his position-mates Chris Paul or Deron Williams are, but nobody puts it in the hoop like Parker.

Tier III: In A Different Year…

6. Dirk Nowitzki

Absolutely the most underrated great season in the league from the guy who may now be its most underrated great player. Consider the following:

*He closed out the season by scoring at least 20 points in 25 straight games. That’s the longest such streak in the NBA this season.

*In those 25 games, the Mavs went 16-9 with wins over Phoenix (twice), at Portland, New Orleans, Utah, San Antonio, and Houston. In those particular games, Dirk averaged 28.7/9.6 on 56.1 percent shooting.

*In the process, they went from treading water as the eighth seed all the way up to sixth including an April of winning six out of their last eight in a gauntlet where the margin for error was razor thin. During that stretch, he averaged 30.3/8.8 on 55.1 percent shooting.

That, folks, is called stepping up down the stretch. His effort throughout the season is no less impressive. He finished fourth in the league in scoring with 25.9 ppg on 47.9 percent shooting, and did so while expanding his offensive repertoire to include what he describes as “the goofy one footed Euro fadeway,” a shot that looks horrendous but is impossible to stop.

All of this occurred with Josh Howard missing 30 games and Jason Terry missing most of February. In a season where the Mavs suffered through their worst bench play in years, Dirk went through half the season without one of the only other two competent scorers on the team and with the pressure of having to score at least 25 just to keep the team in contention to win; like usual, he came through.

Overall, a rebound to his MVP form and one of the best seasons in his stellar career. Even with Terry putting up his best season ever, Dallas would be helpless without Dirk and in a different season, this effort might have been enough to give him serious consideration for his second MVP award.

5. Dwight Howard

There are five players operating on a different level than everyone else in the league right now. Not-so-coincidentally, they comprise the top five on this list and also not-so-coincidentally, Howard ranks fifth among them.

He hasn’t quite captured the consistency of the other four and his relative mediocrity in April both on an individual level (16.4/12.5/2.6 bpg and 50.5 percent shooting compared to his season line of 20.6/13.8/2.9 and 57.2 percent) and in his team’s play as they battled for home court advantage (4-5 with losses to the Knicks, Raptors, and Nets) cost him points

Still, the backbone of Orlando’s rise as an elite team (defense and perimeter shooting) is predicated on Howard’s strengths. His 2.9 blocks per game were a league best and that doesn’t take into account the endless number of shots he altered or deterred entirely; simply put, he’s the most feared defensive force in the game right now.

He’s equally pivotal to Orlando’s offensive efforts. He dunks on anyone he wants to in a manner reminiscent of Shaq in his prime and also like Shaq, creates innumerable shot opportunities for other players to knock down.

It’s very telling that they can keep chugging along after replacing Jameer Nelson - the front runner for the league’s most improved player award, an All Star, and on his way to having one of the best true shooting percentages in the league - with Houston outcast Alston and not skip a beat.

If he develops any semblance of an offensive game more than five feet away from the rim and starts hitting his free throw, the rest of the league might as well give up trying to stop him

Tier II: The Kobe Zone

4. Kobe Bryant

The reigning MVP put together an extremely impressive title defense with his usual stellar numbers but Kobe’s case is built off team success.

That this Lakers squad won 65 games with dramatically worse bench play (Trevor Ariza excepted), a glaring lack of consistent play at point guard, and missing Andrew Bynum for an extended period is a testament to how good Bryant and Pau Gasol were.

Most importantly, the Lakers became the team that nobody wanted to play and for good reason; they were so good that they lost only two series all season.

Kobe gets his own stratum because as good as Dirk and Howard were, he was better. But this year, we have been treated to three transcendent seasons, three great efforts that have forced their way into the annals of the all-time great performances. Kobe’s numbers aren’t quite at that level, and he had a much better supporting cast than the top three.

Tier I: Transcendent Seasons

3. Dwyane Wade

Good God was his team terrible. The gap between Wade and the Heat’s second leading scorer Michael Beasley was 16.3 ppg – which is three points more than Beasley’s season average of 13.9 ppg, and easily one of the biggest margins in history.

They’ve coaxed 30 mpg out of Jermaine O’Neal’s corpse, 16.1 mpg out of somebody named Joel Anthony, 15.8 mpg out of the one-dimensional James Jones, and their point guard tandem is two players who each ought to be part timers (Mario Chalmers and Chris Quinn).

Somehow that made the playoffs. Nobody has done more for a putrid team since Iverson in the latter stages of his Philly career; without Wade, this mess would be lucky to win 10 games.

And the numbers...wow. A league leading 30.2ppg to go with 7.5apg, 2.19 steals per game (good for second in the league), and the shortest player ever to swat 100 shots in a season.

He shot 49 percent on the season, which is fantastic enough in a vacuum but given that he was double- and sometime triple-teamed with nothing close to a second option, it’s surreal.

He had a two month stretch where he averaged roughly 34/8/5 on 51 percent shooting, including nine games at the beginning of March in which the Heat went 7-2 and Wade threw down 40+ in five of them.

The fact that he’s third on this list shows how special of a year this truly has been. Nobody would be disappointed if he won the MVP; he’s certainly put in a Herculean effort and going off my first criterion alone, he’s the runaway winner. But somehow, two guys were even better…

2. Chris Paul

At the rate he’s going, he may threaten Magic Johnson’s status as the greatest point guard ever. Yes, really. He’s only player in league history to finish top 10 in points, steals, and assists, and did it while shooting 50 percent and with an 11 to 3 turnover ratio.

On a New Orleans team that can only manage 95.81 ppg (26th in league), Paul accounts for roughly half of that between his 22.8 ppg and 11 apg; in other words, they are helpless without him.

Even though his team slipped to the seventh seed with a 3-6 April, you can’t blame Paul for his teammates’ failures. His April numbers were better than his season averages virtually across the board as he exploded for 28.3/11.7/2.4 on 53 percent shooting, while playing 41 minutes a night.

What separates Paul from Wade is that he makes his teammates better while Wade showcased his brilliance almost in spite of his.

Paul’s supporting cast is a bit better but it’s no coincidence that David West’s scoring average has risen every season since Paul has been in the league; it’s because every game, Paul draws defenders away leaving West open for at least a few uncontested jumpers.

Similarly, it’s not happenstance that Rasual Butler went from the Miami scrap heap to starter/crunch time shooter, or that Tyson Chandler and Julian Wright get a few easy buckets per game by throwing down CP3’s lobs.

The truly great players elevate everyone else’s game even as they elevate their own, and Paul exemplifies that better than anyone. Oh, and he’s only 23.

1. LeBron James

The MVP by virtually every possible measure.

Numbers wise, he became the first top three scorer in history to finish top in the top 25 in all five major average categories (scoring, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks) highlighted by season averages of 28.2/7.6rpg/7.2apg.

He would go off on super-nova level explosions, such as a four game swing in mid-March during which he followed up three consecutive triple doubles with a 51 point night…and yes, the Cavs won all of those.

Speaking of winning, he led a relatively average Cavs squad to 66 wins and probably would have tied the home wins record if Mike Brown didn’t opt to sit his players on the last night of the season.

He did it while making his teammates better in the process; Mo Williams went from a good point guard who shot too much to an All-Star, Delonte West from a 10th man carving out a career as a trade throw-in to a starter who keeps the backcourt together, and Wally Szczerbiak played his best ball in years.

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about his transformation on the defensive end. Simply by virtue of deciding to put in a consistent effort, LeBron went from a below-average defender into one of the best in the league, able to guard four positions man-up and play tremendous help defense as well.

He always seems to make one hellacious, game altering block per night out of nowhere, and his steals average is impressive as well. He’ll probably get some Defensive POY awards and he deserves them; he’s the rare combination of a lockdown on-ball defender who both denies possessions as well as forces turnovers.

Overall, it’s the most convincing MVP performance since Iverson in 2001 and the most dominant one since Shaq in 2000, if not the Jordan era. Simply incredible, and he’s only beginning to truly scratch the surface of how good he can be.

Under the Lights and Under Scrutiny: The Terrelle Pryor Saga

Mike Piellucci — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:16:33 -0500

This is a story about the dark side of recruiting, a story about an 18-year-old kid making the biggest decision of his life, only it doesn’t really seem like it’s his decision anymore.

This is a story about four universities wooing that young player, each trying to lure him to their respective campus. Millions of people across the country differ in their opinions of this player’s situation, though most have never met him. This is the story of Terrelle Pryor.

To say that there aren’t many athletes possessing Pryor’s natural gifts is an understatement.

He is a top-30 caliber player nationally in both football and basketball, and can race down both surfaces with a 4.4 second 40-yard dash. Football coaches have projected him at any number of positions, from wide receiver to offensive tight end to virtually every skill position on defense.

The Jeannette, PA native’s skill set is so rare that it is debated whether he would be better suited to play safety, given his ability to cover so much ground, or defensive end, given his huge frame. Pryor decided long ago, however, that he would play quarterback in college, leading to a feeding frenzy among programs likening him to Vince Young.

Now, over a year since he was named Rivals.com National Junior of the Year and a week since National Signing Day, Pryor remains unsigned, still deciding between four of those teams: Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, and Oregon.

While he has until early April to make a final decision, the spotlight intensifies with each passing day, and what was once The Terrelle Pryor recruitment is now The Terrelle Pryor Saga. He is now portrayed as a prima donna, just another punk kid soaking up way more than his allotted 15 minutes and milking the limelight for all it’s worth.

Of course, the naysayers don’t actually know Terrelle Pryor. Most don’t realize that the decision making process is complicated for this recruit as he, unlike most prospects, has not had the time to make his five allotted official visits. The day after he took his high school football team to a state title, he jumped right into basketball season.

It seems no one understands the pressure he is under.

As the last fish left in the 2008 recruiting class pond, Pryor is bombarded ever more heavily with pitches.

Jim Tressel and Rich Rodriguez are stalking him at basketball games and Joe Paterno’s Penn State staff has virtually set up shop in his living room. The young player has literally nowhere to run and only constant attention to face.

Making matters worse for Terrelle Pryor is, well, Terrelle Pryor. As his high school coach, Ray Reitz, said, “Terrelle could run for governor…he doesn’t like to tell people ‘No.’”

Indeed, how could he? With four great schools offering him the chance of a lifetime and investing a year of effort convincing him to choose their outfit, it isn’t exactly easy for a kid three months shy of his high school diploma to tell all but one of them, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Bu if Terrelle Pryor is having trouble making a decision, it seems there are millions of people who’d love to make it for him. Peruse any internet message board and you’ll find posts by the hundred all about where he should go and why.

Worse yet, these pale in comparison to the posts that argue where he shouldn’t go, or the posts accusing him of accepting gifts from someone’s program. Already Michigan fans have accused Ohio State of paying for Pryor’s signature via local businessman Ted Sarniak.

And even Pryor’s father has made no secret about where his loyalties lie; Craig Pryor wants his son to go to Penn State.

Suddenly, the ball seems not lie in the quarterback’s hands after all. Pryor has admitted that he will be visiting Happy Valley mostly to appease his father.

While it’s Terrelle Pryor who’ll be stepping foot on a college campus next year, there is no shortage of expectations that will accompany him on the journey.

Want to know the truth? In all likelihood, Terrelle doesn’t even know for sure where he’d like to sign, or when he’ll make the final decision. But that hasn’t stopped a whole nation from guessing, from badgering, cajoling, conjecturing, from interfering in any number of ways.

Although Pryor’s decision to continue his recruitment is unusual, this story is not. Every year college football fans spend an inordinate amount of time trying to persuade high school kids where they should spend the next four years of their lives, where they should get their educations, where they should call their homes.

The entire process is a monster of our own creation.

As USC mega-freshman Joe McKnight lamented while to trying to make his college choice, “These people have no right to tell me where to go.”

But that hasn’t stopped them from trying.

So the next time you hear Terrelle Pryor’s name, try to refrain from judgment. Let him take his time and let him make his own decision. Most importantly, let him make the decision with his own interests at heart.

This won’t be the last kid to undergo the excruciating process of recruitment, but that doesn’t mean a nation of strangers should be allowed to influence the most important choice of his life.

This is Terrelle Pryor’s story; let him write it.