Pienette Pierson: No One Likes You

So the WNBA finally announced the punishments for the fight. Pienette Pierson got the harshest penalty, a 4 game suspension and a $1,500 fine, which is a lot considering ALL 1st round picks get less than $50,000 a year, most less than $40,000. Candace Parker ONLY GOT A ONE GAME SUSPENSION. I don’t see how Candace got a punishment different than Pierson, but the WNBA knows what’s best for them. They can’t have their most likable player not playing for an extended period of time.

Other hilarity, 3′6″ Shannon Bobbitt was suspended two games for coming off the bench. Yup, she was suspended for more games than Candace WHO TACKLED AND PUNCHED A GIRL. Bobbitt didn’t do much of anything. Rich Mahorn was suspended for two games, which is ridiculous because he was only being a “peacemaker.” Lisa Leslie fell and yelled at Mahorn for pushing her, even though the replays show he clearly didn’t. I have less respect for Lisa Leslie now (which is kind of impossible, like dividing by zero) than I ever have because she let this guy get thrown under the bus.

If I was Candace after this incident I would incite other players all the time. I would yell at the refs, “You can’t touch me!” and commit tons of flagrant fouls. She can do pretty much whatever she wants. I’m surprised she ever gets fouls called on her.

How bout a new slogan for the WNBA after this incident. They seem to hate the fight even though it’s seemingly given them more attention than ever.

The WNBA: We’ll Never Brawl Again!

Maybe them claiming to hate brawls would actually mean that they like them, like how their commercials now are about how sucky the WNBA is. The WNBA loves reverse psychology, like when they talk about their players being better at fundamentals. You can’t fool me, WNBA!

o shit! O Shit! (hand over mouth) O SHITTT!!!!

WNBA FIGHT!!!!!

props to yahoo, the AP, and Jerry S. Mendoza for this pic (and Candace too, for making this pic actually happen)

No highlights available yet, but we certainly will update when they are made available. The Sparks and Shock got into an intense girl fight today. So intense that MALE Rich Mahorn got involved and stumbled into 9′12″ Lisa Leslie, knocking her to the ground. O SHITTT! Craziness. Insanity. Crinsanity.

An unidentified Spark later punched Mahorn, and he didn’t notice.

The best part was when Pienette Pierson walked up to Candace Parker trying to intimidate Parker, and before Pierson could even say anything, Candace tackled her to the ground. Candace, as always, respect (pounds chest).

Postscript: Pienette Pierson, how does it feel to have EVERYONE against you?

Edit: Here’s the best highlight I can get for now.

Edit to end all edits: They say the players might be fined, normally no one would care, but it’s the WNBA.  Fines matter.  Candace will be ok, she’s got sponsership deals.  Pierson… not so much.

All of a sudden Eli Manning is indispensible?

I fully expect the media to show lots of love to the defending Super Bowl champs, whoever they may be on any given year. But I think it’s time to chill out a little bit on crowning Eli Manning as such a great QB. Whether it be madden ratings or this “indispensible players” article, it’s well out of hand. We’re talking about a guy who’s regular-season QB rating last year was 73.9 and has never had a season-long rating higher than 77.0.

But, of course, everyone will point to his amazing playoff performance where he had a 95.7 QB rating. However, if you look into the stats, it seems that he plays worse when the Giants depend on him more. Take his 4 playoff games:

Game	Attempts	QB Rating
Divisional	18	132.4
Wild Card	27	117.1
Super Bowl	34	87.3
Conference	40	72.0

His rating drops alarmingly quickly when he attempts more passes. If he truly were “indispensable”, I would expect that his rating would at least be close when he has to take the team on his shoulders. It’s great that he had a rating of 132.4 against Dallas, but are you going to tell me that a guy who only completed 12 passes in that game was indispensable to the team? Certainly being a great football player is about more than just stats and a QB rating, but it seems to me that his new reputation is living too much on one timely (clutch?) drive in the Super Bowl than on actual evidence.

If we want to talk “indispensable”, we should be talking Michael Strahan. In 2006 the Giants went 6-3 in games where he played, and 2-5 in games that he didn’t (I feel like everybody knows that stat already). Justin Tuck is a great player, but he isn’t going to fill the huge void left by arguably the best defensive end in the game. Looks like it’s time for Eli Manning to step up for real.

Final thing - I can’t write an Eli post without including this unforgettable picture from a few years ago. Yep, good luck Giants.

I don’t want to mention any names…

but this post might strike one of our contributors the wrong way.

ESPN has released some sort of list ranking the top college hoops programs since 1984. Their “formula” (I love when these ranking systems create some sort of arbitrary scoring system, and then justify the legitimacy of their rankings by pointing to these scientific scores) can be found here. They even say, “But with ESPN’s Prestige Rankings, there is no such argument. We let the numbers do the talking.” Sure thing.

But here’s what really caught my eye: Plenty of big names turned up small.

Regardless of the hmm..factual basis for these rankings, Providence ranked a paltry 111. Yes, the Providence that contributed L.O. and Shammgod.

In other basketball news, the Redeem Team opens with an exhibition game this Friday at 8 PM against Canada. Dwight Howard’s been cleared to play, although it’ll be interesting to see how the team’s supposed lack of size will hinder them. I don’t really buy that argument too much - feeding the ball to Tim Duncan, probably one of the greatest big men of all time, didn’t save us last year. I like our chances with a smaller, faster line up. And I’m not really sure how much “smaller” our line-up would be if Lebron James (6′9ish, 250ish) was our 4. U-S-A!

I can’t believe I forgot about this

July 1 2008 was the four year anniversary of the greatest fielding play ever.

Derek Jeter- "If he only had some range"

I forgot to do anything about it, so next time I play a game of basketball (I don’t play baseball much) I vow to catch the first pass someone throws to me, run out of bounds and dive into the closest spectator, all in the honor of Derek “the winner” Jeter. Then people will say I made a great catch and they won’t care that I could’ve caught the ball normally if I had any defensive/catching skills at all. If I had the range of a 10th grade jv player I could’ve made that catch with enough time to be running the other way.

Then after that, I will flip the ball underhand (I laughed very hard at the title on that page, also I still am not sure he’s actually out, but whatever, back to this sentence…) to a teammate who will make a nice shot and people will say I was awesome because of my great flipping skills even though I may not have had to touch the ball at all, I just wanted to pick up an assist. Even if I did have to touch it, anyone who was backing up the play properly could have done it just as well, probably wouldn’t have had to come flying in, but hey, right place right time, it makes my sport IQ that much higher, that’s why I’m a winner and won 4 world series. Um, I mean that’s why I win basketball games.

This is confusing. Forget I said anything.

I wanted to put this as a tag, but it was too long so ill put it here: Derek Jeter is great at defense- except that he has no range and makes a decent amount of errors- but he has mad gold gloves and those are always handed out to the most deserving people like Rafael Palmeiro so I guess he actually IS good. Derek Jeter is baseball’s Forest Gump, he just happened to be there.

Olympic heart

So whenever I see an olympic athlete interviewed, they are always asked something like, “what separates you from everyone else?”

And they ALWAYS answer with something like, “I think my heart.  I just want it.  I’ve always wanted to be the best.  My friend David, he’s 3′ 4″ and wins every limbo contest by just walking normal, but he hasn’t let that or his limpid, melanin free skin stop him from trying at other sports too.”

It’s pretty annoying.  The only reason I’m not playing on the US basketball team is because of my heart.  I have heart problems.  It runs in my family.  My cholesterol is like crazy.  It’s so crazy, I didn’t even get to grow up to be 6′6″, black, ridiculously athletic, and good at jump shots.

Oh well.  I’ll still watch.

WNBA: I just can’t stay away

This is going on right now. I would totally go to this game if I were in the vicinity. One problem tho, why can’t they play on the blacktop? Ya know, where real legends are born. Bassy, Rafer, Khalid, Kemba, (fake) Jesus, and (shamm) God.

Pretty good wordplay yeah? Aight, I guess not. Whatever.

Fine, I’ll Post Something

We may be the only four people in the world who care about the olympics. Case number 1: Chinese bars are being ORDERED not to serve black people. They’re being ordered by “UNIFORMED PUBLIC SECURITY BUREAU officers.” This is insane, are Chinese people really this racist? Dwight Howard can’t get a beer if he wants to?

Wow.

It’s like that old racist joke. Black guy walks into a Chinese bar and orders a beer. The Chinese bartender says, “no.”

/end joke

Milt’s Miracle

All this talk of Palacio (even though I brought him up) got me thinking.  Why isn’t this on youtube yet???  Please someone.  Someone must have the footage somewhere.

What ever happened to: Ricky Price

Ricky Price. What the hell ever happened to this guy? If you don’t know who this is, no one would blame you. He’s a former McDonalds all-american who went to Duke. I only know who he is because he is featured prominently in the Capel shot game, which is played over and over again on ESPN classic. So where did he go? All Dukeupdate.com has is this.

It took me ten minutes and mad google searches to come up with what I have, which isn’t much. Apparently Price was drafted by the Yakima Sun Kings of the CBA but didn’t go there right away. After stints in a French League (this is all I could find from that, search for Price’s name, hope you can read French), Great Lakes Storm or maybe Barangay Ginebra according to this, he finally made it to the Sun Kings.

In 2004 the Sun Kings put Price on injured reserve. He apparently then left to go to the Kouvolan Kouvot. Then he went to the Rochester Razorsharks (they call him a Duke “standout”, iffy). Interestingly, the Razorsharks had former Duke player Chris Carrawell who left just before they got Price. Price is no longer on the team roster for the razorsharks. Where the hell is he? The most I can find is that he coached at that Duke camp. This story is only about a month old, so at least he’s still alive. Also, apparently he coached the K Academy National Champ! Did anyone bother to ask him what he’s up to? Anyone?

Then there is this mystery si.com page. Were the Pistons considering signing Price? Are the Pistons CURRENTLY considering signing Price? I have no idea.

I was gettin pretty frustrated… and then I found this. Scroll down to the bottom. Is that him? Could be. I kinda wanna contact him. (The more I see pictures of Price, the more certain I am that this is him. This place is in Charlotte NC. I got mad investigatory skillz)

Needless to say, he hasn’t been up to much. Too bad. I’m sure he was screaming just like Dick Vitale at the end of that game in 1995. “I wanna stay here all night! I wanna stay all night! I don’t wanna leave with these Cameron Crazies!”