Tuesday Morning Thoughts

Recognize this man? Me neither, he's Frank Omiyale the Bears' big free agent acquisition.

A hint of Luol (I broke my wrist) Deng, a touch of Frank Omiyale, a thought on Kerr and Norm and a tidbit on Buicks.

1. Luol Deng is made of plastic. For a soft player, he sure gets injured a lot. First it was the wrist (honestly, why does he have so many wrist injuries?) and now the pretend tibia stress fracture. Deng needs to grow some muscles. It’s been about five or six years since your days at Duke. How about getting stronger?

2. Speaking of Deng, Notqualified to Comment wrote an interesting article comparing Salmons with Luol Deng. I am not sold on Salmons as he appears to just be a poor man’s Luol Deng. But at least he is cheaper then Deng.

3. Bears big free agent acquisition? Frank Omiyale. Never heard of him and will be surprised if I ever hear his name in any Bears’ telecast.

4. Interestingly, his name is Frank Omiyale, two names that don’t seem to mesh together. Sort of like hi may name is Chris Abdulrahim. Or hi, my name is Tom Wang. Or hello, I’m Su’Chin Goldstein.

5. When does March Madness start? Oh yeah, sometime in March. Funny, it still feels like December outside.

6. Is it me, or does college basketball kind of suck. Don’t get me wrong, I still love March Madness. And I will occasionally watch a Duke/NC game. When IU was good, (a rarity), I watched almost every one of their games. But, other than that, it’s a stagnant game; a lot of defense, poor offense and a mountain of three point shots. It’s also more like rugby than basketball. Although, the Bulls could probably take some notes.

7. In all of these Norm Van Lier and Red Kerr articles I have been reading, they all try to subtly mention Norm and Kerr’s unfavorable characteristics (Evidently Kerr liked to drink and Norm struggled with pain killers). I never quite understood writers needing to broadcast the negatives of a person when they died. Why can’t you just write the story about all their positives? Is this really a time when you need to be fair and biased with your reporting? Funny, you never mentioned Kerr’s drinking habits while he was alive. What? Now that they have passed away, it’s a great time to dish out the truth?

When someone close to you dies, it seems kind of odd to discuss their bad characteristics. You also see a lot of this in Hollywood. Hollywood is obsessed with showing the bad side of famous people in their movies. Have you ever seen the Ali movie with Will Smith? They make Ali to be a morally corrupt person. Same with that Ray Charles movie. I always wondered what Ali thought about his movie after watching it. I assumed it was something like… “Thanks assholes for dragging my name in the mud. Brilliant. Did you notice that I was the best boxer ever? Ever thought about showing that in your stupid f’n movie? No… I’m just Muhammad Ali, the womanizer.”

8. Anyway, it was nice to see the Bulls tribute to Kerr and Norm during Friday night’s Houston game. They were icons in Chicago and symbolized Bulls basketball. It was also great to see the Bulls come from behind and win that game. We should applaud Del Negro for allowing Rose to play in the 4th quarter.

9. For no rational reason, I really want the Olympics to come to Chicago. I’d love to see the 100 yard dash in person. Wouldn’t it be great to see handball or water polo? I’d love watching all those crazy sports live. Table Tennis anyone?

10. So when will this recession that looks more and more of a depression end? When prominent economists don’t have an answer to this question, I get really, really afraid. On the other hand, maybe this isn’t such a big deal. Maybe we are all being a little too dramatic. Maybe we should just accept the facts instead of going into a Kate Winslet acceptance speech. Sure in the short-term it looks terrible, with everyone knowing at least one person who has lost a job. But, maybe the U.S. needed this? Of course need is a strong word, especially when many hard working people’s jobs are being affected. But, maybe we should suffer for all those high interest loans to unqualified people? Maybe the financial industry should be hurting for all those years of profits grown on the backs of hard working Americans. Maybe we should be punished for our gluttony of everything big- from large houses, value meals, to Hummer vehicles. Maybe we need to bring our troops back home. Maybe we don’t need Buicks anymore, or for that matter Chryslers. Maybe we need to invest in technology and ideas that can spur real growth in green sectors like wind and solar energy or the Chevy Volt. Maybe, just maybe it’s a good thing for us to reinvent ourselves a little bit. Maybe… I hope.

Even more random.

11. Peter King used approximately 3 of his 4 pages in his MMQB on the Patriots deal of Matt Cassel and Baltimore deal of Bart Scott. Somehow I doubt he would ever dedicate this much time to a Bears free agent acquisition. I did appreciate the Bart Scott story though.

12. Kirk Hinrich is terrible. He is the Keanu Reaves of basketball; shows flashes of brilliance (Matrix anyone?) but in the end is a range-less actor. Kirk makes you want to believe that his presence on the court translates to wins, despite his mediocre statistics. An impoverished Scottie Pippen if you will. But as much as I try to fit him in this underrated category, he is not. All he does is dribble. He doesn’t create any offense and can’t hit an open shot to save his life. Sure every 6th game he’ll score points, but it’s the 5 games in between that leave you scratching your head. Worse any above average guard in the league can beat him on the offensive end (or at least get him to make all those ticky-tack fouls). I am officially over Kirk Hinrich. It’s too bad the twins; Paxson and Del Negro see so much of themselves in him.

13. So when does baseball get back on the A-Rod train. If he starts hitting home runs, most people will probably forget.

14. It’s got to be nice being a baseball player sometimes. Your training camp takes you to a warm place for a month or two. It’s like you’re on vacation, but also working at the same time.