Nobody keeps Baby off the Brazilian National Team

Nene (aka the largest man in the world whose name means "baby" Portuguese) is back playing for Brazil. He announced today that despite the fact that the national team still owes him money, for the first time in four years he will be playing ball for Brazil this summer in the FIBA America's Olympic qualifying tournament. The Brazilian's will have a pretty nice little team for the tournament. They'll have Nene, Anderson Varajoa, Tiago Splitter (a projected 1st rounder) down on the block, and Leandro Barbosa running wild at the point. Unfortunately, only two teams from the America's automatically qualify, and with the US and Argentina both in the tournament I'm pretty sure the rest of the teams will be competing to get into the World Olympic Qualifying Tournament next year (I think the 3-5 place teams get in that). That means they have to take down the Puerto Rican Kobe Bryant (Carlos Arroyo) and the rest of his team of Puerto Ricans from NY, and Team Canada led by Todd MacCulloch. No word as to whether Rick Fox and Steve Nash will participate. Come on Foxy! Do it for Canada, eh! I think that Nene playing this tournament is actually great news for the Nuggets. My hope is, that for the first time since joining the NBA, he won't spend the entire off-season sitting on his ass in Brazil, eating currasco and banging hot Brazilian chicks. Which means that maybe, just maybe, he might show up to training camp in shape. Then hopefully we can see an entire season out of Nene looking like the Nene we saw the in final 6 weeks of last season. Admittedly, it's hard to be mad at Nene for wanting to spend his summer getting with hot Brazilian poon, I'm pretty sure I'd do the same thing if I was given that option every summer, but it would be nice to see in in playing shape at the start of the season. In other Nuggets news, we have been working out college players despite the fact that we don't have a draft pick this year. I doubt that we are looking to trade for a pick though, since the majority of the people we are looking at are not projected to be drafted at all. Two interesting names at the workout were Lee Humphrey from Florida, and DJ Strawberry from Maryland. Humphrey hit 46% from 3 last season and showed unlimited range. Since we have been desperate for an outside shooting threat for the past three years, I wouldn't mind having a guy like this on the squad. Plus he's a winner, hit some clutch shots for Florida, and doesn't seem to be anywhere near as annoying as Joakim Noah (and only slightly less ugly). I doubt he could stop me from getting to the basket on defense though, but that's what Marcus Camby is for. I could see him being a poor man's John Paxson or Fred Hoiberg or something like that. Not a bad minimum wage pickup. As for Strawberry, he's basically the polar opposite of Humphrey. He was one of the best defenders at the guard position in the NCAA last year. He's athletic, really gets after it on defense and can get to the hole on offense. His problem is that he shoots like Yakhouba Diawara. Although unlike Diawara, it sounds like DJ's "stopper" label is actually warranted. If I had to choose between Yakhouba and DJ Strawberry, I'm taking Strawberry all day. I'd have to say that between signing Humphrey or Strawberry, I'd go with Humphrey. Although he's undersized for a 2 guard in the NBA, he can shoot. And we don't have anyone who can do that right now outside of JR Smith, and who knows what's going to happen with him. If the Nuggets don't make a move before the draft (and it doesn't sound like they will right now) then it is going to be a quiet day. Hopefully we can find ourselves a cheap shooting threat who will be able to open up the floor some next season. If you're reading this Stan Kroenke, I'll play for half of whatever Humphrey is asking.

Catching up on CU recruiting

Well it's been a while. But that's what happens when former teammates come to visit. And when it's someone of Charlie Melvin's stature and notoriety, all you can do is take a few days off work, let your family know that you love them, tell your liver to suck it up, and let loose. We probably could have greatly helped out the Commish over at Slushy Gutter with his summer drinking quest. But we don't know him, and stayed on the south side of Denver the whole time. Sorry Commish. So I was out of contact with the sports world for several days and here's what I missed: - The final Finals game was boring. A french dude won MVP. What has happened to the NBA when a foreigner wins MVP of the regular season, and a different foreigner wins Finals MVP? What is going on with American hoops? (I'm looking at you HS basketball coaches.) Is it too much to ask to teach the kids how to shoot a jump shot, correctly feed the post with a hook pass, or to get into triple threat position? Oh well. At least our guys can dunk better than theirs. - The Rockies had another 4 game winning streak and even took the series on the road against the Red Sox. I'm telling you, we are going to be good enough to barely almost get in the playoffs this year! (I'm going to be the last one back on the Rockies bandwagon this season. I've just been let down too many times to completely believe. I love them, but sometimes I hate that I love them.) - A dude from Argentina won the US Open. This seems physically impossible to me as I had always believed the contact between club and ball would automatically cause all Argentinians to flop. Okay, so here's the main reason for my post. After perusing through the last few days of the CU recruiting message boards, it seems that recruit interest in CU is nearing an all-time low. In fact, one of our WR verbal commits (Chance Blackmon) de-committed last week, only to be begged back into a soft verbal. The problem was that after committing to us some bigger schools like Tennessee and Texas A&M developed interest and were able to talk him out of CU. How could they do that you ask? It's simple. They tell him that CU sucks. This is the problem we are going to have with recruits until next season starts. The damage done by last year's 2-10 debacle of a season goes beyond our embarrassment as fans. Coach Hawk can do an amazing job of selling recruits on the fact that we are building towards something special, that these kids can be a part of bringing CU back to national prominence, that they will play early and often and be a big factor in the process. It's all true. But then the next team can simply say "Why would you go to CU? They're terrible. Did you know that they were 2-10 last year and lost to a 1AA school?" And it works. How do you counter this? Hawk needs to land one huge recruit this off-season and that tactic will topple. Landing someone like Jon Major (who has CU in his top 10 list now, he is in the process of narrowing down his top 20) would help. Or even better would be Darrell Scott (#2 overall player in the nation according to Rivals, #1 RB) or Julio Jones (#3 overall player and #1 WR). Both are considering CU along with the top programs in the nation. By landing one of these three, other top players will look at CU with a more open mind. They would start thinking "If someone like Darrell Scott chose CU over Florida, USC and Texas than maybe I should consider them." It will only take one. If Hawk can't pull that off in the off-season, than the start of next season will be absolutely crucial. We can't afford another down season. We HAVE to beat CSU. Beating ASU on the road would be huge. Pulling off the home win against Florida State on national TV would be absolutely enormous. Win 2 out of those 3, and being competitive in all of them, will be a lot of ammo to use against opposing recruiters who will tell kids to look at last year's record. Personally, I'm a believer. We have interest from 10 players on Rivals top 100. We have a good '07 recruiting class and a year in Hawk's system. (By the way, have you heard how big Ryan Miller is now? He's up to 320 lbs and is about to grow out of his size 18 shoes! That man is going to be an animal for us for the next few years, so enjoy him!) Hawk is determined to rebuild our program. And as hard as it is for me to say this following last year's 2-10 disaster season, I'm extremely excited for football season to start. September 1st against CSU is going to tell us a lot about where our program is going. Now if I could just find something to do for the next 6 weeks to keep me entertained. **Update - Chance Blackmon has officially de-committed from the Buffs, citing distance from home as his reason. Whatever. Good riddance kid.

NBA Finals Preview - A Letter to Spurs Fans

Dear Spurs Fans, First of all congratulations on reaching the NBA Finals again! It must be really exciting to be a fan of such a great team. Tonight, as you inevitably work your way towards your 4th title in 8 years, I want you to tell you two things: 1.) Your team is one of the greatest basketball teams of all-time, and... 2.) Everyone else in the nation hates them. I know what you're thinking. "No they don't! They play team basketball, the way it was meant to be played!" And you are right about that. They play together, they play unselfishly, they play great defense.... and everyone else hates them. I know you don't want to believe me. You think I am just a bitter fan of a team vanquished by your mighty Spurs. You know what? You're right about that also. The Spurs systematically destroyed my beloved Nuggets in five games in the first round. It was close in a few games, buy your Spurs were easily the superior team. I can admit that. But you know what? It's not just me. Everyone else in the nation still hates them too. "How can this be?" You are thinking to yourselves right now. "We aren't as boring as everyone says we are. We actually play an exciting style of basketball. We can play at a fast pace or slow it down, we have the ability to make dazzling passes and impossible drives to the basket. We even dunk every once in a while!" These are all excellent and valid points Spurs Fans..... but everyone else still hates your team. Do you want to know why everyone hates your team? It's because they have become the Yankees of basketball. A team on the level of the "Bad Boy" Pistons teams, the post World Series win Red Sox, the 49ers of the late 80's and the Dallas Cowboys of the early 90's.... even Duke basketball. I'm sorry. I know that last one hurt, but you need to hear this. This is what your team has become. I know this is painful for you to hear. Because unlike the fans of those teams, you don't yet realize that you are one of the hated. You defiantly believe that others should love your Spurs. And maybe they should.... but they don't. They hate them. You might be asking yourselves right now, "How could it have come to this? How did we get here?" Well, it was a long process. It has been brewing for years. If you'll remember people have always been turned off by them. The Finals series against the Nets was the least viewed of all time. In fact, their 3 Finals appearances are all in the lowest 5 rated Finals ever. You see what I'm saying? People don't like watching your team. But at the essence of the hatred are the individual players. Maybe that's why the rest of us don't care about the overall greatness of the Spurs. Your star player, Tim Duncan, is universally considered the greatest Power Forward who has ever lived. No one questions his greatness. But he is also universally considered the most boring superstar in the history of the NBA, and perhaps it's biggest whiner. Everyone thinks he is great. But they'd rather watch 25 other players in the league play before they'd watch him. If we look at your entire roster we could say that it is made of all whiners, a couple of dirty players, one very dirty player, and one flopper. Together they make an incredible, virtually unbeatable team that is about to win it's fourth NBA title in the last 8 seasons. But everyone else hates them. I know what your thinking about that last paragraph. "They aren't all whiners!" Yes, they are. "Bowen isn't a dirty player." Yes, he is. "Ginobli is just a smart player!" Maybe, but he is a flopper. You see, People hate floppers. People hate whiners. People hate dirty players. People hate the Spurs. I think it is time you embraced your team for what they are. I think your players need to embrace themselves for what they are. Like the Bad Boys embraced it. Like Duke fans embrace it. Like Yankees fans embrace it. Embrace the hate Spurs fans. You'll be happier in the end. All this inner conflict can't be good for you. Once you've embraced it you can answer all the nay-sayers, all the haters, all of your other vanquished foes with a big smile. And you can say "I know Ginobli's a flopper.... and we still won." Scoreboard. Because at the end of the day, no matter what anyone else says about your team, no matter what they try to throw at you, you will be able to point to your 4 championship banners and tell them that your team is better than theirs. Isn't that enough? Best of Luck, JT PS - I hate your team.