Monday, August 4th
Leading off the day is the big national story...Brett Favre has returned to Packers training camp and is currently competing for the starting quarterback job with Aaron Rogers. Nancy Gaye, who covers football for the Chronicle, came down to Green Bay to do an uplifting piece on Aaron Rogers and instead finds herself directly in the middle of the Favre maelstrom. The news:
-Many NFL people are very much unsure about just how effective Favre will be; he's 38 years old, and his great year last year could have been more of an aberration than a sign of what's to come.
-Many of the Green Bay receivers feel they've developed a bit of chemistry with Aaron Rogers, and aren't sure what Favre stepping in will do to that chemistry.
-The bummer of the story: Rogers was roundly booed by the Green Bay faithful before even touching the ball. This will not end well.
The 49ers have a quarterback controversy as well: right now little-heralded J.T. O'Sullivan is soundly outplaying Shaun Hill and incumbent starter and former #1 pick Alex Smith. Mike Martz is a wizard at spinning quarterback straw into gold, and I trust him not to be swayed by Smith's tools and go with the guy who can put the ball on the numbers and work his offense.
Dispatches from the weekend past: Barry Zito out-dueling Jake Peavy with an extremely slick 8 innings of shutout ball to give Los Gigantes a 1-0 win in a battle against the extremely offensively challenged Padres. Not only did Zito out-pitch Peavy; the biggest upset of the day may have been Zito packing the more impressive lip of dip than Peavy, who looks like he's holding a tennis ball in his mouth when he pitches.
Was anyone else a little disturbed by USA's showing against Russia? They won fairly easily, but the offense looked disjointed and it didn't look like they were able to dictate the pace of the game at all. Maybe it's a good thing that USA can win when taken out of their game, but I'd prefer for these warm-up games to look like Globetrotter games. Hopefully the final warm-up game against Australia will look like pure spectacle.
A message from Fitz from China:
-These Olympics: very, very, big on the number 8. Lot of 8 happening. Apparently the word for "8" sounds very much like the word for "prosperous."
-Yes, you can see the air. Fun times.
-The food: "solid." Just a scintillating first report from China from Bob Fitzgerald.
Last, Rod reminds everyone that if the US Basketball team did speak out about the Chinese government's possible involvement in the genocide in Darfur, they would either be sent home immediately or detained indefinitely by the Chinese Government with no legal recourse. On that happy note, I'll leave you until Friday. (I'm getting my wisdom teeth pulled Wednesday.)
Welcome to a new week, again pregnant with possibility.
Monday, July 28th
Because it's Monday, let's begin with good news: The Warriors re-upped Andris Biedrins for 6 years and either 54 or 63 million dollars. (There are conflicting reports.) This is another signing that was supposed to have been inevitable all summer, but rumors of a gigantic European deal raised a few pulses, including my own, over the last week. As Kelly Dwyer pointed out in his column today, Biedrins is one of the league's best per-minute centers, with an extraordinarily high rebounding rate and one of the league's best field-goal percentages, with his only drawback being a high foul rate, which, while bad, is no worse than Amare Stoudamire's and would probably go down with more minutes. To justify his deal, Don Nelson is going to have to start giving Andris 35 minutes a game, so we'll see what happens here.
Josh Smith rumors simply refuse to die-he's so good, so available, and would be such a perfect fit for the Warriors. He's the one guy that could completely wash the taste of Baron leaving from my mouth.
Baseball question: Most pitchers with long careers have big, Seaver-Ryan-Clemens type bodies with big frames and big thighs to drive the ball through the strike zone; little guys with a lot of arm action tend to be flashes in the pan. Lincecum is certainly a little guy, but with his 7-foot stride I would think he'd have a much, much, better chance at durability than anyone else at or even near his size. Of course, anyone who tells you they know which young pitchers are going to stay healthy probably thinks they know how to play the stock market.
Raider talk: the early reports on Darren McFadden are that he is absolutely electrifying with the ball in his hands and has real home-run speed in the open field and big-time burst through the hole. Can he have a Purple Jesus-type impact on this team, or is he a bigger Reggie Bush?
All the news about JaMarcus Russell is positive-his weight hasn't ballooned and he's moving well, he is, of course, capable of making throws other guys just can't dream of making, he puts so much zip on the ball it's flying through his receivers' hands on fairly deep routes, and he's even shown great touch with short routes and check-down patterns.
The other Giants point: why is Tyler Walker allowed to pitch to major league hitters? Nobody has a good answer for this. BTW: Fitz and Brooks are high on Tyler Walker despite his high ERA, but guys who give up runs and get saves have their luck run out more often than not-remember Joe Borowski?
I like Manny, but he's 35 and makes $20 million dollars. We simply don't have that money. We spent that money on Barry Zito. It's a grim reality, but one we have to accept. We do need a cleanup hitter, though. So badly. So very badly.
That's all for today-tune in Wednesday for the show live from 49er training camp.
Welcome to some pre-weekend goodness to hold you over until you can get to the X-Files movie tonight.
July 25th, 2008
Well, I'm officially breathing a little easier now that Monta Ellis has officially been locked up with a long-term deal. Thank God. It was inevitable as soon as Baron signed with the Clippers, but with Brand, Boozer, and Euro contracts making the inevitable not happen in recent years, it feels a lot nicer to have Monta officially in a Warrior uniform for the foreseeable future.
On the flip side, restricted Free Agent Andris Biedrins has reportedly been offered a 10+ million dollar a year contract by a European club, an offer the Warriors would be powerless to match because Euro clubs aren't subject to NBA rules. Euro teams swooping in on restricted free agents is a troubling development, to say the least, because the soft-cap socialism of the NBA has been a crucial element of how teams can keep a consistent identity instead of having the musical-chairs parity of the NFL or the mercenary teams of the MLB's big-market teams. If congress can take 3 months to get Roger Clemens' autograph, they should be able to do something here. Although Stern could take care of this-expect the Euro owner who got Childress to wake up with a horse head in his bed if this trend continues.
Anthony Morrow, one of the pleasant surprises of Summer League with a 75% 3-point percentage, has stopped by the show. He's a good guy, and if you can shoot like that against any sort of competition there should be a spot on an NBA bench for you somewhere.
Fitz lives in some sort of universe in which Bon Jovi does not suck. This disturbs me greatly.
Baseball news...Matt Cain pitched one of the best games of the season last night, notching (is that word used for anything other than pitching performances?) a 4-hit shutout to get the win in a game in which the Giants gave him, of course, 1 big run of support.
Anthony Morrow has been inked to a contract with the Warriors. This is the fastest the Fitz and Brooks mojo has ever worked. That's amazing.
A joint 49ers/Raiders stadium at Alcatraz would be the greatest thing to ever happen.
Thomas Ian Nicholas is actually in the studio promoting his band the T.I.N men, in the Bay Area this week, and he's a pretty cool guy. He's also the guy from American Pie and Rookie of The Year. Strange but cool times on the Fitz and Brooks show.
Get excited for the SaberCats vs. the Philadelphia Soul this weekend for the Arena Bowl. That and the X-Files movie. See you Monday.
Welcome to the Wednesday blog goodness.
July 23rd, 2008
1st off, we have yet another Warrior move: Nets Point Guard Marcus Williams is now Warrior point guard Marcus Williams. This seems like a low-risk, potentially high-reward move for the Warriors: A lot of people thought that Williams was the best true point guard in a draft that included NBA champion starting point Rajon Rondo, and he would have been a lottery pick were it not for concerns about his laptop snafu and somewhat voluptuous figure.
He's been stuck behind Jason Kidd and Devin Harris his entire career, and I wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibilities that he could end up the starting PG and push Maggette to a super-sub role before the All-Star break-conventional wisdom would dictate starting Ellis/Mags/Captain Jack, but Don Nelson's not a conventional wisdom guy. It all hinges on just how fervently believes that Monta Ellis can be successful running point.
The other major hoops news of the day: Josh Childress is leaving the country, turning down the Hawks' 5 year, $33 million deal for a 3-year, $20 million dollar deal with a Greek Team. While this is awesome because of its break from convention, I'm bummed about this for a number of reasons: I'm all for quality Euro basketball, but I'd prefer for the best in the world to stay stateside for competition reasons and because I can't watch Euro games. I'm also intrigued by how Childress thinks he'll get that $13 million he's leaving on the table when his contract runs out: Will NBA teams give a 6.5 million per year deal to a guy who's been in Europe for three years? Does the Euro league have the pockets to set him up for life? Childress is one of the league's most underrated guys, and I have mixed feelings about the lone high-profile move in his career.
Also: WNBA Melee! I actually saw this one unfold live-I turned to see a replay of last year's college dunk contest, got the last minute of the game, and then Rick Mahorn was getting full-on forearm shivered by a Detroit point guard. This was kind of awesome. Cheryl Ford appeared to sprain her ankle while attempting to restrain her own teammate-if this had happened in an NBA game, it would be all you heard about today. It's a bummer that this is the first time we're hearing about Candace Parker this year, who is leading the league in rebounds, is 2nd in blocks, is top-5 in scoring and field goal percentage, and is averaging 3.7 assists (the league leader is at 5.8) in her rookie year, which is freakish. This girl is Oscar Robertson with (insert inappropriate lady remark.)
Ronny Turiaf is, as you'd probably expect, an awesome guy. If you play a drinking game with "heart" and "hustle" next year, you will probably be worse for wear. Also, he describes himself as "nuts." I am stoked for the Ronny Turiaf era in Golden State.
Brooks talks about Eddie Murphy's career path like the GreenPeace people on the streets outside of work talk about environmental policy.
The Warriors have also signed Maurice Evans, a solid journeyman with toughness and a 40% 3-point stroke throughout his career. Evans is a nice enough player, but I'd rather see more space left open for all the ultra-talented young guys waiting on the wings for this team, particularly Belinelli in this case. But if he isn't taking Belinelli's minutes, he's a solid player who's not taking anything off the table.
I think that'll do it for today-see you Friday, folks.
