Summer Movies 2008

This is going to be a hell of a summer for movies. There are at least 24 movies that my wife and I are excited about seeing from now until the end of August. All the genres are on the docket: comic book adventures, comedies, animation and mysteries/thrillers. First, we'll run my wife's list. She didn't rank them all in number order, but of the 24 choices I gave her, here are the seven she's most excited about:

1. Hancock
2. Wanted
3. Get Smart
4. X-Files: I Want To Believe
5. Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
6. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I'm pretty sure she wants to see Wanted just because I told her I think it will suck, but that's mainly because I can't stand Angelina "Mother Theresa" Jolie. I'm surprised she didn't have Narnia on her list. She claims she doesn't need to see it in the theater, but I'm not buying it for a second. And while I'm disappointed she didn't have more comic book movies on her list, I am very excited about four of her movies, and am not opposed to any of her picks other than Wanted.

Here's my top 25, with release dates:
1. Iron Man (05/02)
2. The Dark Knight (07/18)
3. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (05/22)
4. The Incredible Hulk (06/13)
5. Wall-E (06/27)
6. Hancock (07/02)
7. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (08/15)
8. Pineapple Express (08/08)
9. Tropic Thunder (08/15)
10. Get Smart (06/20)
11. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (07/11)
12. Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (04/25)
13. Baby Mama (04/25)
14. Speed Racer (05/09)
15. The Wackness (07/03)
16. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (08/01)
17. X-Files: I Want To Believe (07/25)
18. The Happening (06/13)
19. The Foot Fist Way (05/30)
20. Space Chimps (07/18)
21. Wanted (06/27)
22. Step Brothers (07/25)
23. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (05/16)
24. Towelhead (08/15)

I was going to have The Dark Knight at number one, but with the producers considering changing the movie because people are squeamish about the late Heath Ledger's more violent scenes, I am being cautious and bumping it down to number two. However, I'm diving right in on The Incredible Hulk, which despite rumored in-fighting on the production promises to deliver the goods that the first Hulk movie did not. I'm surprised the Star Wars animated film isn't getting more buzz, but I suppose it will after George Lucas' Indy 4 hype dies down. Or maybe Lucas doesn't want it to get hype...who knows. And while this is a big summer for comic book movies there are a ton of good comedies on the docket as well. You might notice that the Sex and the City movie wasn't listed. That's because it's going to be one of the crappiest movies ever released in a theater.

And it doesn't stop at the end of the summer. With Righteous Kill (09/12), Zack and Miri Make a Porno (10/31), RocknRolla (10/31), James Bond 22 (11/07), Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince (11/21) and The Day The Earth Stood Still (12/12), it's going to be a good year at the movies.

MLB 2008

It's once again time for my semi-scientific approach to MLB picks for 2008. But first, let's take a look at how I did last year:

NAILED IT!
Team (# games off)
- NYA, HOU, KCA (0)

JUST ABOUT NAILED IT
- COL, PHI, DET, OAK, CIN (2)
- MIL, TEX (3)
- ARI, CHN, ATL (4)
- CLE, NYN, FLA, SFN (5)

PRETTY GOOD
- SDN, SLN (6)
- BOS, TOR, LAN (7)
- BAL (9)
- TBA (10)

NOT THAT GOOD
- MIN (11)
- PIT (12)
- LAA, WAS (13)
- CHA (14)

WAYYYYY OFF
- SEA (20)

All in all, not a bad year - I predicted more than half of the league within 5 wins of their actual win total. My process didn't change a whole lot this year. One thing I wanted to factor in this year is that the gap between the NL and AL is closing:

Year....AvgW-L
06AL....83-79
06NL....79-83

07AL....81.8-80.2
07NL....80.4-81.6

Projected:
08AL....81.4-80.6
08NL....80.6-81.4

A small difference overall, but a harbinger perhaps of greater things to come. Again, in making the picks I make sure that the correct number of wins and losses is parceled out league-wide and use a simple standard deviation test to make sure the records line up reasonably with an average of those in 2006 and 2007. Let's get to it. "07" is the difference between the team's projected 2008 finish and actual 2007 finish, with MLB rank being the team's total rank overall, 1-30.

AL E....W-L, 07, MLB Rank
BOS.....94-68, -2, 1
NYA.....88-74, -6, 9
TOR.....86-76, 3, 12
TBA.....82-80, 16, 16
BAL.....60-102, -9, 30

Boston is just as good as last year, but with increased competition from Tampa in addition to still very competitive New York and Tampa squads, and a bit of regression in the lineup from Manny, Papi and Lowell, a couple of wins come off the board. The big story here is Tampa's run to mediocrity. With three legitimate starters now in Kazmir, Shields and Garza, better candidates for the back-end of the rotation and an improved bullpen to match their killer offense - which added a veteran OBP guy in Cliff Floyd - the Rays should be better across the board.

AL C....W-L, 07, MLB Rank
CLE.....91-71, -5, 5
DET.....89-73, 1, 7
MIN.....77-85, -2, 20
CHA.....76-86, 4, 23
KCA.....75-87, 6, 24

Cleveland comes back to earth a little bit, but not enough for the Tigers to catch them. Quick - name a good reliever in Detroit's bullpen. Give up? That's because they're aren't any. Cabrera is a big upgrade at third, but the team got career years out of Granderson and Ordonez. Elsewhere, lots of people are picking Minnesota to bottom out, but I don't see it. With Liriano coming back, the rotation figures to be average or better and the pen is still a strength. The team will have a tough time scoring, but it's not a doomsday scenario, especially if Delmon Young improves in his second year. Chicago has two good starter and three not good ones, and no lineup can overcome that. KC continues the slow climb back to respectability under new Manager Trey Hillman.

AL W....W-L, 07, MLB Rank
LAA.....91-71, -3, 6
SEA.....86-76, -2, 13
TEX.....77-85, 2, 19
OAK.....68-94, -8, 26

Los Angeles stays on top almost by default. Though they had a full rotation and a great prospect in Nick Adenhart almost ready for the Majors, and not a lot of great options at shortstop after O-Cabs, they traded him for Jon Garland anyways. An even swap in a vacuum, but O-Cabs was a better fit for the Angels. The same can be said of the Torii Hunter acquisition - good player, wrong team. They now have six outfielders for three spots. They have the DH spot as well, but add Kendry Morales to the DH mix and you have seven players for four spots. That's going to leave people unhappy - Vladimir Guerrero is already complaining - and may effect play on the field. Seattle has little offense, as does Oakland. Down in Arlington, Texas has a chance to surpass this projection if they get a strong rebound season from Jason Jennings, but JJ's big year will more like be 2009.

NL E....W-L, 07, MLB Rank
NYN.....92-70, 4, 4
PHI.....85-77, -4, 14
ATL.....82-80, -2, 17
WAS.....80-82, 7, 18
FLA.....65-97, -6, 28

The Mets are a much better team with Santana, but lack of depth on the Club keeps them from the league's top three teams. Heading into the offseason, Philadelphia's two biggest issues were upgrading third base and the starting rotation. In my opinion, they did neither. With Brad Lidge already injured, and shaky the last two years when holding the closer mantle, their projection has to come down a bit. Atlanta is playing out the string with Chipper and Smoltz, similar to how Houston did with Bagwell and Biggio and the Giants did with Bonds. They will tread water for another year with Teixera's big bat helping the cause greatly. Washington will benefit from a much-improved lineup and that fresh ballpark smell that usually carries a little win boost with it.

NL C....W-L, 07, MLB Rank
CHN.....89-73, 4, 8
MIL.....87-75, 4, 11
CIN.....85-77, 13, 15
PIT.....77-85, 9, 21
SLN.....69-93, -9, 25
HOU.....65-97, -8, 29

My mother always taught me that if you don't have anything nice to say keep your mouth closed, so I don't have a lot to say about this division. Chicago and Milwaukee will keep improving gradually. In Chicago's case, important changes include Fukudome, full-time duty for Geovany Soto and an eventual upgrade at second base, whether it's Brian Roberts or someone else. Milwaukee's pen should be improved, a full year of Ryan Braun and an almost full year from Mike Cameron will help. Cincy will be much better, but they're still not quite there. A lot of people have them as their darkhorse, but I can't envision a scenario where they are better than both Chicago and Milwaukee, something they will have to be to make the playoffs.

NL W....W-L, 07, MLB Rank
COL.....93-69, 3, 2
ARI.....92-70, 2, 3
LAN.....87-75, 5, 10
SDN.....76-86, -13, 22
SFN.....66-96, -5, 27

If the Rockies 2-5 starters - Aaron Cook, Ubaldo Jimenez, Jason Hirsh and Franklin Morales combine for 92-100 starts rather than their 67 from last year, they should give the Rockies a bump in their win total. In Arizona, Danny Haren will bring with him a small bump in wins. Randy Johnson may have something left in the tank, but if he doesn't - or if he gets hurt again - Arizona doesn't have a fantastic back-up plan. Again though, maturation from their young hitters - Justin Upton in particular - means the D-Backs will be one of the best teams in baseball. In LA, another old-school manager will not play his youngsters full-time, which will cost his team enough wins to keep them out of the playoffs. San Diego is a team that many figure will always be good, but regression from players like Brian Giles, Jim Edmonds and Greg Maddux, along with a reliance on the oft-injured Randy Wolf and Mark Prior to be significant cogs in their rotation mean that a fall is likely.

PLAYOFFS
AL:
1 BOS vs. 4 DET - BOS in 4
2 CLE vs. 3 LAA - CLE in 3

1 BOS vs. 2 CLE - CLE in 7

NL:
1 COL vs. 3 CHN - COL in 5
2 NYN vs. 4 ARI - ARI in 4

1 COL vs. 4 ARI - ARI in 7

WORLD SERIES - ARI in 7

While I did a relatively good job at picking team's overall records last season, I did a very poor job of picking the playoffs. I only picked four of the eight teams correctly, picked one of the four LCS teams correctly and zero of the two World Series teams correctly. Nevertheless, I offer up these projections. They will probably be wrong, but there they are anyways. Arizona and Colorado is becoming like Yankees vs. Red Sox, with 1/10 of the fan base/media attention. Last year's participants come to the brink of a rematch, only to see their hopes dashed at the last second. A rematch however, does seem plausible. For the record, I see the following teams as legitimate World Series contenders - Arizona, Boston, Cleveland, Colorado, both Los Angeles teams and the New York Mets, so that will be how I hedge my bets.

Since I did even worse in my Awards voting (getting only one of six correctly - CC Sabathia for AL Cy) I'm not even going to bother with that this year.

Patriot Games

The first football game I remember watching from start to finish was Super Bowl XXIII between the Forty-Niners and Bengals. I remember betting my dad $5 before the game that the Bengals would win, and I remember him not letting me pay him when the Niners came back and did win. Before that, I can remember the second quarter of Super Bowl XXII, and the pep rallys that we had at my elementary school before the Patriots played the Dolphins and Bears in the '85 playoffs.

After Super Bowl XXIII though is when I became what I like to call a "coherent" Patriots fan. Before then, I was a fan because my dad told me to be, but I don't remember much about it. 1989 was when I started remembering things. And boy, those first couple years were not filled with good memories. The Patriots were terrible then. Hart Lee Dykes came and went faster than Haley's comet. Stanley Morgan's career ended. Andre Tippett was in the twilight of his career. Rod Rust was prominently involved. My church had a banquet for Dick Macpherson, and when I met him I wasn't as impressed as I thought I'd be. And the Patriots only won 14 games over a four year span, and average of less than four wins per season.

Then in 1993 Bill Parcells became our new head coach and the team made the fortunate decision of drafting Drew Bledsoe instead of Rick Mirer with the #1 pick. Since that time, the Pats have had 12 .500 or better seasons in 15. Two of the losing seasons came in Parcells and Bill Belichick's first seasons as coach, when they essentially gutted the team so they could reshape them how they wanted. In those 12 .500 or better seasons, the team made the Super Bowl almost half the time - five times in 12 years. And in those five Super Bowls they won over half the time, winning three of five.

All of this is to say, what exactly do I have to complain about? Am I disappointed the Pats lost last night? Hell ya! But upset, pissed, peaved, distraught? No, not really. I could be a Detroit Lions fan, or an Arizona Cardinals fan, or a Buffalo Bills fan. But I'm not. I'm a Patriots fan, and if I'm going to be upset that my team just finished 18-1, well then I'd basically be a spoiled little b**ch. 18 wins is four more than the Pats won in that famous four year span from 1989-1992, and I thank them for giving me a great season. The Giants deserved to win and the Pats deserved to lose. Yes, if they played nine more times the Patriots would probably win at least eight of those times, but that's quite irrelevant. In football you only get one shot, so as Eminem would say you can't miss your chance to blow. Last night the Patriots missed that chance, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop being proud of my squad.

Now let's resign Asante, make some good picks in the draft, get Rosey healthy and get back to winning in 2008. Meanwhile, we're less than nine full days away from pitchers and catchers reporting. Let's get it on!

Faster Than A Speeding Homer Approved

Been a while since I gave everyone a glimpse at the recent additions to the playlist. Here's the LP's and EP's I've added recently, with quick grades. Lots of good stuff lately:

- Alicia Keys, As I Am - B+
- Atmosphere, Sad Clown Bad Fall No. 10 - A-
- Atmosphere, Sad Clown Bad Fall No. 11 - C+
- The Audible Doctor, Brownies - A-
- Cage, Hell's Winter - B
- El-P, I'll Sleep When You're Dead - B-
- Eric B. & Rakim, Paid In Full - A+
- Ghostface Killah, Big Doe Rehab - A
- The Simpsons Movie: the Music - B-
- Jay-Z, American Gangster - A+
- Kanye West, Graduation - A
- Lil Wayne, The Leak - A
- Little Brother, Getback - A-
- Wu-Tang Clan, 8 Diagrams - B+

I also have added Caltroit by Black Milk, Sawdust by The Killers and Desire by Pharoahe Monch, but I haven't had a chance to listen to them yet. Until next time...

NFL Playoff Picks

It's playoff time. Here's my bracket:

AFC
The Game:
6 Tennessee
3 San Diego

The Pick: Tennessee. Norv Turner and Philip Rivers in the playoffs is a disastrous combination, no matter who plays QB for the Titans. Look for LDT to step quickly out of bounds whenever contact is imminent, and then blame the loss on his teammates that "lacked heart." Someday somebody will catch on to his act, but it probably won't be this year.

The Game:
4 Pittsburgh
5 Jacksonville

The Pick: Jacksonville. This is one of those seldom seen cases where the division winner has a worse record than the Wild Card team. Pittsburgh is the worse team here anyway you slice it, and you can bet that their special teams will cost them on at least one big play.

The Game:
6 Tennessee
1 New England

The Pick: New England. A well coached team like Tennessee can beat a poorly coached team like San Diego despite having inferior talent, but when they come up against an equally well - if not better - coached team such as New England, their talent will lose out every time.

The Game:
5 Jacksonville
2 Indianapolis

The Pick: Jacksonville. This is Jacksonville's Super Bowl. After romping over the Colts in Week 14 last season, the Jags have come up short in 2007. But it's tough to beat an NFL team three times in one season, and Jacksonville is primed for this upset.

The Game:
5 Jacksonville
1 New England

The Pick: New England. After vanquishing the Colts, the Jags won't have enough fight in them to overthrow the Patriots. But even if they did, the Patriots would be too much for them. Simply put, this Patriots team has been the best team of all-time through 16 games and there is no reason why that is about to change. Bill Belichick has demanded 60 minutes from his players every week, and they have delivered each and every time.

NFC
The Game:
6 Washington
3 Seattle

The Pick: Washington. Seattle is a paper champion. Despite the difference in seeding and the shape of their seasons, Washington is just about Seattle's equal according to Football Outsiders DVOA rankings. And while Washington was busy tussling with 8 playoff teams, the Hawks only played two, and none since early October. The only other team they played with a winning record this year was Cleveland, a game they lost. So you have two fairly even teams, but one is battle tested and riding a possibly unprecedented emotional high. This isn't rocket science.

The Game:
4 Tampa Bay
5 New York

The Pick: New York. I just don't see how Jeff Garcia can come in and play effectively after so much time off, especially with the Giants D line chasing him all over the field. Furthermore, the Giants have the weapons to turn this into a shootout, and the Bucs don't. They need games to be low scoring, and the outcome, like most involving Eli Manning will hinge on whether or not the Giants can put the points on the board of which they are capable. I'm betting they will be. However, I will hedge and say that this is the upset with which I'm least comfortable.

The Game:
6 Washington
1 Dallas

The Pick: Washington. I just can't shake the image of Tony Romo fumbling at the goal line last January. He needs to win a playoff game before I'm going to start trusting him. Also, the Cowboys are coached by Wade Phillips, a notorious choker on par with Norv Turner.

The Game:
5 New York
2 Green Bay

The Pick: Green Bay. This game is going to have one of those 1993 feels. Maybe FOX can get Pat Summerall and John Madden back in the booth. While that probably won't happen, what will happen is Bret Favre riddling the depleted Giants secondary with bullets the likes of which Jeff Garcia can't even fathom.

The Game:
6 Washington
2 Green Bay

The Pick: Green Bay. The magic runs out for Joe Gibbs' troop, but not before the entire world knows how well they've come together in the wake of Sean Taylor's death. It is very much a remarkable story, but the way the media sensationalizes everything, I'm sure a lot of people will be tired of hearing about it by the time this game ends.

SUPER BOWL XLII
New England vs. Green Bay

The Pick: New England. In this rematch of Super Bowl XXXI, the Packers will not have Desmond Howard to run back two kicks for touchdowns. Enough has been said about this Patriots team, I don't need to re-hash why they're brilliant. Belichick will do what Belichick does best - take away the other team's biggest strength. The Pats will cut down Favre's slant routes, and players like Tedy Bruschi and Asante Samuel will come up with big INT's. The Super Bowl MVP will go to the aforementioned Bruschi, who will play the game of his life, and then promptly retire in good health and with four rings.

The Excitement Factor

The NFL this year has been severely lacking in excitement. Whether it's been the Patriots just destroying everyone, the Colts methodical plug-in approach, the severe lack of quality quarterbacking or just some thoroughly mediocre play, this season has been fairly boring. However, each week I find myself looking forward to a bunch of games anyways, games that end up being exciting. Henceforth, I have concocted a completely unscientific, probably biased and certainly flawed Excitement Factor meter. So, each Sunday for the rest of the season, simply look at the schedule, and then add up the two team's totals using the Excitement Factor meter and you'll know what games to watch. You're welcome.

5 - Consistently exciting
Cleveland
Dallas
Detroit
Green Bay
New England
Pittsburgh

4 - Usually exciting, but sometimes put up stinkers
Cincinnati
New Orleans
San Diego
Washington

3 - Kind of just there
Arizona
Chicago
Denver
Houston
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
New York Giants
Philadelphia
Seattle
Tennessee

2 - Extended periods of boredom punctuated by big plays
Atlanta
Buffalo
Kansas City
Minnesota
Tampa Bay

1 - Rather punch myself in the face
Baltimore
Carolina
Miami
New York Jets
Oakland
St. Louis
San Francisco

Defending Employee #8

Yesterday, a few friends and I were discussing how fortunate us Boston sports fans are these days. Now that I don't actually live in the city, it's easier for me to appreciate what's going on. For instance, yesterday in the Rocky Mountain News, there was a three-page story on the New England Patriots. That is amazing since it was A) Thursday and B) the Broncos aren't playing the Patriots this week (or this year for that matter). That is the sort of coverage Bostonians are used to seeing in the Globe or Herald, but not an out-of-town publication. In the midst of this discussion, we inevitably turned our attention to the lean years, with one of my friends impugning Antoine Walker. Now, everyone had their views on Antoine Walker, but he was a fairly polarizing figure - you either loved him or you hated him. I loved him - "Employee #8" was and is one of my favorite basketball players of all-time. But I wanted some facts to back up my counter-argument, so I started digging. What you see below is the resulting email/rant, which took me basically my whole lunch break yesterday to write. Enjoy!


While i understand Toine was a fairly polarizing figure, I think you're WAY, WAY off base. First of all, Toine rarely, if ever, had good talent around him. His rookie year, 2 of the 6 leaders on the team in minutes were Todd Day and Marty Conlon. ANYONE would have sucked with "marquee" teammates like that. His rookie season he was brought into a team that said, hey, it's nice to have you, but our strategy is going to be to openly tank this season so we can get Tim Duncan. Look, we didn't even fire ML Carr, he's going to be coaching again!

Then, after his rookie season they didn't get Duncan. But the guys they did get weren't given a chance to succeed. Pitino traded Chauncey Billups in his ROOKIE SEASON, and Mercer the next year. There is just
no way anyone can be expected to be successful or be responsible for failure in that type of environment. Chauncey was the third pick in the draft. Can you imagine what would have happened if Carmelo was
traded during his rookie year? Or Mercer, who was the 6th pick, was traded in his second. What if the Clippers traded Chris Kaman (a fellow #6 pick) two years into his career? Kaman is just now becoming
a force in the league.

So Pitino set the team back there, and there were countless other occurrences, I don't even have to remind you. You guys know.

But for all his wiggling, all his three jacking, there was one thing that Toine did. He showed up. Toine spent his first seven years in the league here before the trade to Dallas:

Year GP Gposs Pct
96-97 82 82 100
97-98 82 82 100
98-99 42 50 84
99-00 82 82 100
00-01 81 82 99
01-02 81 82 99
02-03 78 82 95
TOT 528 542 97.4

The man played in 97.4% of the games he could have possibly played, and if you throw out the lockout year, he never missed more than 4 games a season, and the 2 or 3 of the 4 he missed in 02-03 were when
he hurt his knee the last week of the season and the team forced him to sit out so he would be 100% when the playoffs started.

He may never have taken accountability - something I would strongly debate - but he never whined either. He saw us through the hardest times this franchise has ever seen, and helped us advance in the playoffs not once, but twice. Here are some of the other players from Toine's early days that played significant minutes, let me know if you think it's still all his fault - Andrew DeClerq, Travis Knight, Greg Minor, Vitaly Potapenko, Adrian Griffin, Bryant Stith, Milt Palacio. Do those sound like the type of players you want playing a lot of minutes on your team?

Let's take a look at the draft picks after Toine got there:

97 - Billups and Mercer (we discussed this)
98 - Paul Pierce
99 - NONE - could have been Andre Miller, Shawn Marion, Jason Terry, Corey Maggette, Ron Artest or Andrei Kirilenko. Instead we got Potapenko.
00 - Jerome Moiso - could have been Turkoglu, Q Richardson, Desmond Mason, Jamaal Magloire, Speedy Claxton, Michael Redd
01 - Joe Johnson, Kedrick Brown, Joseph Forte - Johnson good, but the other two picks could have been Richard Jefferson, Tony Parker, Zach Randolph or Gerald Wallace
02 - NONE - traded with Joe Johnson for Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk - could have been Amare Stoudemire

Exactly one player in six drafts was successful as a Celtic - Pierce. While allowing that 2000 was a fairly weak draft, there were players taken after Moiso that have had good careers. So what help did Walker really have? Three of the players drafted were traded within 18 months of their drafting, the other three were complete and total busts, and two picks were forfeited for veterans.

Look at what could have been:

PG Billups, SG Pierce, SF Walker, PF Marion, C Stoudemire, Bench - Q Richardson, Joe Johnson, Tony Parker, Richard Jefferson, Ron Mercer

That'd be a hell of a team right? Well, now you can say things would have happened differently, we would have had different picks, etc, and none of that would be wrong. But even if they had just kept Mercer and
Billups and not traded for Potapenko, we would have had Walker, Pierce, Billups, Mercer and Marion. That's a good, if undersized, starting 5. Instead we just had Walker and Pierce.

I'm sorry, but Antoine was a pawn in all of that. Pierce came two years after Toine, but it still took until 2002 to make the playoffs. Somehow though, this has always been Antoine's fault and not Pierce's, because Antoine wiggled and Pierce didn't. That, to me, is unfair. I don't think it's Pierce's fault, but it can't be one and not the other. It's either all on the players, or all on the coaches/front office. It can't be a little of both. To me, I think it's very, very, very, very clear that it was the front office's fault. Antoine showed up for every game, and made the All-Star team in a then-crowded with talent Eastern Conference three times in his first six opportunities (since there was no ASG during 99). If you look at basketball-reference's "Most Similar Season" tool, you see names like Bernard King, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Webber, Jamal Mashburn and Terry Cummings. Those are all great players, and are recognized as such. Ya, Antoine wiggled, but that doesn't make him a bad basketball player, but people like Bob Ryan decided that was worth crucifying him for without looking at what he had to put up with in Boston.

And despite that criticism, and being run out of town by an unruly mob led by an opportunistic Danny Ainge, he pushed to be traded back in 2005 because he loved Boston that much. How you can hate on a man like that simply boggles my mind. Hate on Pitino and Chris Wallace and Leo Papile. Don't hate on Toine.