Is it September yet? What, there’s another bone-dry month of speculation with nothing but the MLB stretch run to look forward to? I guess that means just one thing: time to get the jump on all the rest of the journalists and hyper-analyze the football and NBA seasons to come.
Hey, it’s this or another Mariners column. Take your pick.
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While I’m still excited to see the M’s compete in the stretch run, all I’ve been able to think about since May is Greg Oden pulling on Trail Blazers white, black and red for the first time. I’ve turned into the sort of fan who is impatiently waiting for the NBA regular season schedule to be announced to plan on roadtrips up to Portland. Too bad Oden’s arrival means the end of the $11 cheap-seat tickets from the last few seasons.
One of the games that might be circled is the Blazers hosting the Celtics, now that Kevin Garnett has finally been traded out of the black hole that is Minneapolis. Garnett needed to leave to finally chase a ring, the Timberwolves needed to fully implode the team, and the NBA needs to have one of their traditional East powers relevant again; this sounds like the perfect trade. David Stern might consider sending a few frozen envelopes to Minnesota GM Kevin McHale for taking the spotlight away from Donaghygate, taking over the sports pages and airwaves for a few days for sporting reasons for once.
Not only does this make the Celtics a dangerous team in the East, it makes them a dangerous team with a storied franchise history with more retired numbers than championship banners (22 and 16 in this case). The only thing as good as Boston being good again would be the Knicks being competitive, though I still don’t see how that can happen with Isaiah Thomas in charge.
However, I’m not on the bandwagon saying that “dangerous” translates into “Eastern Conference Champions” just yet – Boston only has nine players under contract, and Garnett, Allen, and Pierce all have some miles under them – a combined 32 years in the league. That’s not an injury risk – it’s an injury assurance. But the conference is so wild, anything can happen; the Raptors went from the top pick to the third seed in the span of a year, and once you’re in the playoffs, even stranger things can happen (Hi, Mavericks fans).
Basketball season won’t really fire up until Halloween nears, by which time we will have a good idea how both the NCAA football and NFL seasons could play out. I’m probably as anxious as Oregon’s players are for fall training camp to start, so the grand water-cooler tradition of talking about the team can begin in earnest.
This is going to be an interesting year for the Ducks because I have no idea what to expect. Could be 5-7, could be 9-4 with a bowl loss, could be a surprise Holiday Bowl, could be none of those. I’m always hopeful that this is going to be “our year” (I’d make a good Cubs fan in that case), though, and the last time the team slipped up they followed it with a 10-2 record and a Holiday Bowl…err…performance (what do you call a loss to a team that has to forfeit?). I just don’t know whether that will happen again this year or not.
Must be something about those odd-numbered seasons for these Ducks. Or maybe it takes two years for them to get used to playing in different uniforms, who knows.
I may regret this wish later, but I can’t wait for the NFL camps to really start to provide a distraction from some certain high-profile legal proceedings going on in Virginia right now. As much as I loathe the NFL media juggernaut at times, news coverage needs to shift back to what’s actually happening on the field and not in the court room. The media (and the Worldwide Leader) needs a feel-good NFL story to latch onto and milk dry; maybe Joey Harrington can, in a bizarre twist of fate, actually provide that.
August is full of talk and hype. Sept. 1, when college football season opens on campuses across the nation, we see the fruits of offseasons flower and the beginning of the best time of the year for sports. Between college football and the NFL, the NBA and college basketball following later, the MLB playoffs, and the other varsity sports here at the University returning to their fields, fall is always brilliant.
It just sucks waiting for it to start.