The Basement View

The Chosen One These words have been uttered about Lebron James since his high school days back at St. Mary’s St. Vincent in northeast Ohio. The city of Cleveland in 2003 was ecstatic about having the chance of drafting their own, and “The Chosen One” to bring the city a championship. 1964 was the last time Cleveland tasted the championship champagne. A lot has changed since the late 60’s except for the hunger from native Clevelanders for just a drop of that prized championship champagne. In June of 2003 this was the best chance for Cleveland since Jim Brown brought the Browns the last championship for the city. And Lebron seemed humbled by the opportunity and took the burden of the entire city on his shoulders being King James and Cleveland’s chosen son. With incredible playoff moments like the twenty straight points in 2007, or the buzzer beater against Orlando in 2009. Lebron only went to the finals once from the time he was drafted to the end of his contract in 2010. “The Chosen...

Believeland With Game 3 of the NBA Finals tomorrow at 9PM EST on ABC; Lebron and the Cleveland Cavs are against the ropes and one punch away from facing elimination at home. This is the same team that lost 110-77 and gave up on Sunday in San Francisco. I will not go into detail about Game 2, because frankly the Cavs just gave up. I have never seen a team just not care about an NBA Finals game like Cleveland did on Sunday. When Lebron was subbed out with the Cavs down twelve, and the Warriors pounced on the opportunity to ice the game—and that’s exactly what they did. Yes, Draymond and Klay did not miss that entire quarter scoring twenty-eight and seventeen for the game respectively, meanwhile Curry was sitting on the bench. Green also chipped in with seven rebounds and five assists. If I was a Cavs fan I would not only be worried about a possible sweep, but I would worry about Lebron possibly leaving again. From the performance in Game 2 it seems like James is the only one who actua...

The San Diego Zoo With the trade of James Shields, the San Diego Padres have almost completely torn down their effect at a World Series contender. If we turn back the clock all the way to the winter of 2014, off the heels of a World Series loss for James Shields and the Kansas City Royals. Everyone around KC knew that they most likely were not going to be able to retain Shields’ after trading for him, just like Johnny Cueto this past season. Anyway, in January of 2015 Shields signed four year seventy-five million dollar contract with San Diego. The contract was designed to give Shields the most money in the middle of the contract. This was the last deal that GM A.J. Preller tried to make to save the Padres from the massive winter they had the year before. Signing Shields was also one of the last contracts being signed being that is was in January. All in all it was a good deal for both sides. Shields finally got the deal that he had worked his whole career for, and the Padres don’t ...

Legacy Something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past is how Merriam-Webster defines the word Legacy . No other word in sports is more important than legacy. “How will this or that effect his legacy?”, that’s all the casual sports fan cares about. While on my way to my night summer class last week, my dad and I were tuned into the end of Mike Francesa—like we frequently do. But, a caller called in asking about Lebron James’ legacy and how it compares to Michael Jordans’ and others. Nearing the end of the ride over my dad said something that he says maybe once or twice a year… “I agree with you Mike!”. This after Francesa said something along the lines of “I don’t get all these Ludacris comparisons, Lebron has two rings already”. That got me thinking about the word Legacy and how it effects sports for the good and the bad. The good is obvious, you look at how great or terrible a player is during his time in the respective league. The legacy of...

What’s the Nets Move Sir? Going 21-41 this season, buying out Joe Johnsons’ contract, and firing Lionel Hollins after three seasons as the head man—Brooklyn has officially begun their rebuild. Kind of unfortunate timing for the Nets considering the state of basketball in the Big Apple. With the Knicks just eleven games ahead of the Nets, basketball is in a state of turmoil. Not to mention that with the lack of picks the Nets will be trying to rebuild for a long time. There are not too many people to blame for the way the franchise has turned out. Under Billy King the Nets were a win now team especially with the move from New Jersey to Brooklyn. Trading for Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Jason Terry sounded like a decent deal for the time aside for how many draft picks King decided to give away to Boston. And now with none of the players that were traded for on roster, you could say Billy King sabotaged the Nets before he was kicked out of Brooklyn. Now personally the Nets did n...

The Ringer If you don’t know who former ESPN employee Bill Simmons is, I encourage you Google him right now. If you do know him; you know that he is a huge Boston sports fan. He also is a big NBA fan and his twitter is nothing short of an extension of the bleacher report twitter page. Simmons is launching a tv show on HBO this month on June 22 nd called Any Given Wednesday , he also just launched a website called The Ringer , and he has been doing a free podcast called the Bill Simmons Podcast which can be found on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play among others. Simmons has also launched seven other podcasts to go along with his own with his writers at his new website. Simmons very own podcast has been airing for just over eight months now. His family of podcasts are very good and interesting. Simmons who is forty-seven, was let go from ESPN about a year and half ago after the company decided not to pick up his contract. Pissed off took some time off for himself and his family. ES...