Just a few quick thoughts from the guy with a blog about a team without a real owner…
• The big news is official! No, that THAT big news. But Paul Sunderland is officially out as Laker broadcaster, proving that you don’t want to be the guy who follows Chick Hearn, you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows Chick Hearn. I hope Sunderland lands on his feet somewhere, he was good and better than many out there. Joel Meyers is the likely guy to fill the spot, but other names are being mentioned. I liked Joel Meyers on radio, but that is a more freewheeling medium, on television you use a lot fewer words, just basically writing captions for the pictures. I’m sure Meyers can do that fine, but then I thought Sunderland did.
• Last night, in a crucial moment, it was Steve Javie who gave Paul Pierce a second technical and ejected him in Indiana. I posted a note about this last month — from the 2001-02 season through last year, Javie averaged an ejection ever 6.9 games. Coincidence?
• If the Lakers are looking for another under-appreciated free-agent big man (ala Chris Mihm), and they are, I submit Chris Anderson. He had a PER of 18.85 last season and pulled down 17% of the available rebounds when he was on the floor (a good number). He shot 53.4%, is young, athletic and can run the floor and his numbers got better this year as he got more playing time. The question is only how much will he want — he maid $1.76 million last year. If the price tag isn’t too high, this might be a very good pickup.
• The first 100,000 times I saw the promo for Into The West I thought it sounded interesting. That’s fading.
• Anything that can tie the NBA and Springfield sanitation commissioner Ray Patterson together gets a link.
• I’m really looking forward to the Washington/Chicago game seven and the Dallas/Houston game seven this weekend. The last Washington/Chicago tilt was one of the most entertaining games I’ve seen in a long time.