Weekend bits: A.I., the Trade

Unlike Allen Iverson, the Monday morning links never make trade demands:

A.I. Watch: ESPN's Chris Sheridan has a list of suitors for Iverson and his contract. Two things he suggests: A long list that rapidly narrows to two or three serious contenders (Dallas, Boston, perhaps even New York?) and a quick resolution. Oh, and forget about getting fair value.

The Raptors, minus Chris Bosh, lose a tight one to the Portland Trailblazers, who were missing their best scorer and post-up contributor Zach Randolph. Okay, I'm kidding - the Raptors were destroyed by the Blazers. Line of the night came at halftime, from assistant coach Jim Todd on the Bosh-less offence, without a plan B without Bosh's pick-and-roll sets: "We'd like to go inside if we could find someone to go inside to." Are you listening, Mr Colangelo? It's not like Bosh's lengthening list of ailments is going to go away. This team already needs a shooter. As for their vaunted frontcourt "depth", it was shown on Sunday to be a mirage.

As for the Leafs, I'll take the cue from them and offer up - nothing.

Best read of the weekend, from the New York Times - Yes, you can surf in Cleveland, before the brown water freezes, which ain't exactly Gidget goes to Ohio:

To reach the lake, surfers drag their boards across snowdrifts and beaches littered with used condoms and syringes, Mr. Ditzenberger said. The most popular surf spot is Edgewater State Park. It is nicknamed Sewer Pipe because, after heavy rains, a nearby water treatment plant regularly discharges untreated waste into Lake Erie.

The L.A. Times does a takeout on WADA's anti-doping efforts, and finds that some athletes are getting (surprise) unfairly treated.

Chelsea comes back for a 1-1 draw against Arsenal, which puts them eight points back of leading Man United with a game in hand.

Another Woodbine thoroughbred season ends, Emma-Jayne Wilson and Sid Attard winning their divisions.

Weekend surprise VIII

It wouldn't be a surprise if it showed up every weekend, would it?

DoCopenhagen did a pretty good job compiling their list a year ago of top videos of the year. Now it's back: Top 50 Music Videos of 2006  (from waxy links).

And this was going into the Friday roundup, but I got too windy and it got too long and now they've added a sequel: 50 Greatest Commercials of the '80s and 50 More Commercials from the '80s (From Giant magazine, via kottke).

One last one: Dick Cheney's Google searches, including "birdshot pellet removal" and "bunker refurbish HDTV" (Vanity Fair, via LinkMachineGo).

Into the weekend: Talking and carolling

A quote, and a little rant to start off, riffing off Wednesday's postgame in Cleveland:

"All in all, we played well. I look at it as a positive thing. We're growing as a team; we're getting better. Three weeks ago, we couldn't have come here and played that well."

And a week before this night and its four-point defeat, the Raptors were eight points better than the same Cavs - so what's up with that, coach? But I'm not picking on Sam here. He's just spinning, like all coaches do. It's more about this North American sportswriting addiction to the locker-room quote, these bromides and warmed-over cliches that we hustle down to get, wait around for, chicken-scratch into our notebooks or transcribe dutifully off the recorder. I did it for years.

Thanks to TV and now the Internet, though, pretty much everyone who cares knows what happened last night. Listening to some player or coach distill it into these little bits of nothing adds - nothing. More interesting is why it happened and how, but rarely is that explored in any depth. Even though it can be a bit pretentious, overall, I'll take the quoteless, British style of match reporting. Will Leitch said it best: access is overrated. And along these lines, here's one for you - via Kottke, former major league pitcher Don Carman's list of stock locker-room answers, favourites (and a few I've written down and banged into the keyboard) including:

7 If we stay healthy we should be right there
12 This team seems ready to gel
14 That All-Star voting is a joke
20 We've got to have fun
26 That's why they pay him _ million dollars

One last appeal. A little while back there was some fun here with the 50 Worst Things to Happen to Sports countdown. Now it's time to put together the answer list: The _ Best Things to Happen to Pro Sports. Any and all submissions appreciated. I've got nearly 20 on my own, but need more.

One last e-mailed Christmas carol. Nice work by Glenn from Arizona on this one:

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true Leafs sent to me
Twelve wingers in need of a drumming,
Eleven players and a Glenn Healy piping,
Ten forwards a-diving
Nine wankin' penalties
Eight goals a-milking,
Seven games a floundering,
Six players a-standing
A fiiiiiivvve game losing streak
Four yapping call ups
Three strung out forwards
Two blind defensemen,
And a broken hockey stick from an ash tree!

One last vidgame "think piece". Newsflash: video games like Madden NFL have enhanced kids' understanding of sports. And here we thought all it did was make them fat (Related: Toronto hosts Canada's NFL Madden finals, Jan. 20 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre).

One - make that two - last BCS bits. Usually I avoid US college football, but these are too good to pass up: Slate's Chris Suellentrop on Who's #2? and blog fave Neate Sager has his Top 5 Pointless Bowl Matchups, including the Whatchamacallit Bowl here in Toronto sometime in January, I forget when, I'll let Neate tell you:

5. INTERNATIONAL BOWL: WESTERN MICHIGAN vs. CINCINNATI, Jan. 6, Toronto There's nothing wrong with playing a bowl game in Toronto. It's just that a game that ranks below the Meineke Car Care Bowl in the NCAA pecking order should not be held just two days before the national championship game. If this game was held on Boxing Day where it belongs, no problem.

One last interview. Alanah at VCOE got her press pass from the Canucks, and thus was able to get some of those locker-room quotes (see - there's a theme here!):

Alanah: You strike me as a player that enjoys playing to the fans and this bad luck might be getting to you in a personal way.
Alex Burrows: Yeah, a little bit for sure. I haven’t scored a goal in 28 games, but you’ve just got to keep working. Like I said, the bounces aren’t going our way right now.

Alanah, go back to Don Carman's list right now! I believe this one is No. 13. Or maybe 17.

Sports around town. Woodbine's closing day goes Sunday out at the Rexdale plant, with a first post of 12:40 p.m. And here's your Sovereign Award finalists.

Watching. Arsenal at Chelsea, 11 a.m., Sunday, Fox Sports. They're both through to the Champions League knockout round - nice try there, Gooners - but it's the postgame press conference, Wenger vs Mourinho, that might be the better matchup.

Pooch punts. Jinks the Vizsla is back. Went 3-2 last week, and the tail is wagging but good this time around. Actually, it's always wagging when it's kibble or cookie time:

DETROIT (-1 1/2) over Minnesota
NY JETS (-4) over Buffalo
WASHINGTON (+1 1/2) over Philadelphia
New England (-3 1/2) over MIAMI
Denver (+7 1/2) over SAN DIEGO

Photo of the Day: What a drag

JEROME A. POLLOS/AP-COEUR D'ALENE PRESS

Kite skiing in Idaho.

Game of the Year

At least until the playoffs roll around, it is: Phoenix 161, New Jersey 157 in double OT. Nets set scoring mark and lose. Lawrence Frank suffers brainlock. Nash gone wild. As much funhouse as game, stumbling across this one hiding in one of Ted Rogers' area-code channel regions last night was like discovering plutonium by accident, to cop a Costanzaism.

AP PHOTO/BILL KOSTROUN

Nash on Kidd: Classic duel.

Lou Marsh pick Steve Nash, already with a 20-assist night earlier this week, went off for a career-hi 42. His opposite Jason Kidd answered with 38/14/14 - I think the whole "triple double" thing is kind of overdone (don't get me started on "double doubles"), but this was more legit than one of those cheesy 11-10-10's - even if it all came a-cropper when Kidd dribbled the ball off his foot on New Jersey's last possession that mattered.

Back to Nash, though. A quick recap of highlights:

- Final possession of regulation, curls off a (moving, not called) Kurt Thomas screen and hits a 3-pointer to force OT (see above L-Frank ref.).
- in OT, splits defence and finishes lefthanded, picks up the foul, makes the and-one. Amare Stoudemire and Raja Bell had already fouled out, but it didn't matter, no one - not even the sainted StocktontoMalone - runs the pick and roll as well as NashtoSuns.
- in double OT: Hits an open jumper that's within a couple of toes of another 3. Goes to Boris Diaw (pick-and-roll again) for the layup and one. Yup, goes p-'n-r with Diaw again, takes it himself, finish righthanded. Assists on Shawn Marian's fast-break layup with a looping 45-foot pass. Ices it with a pair of free throws.

Nash and Kidd each came back into the fourth quarter at the same time, playing the final 10:34 of regulation, plus the two OTs, head to head. Courtesy of Popcorn Machine's numbers for that stretch, here's the mano-a-mano:

Nash  10/12 FG (including 4/5 on 3-pters), 4 assists, 27 points
Kidd 6/13 FG, 5 assists, 20 points.

Whenever Nash has one of these nights, I flash back to the summer of 1994, and the world championships in Toronto, and the subject comes around to future pros amid the JJ Jacksons. More than one NBA scout mentioned Nash, then a pretty anonymous backup/sometime starter with Canada. "Keep your eye on him," I recall Stu Jackson saying (if only Stu had been so prescient in Vancouver, history might have worked out a little different).

Back to the present, it's Nash the back-to-back MVP and working on another. The Suns have won eight in a row, Stoudemire looks healthy, and if there's one beacon to watch through the rest of the season, they are it. Meantime, big thanks to L-Frank. This one couldn't have happened without you, coach.

Photo of the Day: Denged!

NAM Y. HUH/Associated Press

Luol Deng's shot gets deep-Sixered.

Related: The best daily-fix NBA podcast around.

Open thread: What's wrong (and right) with the Leafs (and Raptors)?

Okay, open thread time. The Leafs are free-falling, and the Raptors are tied for first place in their division. So the question is: How's the emotional ticker of your average Leafs/Raps fan reading today?

MIKE CASSESE/REUTERS

Thrashing around after another Atlanta goal.

I didn't watch the Leafs last night, but with the morning coffee this morning reviewed the DVR'd evidence, and it was pretty damning stuff. I'm not going to jump all over Andrew Raycroft. The Leafs teetered on the edge all night defensively, taking bad penalties and finally paying the price. The glaring lowlights that hit me, against a Thrashers team that boasts three top-flight snipers who were in full flow, came in the form of Paul Maurice's complaining, the continuing enigma that is Alex Steen and the defence pair of Hal Gill and Ian White, who had a brutal night.

As for the Raptors, note that Sam Mitchell has found a bit of a formula to get through the first month of the schedule ahead of schedule, after a halting start - and perhaps into January, when that schedule turns in their favour. The supersized Garbajosa-Bosh-Bargnani frontcourt, TJ Ford's continuing familiarization - all that remains is to put Morris Peterson back as a starter, a move that was strange from the start until the sore elbow provided partial cover. All Fred Jones has done so far is demonstrate why Indiana, a team that could sorely use his kind of hops, were able to say goodbye to him. But all in all, this is a group that looks like they've made strides since ditching the shot-happy approach.

Raptors up, Leafs down - and what a switch that is from a couple of weeks back. Your turn, now, on what's going on here.

Photo of the day: Hare dresser

JOHN STOREY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Tony LaRussa gets ready for the winter meetings.

Related: Tony LaRussa's wife cashes in some chips (Deadspin).

Photo of the Day: Low rider

ISAAC BREKKEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Brandie Halls and Slim do the barrels at the National Rodeo Finals in Las Vegas.

The Lou Marsh Trophy

Time for the annual Lou Marsh Trophy debate. The public vote is ongoing on the website - Cindy Klassen way ahead - colleague Damien Cox weighed in on this a while back and this morning's petroleum-based product put forth its four finalists: Ms Klassen and Messrs Nash, Morneau and Thornton.

ALEX GRIMM/REUTERS

Nash: My choice (barely), but not the public's.

I don't have a vote, but if I did - and I'm waffling here a bit - I'd buck the trend in the poll (right now, Klassen is at 53 per cent and Nash 18 per cent, well in front of the rest) and argue that Nash gets my nod ever so slightly, as the two-time MVP - rare air, that - in the biggest and best pro league of the world's No. 2 game (and averaging a career high in scoring in this followup season). Outside of a Tomas Radzinski or Jonathan de Guzman winning the Golden Ball in the world's No. 1 game, there really isn't any more outstanding achievement on a global scale - and while we're on the subject of the world's game, Christine Sinclair hasn't even entered into this year's Lou Marsh discussion. Here's the waffle, though: this is one of those either-or calls in my mind. Nash won the Lou Marsh a year ago, and Olympic athletes are penalized, in a way, in that the media making the call, like the public, pretty much ignore Olympic sports in non-Olympic years but give them huge weight otherwise. I expect Klassen to win it, and there are strong arguments in her favour -most of all, five of them, hanging around her neck. Under the most intense pressure, and all by herself, she answered the bell. Ask me who I like five minutes from now, and I may well change my mind. To me, it's that close. 

Aside from that tough call, what's really noteworthy here is how deep this list is, with Morneau and Thornton clearly up against it despite their lofty accolades. I asked departmental dean Dave Perkins, who's been part of the selection process for the last decade and a half, what he made of it. Pretty much the best he's seen, he answered. I can't argue.

PAUL CHIASSON/CANADIAN PRESS

Klassen: Five good reasons.

Go back 35 years, and up into the mid-1980s when Gretzky ruled, and it was pretty much a hockey-or-not era in the Marsh world, with very few outstanding second bananas (one exception and a tough beat was Olympic downhill champion Kathy Kreiner losing out - to Sandy Hawley of horse racing fame, a sport that barely registers now. Sandwiched around that 1976 race was the far more typical default pick of back in the day - Bobby Clarke in '75, and Guy Lafleur in 1977.)

It's a different world now. Not since 1993 has a hockey player won this race, and sorry, Joe, but that string will continue this time around. The past 10 winners came from nine different sports (kayaking being the only two-time winner in that string, with Caroline Brunet and Adam van Koeverden). Men, women, French, English - for such an exclusive award, it's a pretty inclusive list. For a country that has a hard time celebrating excellence (or funding it) in anything but hockey, nothing says more about the depth and vitality of the Canadian sports scene - and the interest engendered by this annual Lou Marsh debate - than those two trends.