Sports Blog

Today NBA free agents can officially sign with a team.  After a week of being able to shop around, most know where they are going or have agreed to verbal agreements already.  For the most part all the big names have already stated where they are going, but until it’s official, anything can happen.  The NBA has already announced that the salary cap will be lowered for next year.  This will affect effect teams decision to sign a big free agent that will put them over the cap and force them to pay a tax.  With the economy the way it is I think teams will be less willing to go over this year.  We’ll just have to see what happens.  Here is a list of some free agents that have already gave their verbal decision.

Ron Artest, SF - Signed with Lakers

Good signing as both sides have been wanting to join forces for a while.  This gives the Lakers some much needed toughness and allows Kobe to get rest on defense as Artest can shut down the other teams best player.  The only bad thing is they lose fan favorite Trevor Ariza.

Trevor Ariza, SF - Signed with Rockets

This is pretty much like a trade for Ron Artest as they will trade places.  I think that Ariza will be kicking himself for years after he tried to hard ball the Lakers for more money, then accepting the same deal in Houston.  He was great for the Lakers but that was only for a year.  He needs to prove he can do it for longer.

Shannon Brown , G - Re-signed with Lakers
In keeping Brown, the Lakers will pretty much have the same team, assuming Lamar Odom signs, as last year and might even be better will Artest.  Brown gives energy off the bench and he is very athletic.  I see a repeat coming!

Rasheed Wallace, C - Signed with Celtics

This signing makes the Celtics the team to beat in the east again.  Although he is older now, teaming him with KG will be deadly in the middle.  I see another Lakers-Celtics Finals.

Jason Kidd, G - Re-signed with Mavs

There was some temptation to join the Knicks, but in the end the Mavs could offer more money and wanted him the most.  Though they still cant compete with the elite teams, this signing will at least keep them competitive for the fans.

Ben Gordon, G - Signed with Pistons

Good signing for the Pistons as Ben is a good player, but it still doesn’t make them better than the big three in the east (Magic, Celtics, Cavs).  The fact is that the Pistons want a shot at Lebron next year and having Ben might help.  We’ll see.

Hedo Turkolgu, F - Signed with Raptors

After having a great playoffs, Hedo wanted to cash in as he’s not getting any younger.  And, that he did getting almost $10 million a year from the Raptors.  I guess winning a championship isn’t that important to him.

Image Source: Getty Images

Congrats to the Celtics.  The series was a strange one, but you did it! 

So, what exactly happened last night?  I was at the Angel’s game eavesdropping in on this nice guy’s radio behind me.  I couldn’t hear everything at certain times (like when the crowd would cheer because the Angels were kicking butt- Figgins is back batting .305 & Lackey pitched an awesome game), but the staduim also flashed the score on the Angel’s scoreboard a few times.  I didn’t even want to talk as much smack about the Lakers (mainly Kobe) as I usually do because it was pretty unreal that they went out like that. 

I kept wondering what records were broken last night.  The man with the radio informed me that the Celtics had the most steels in a Finals game, Allen Perkins hit 7 3-pointers which made a Finals record & I understand there were even more records made.    What a dissapointing game for fans.  Imagine, you build the game up so much, you get all your friends together to watch & this is how it goes down?  I also, tried to watched the ten minute version of the game on NBA.com, but although I don’t personally like the Lakers, it was painful to watch.  I also listened to AM 570 (an LA station which covers all the Laker games) & Matt “Money” Smith was asked by a caller if he thinks that the Lakers would make any big changes for next year.  He responded saying that the Lakers might be looking to get Posey.  Interesting.

Image Source: ESPN.com

Here’s what happened this weekend in sports:

Will it be Tiger or Mediate? The two will face off today in an 18-hole playoff (Noon EST) to decide who will win the 2008 US Open title.

Tiger usually wins when he is up the day before, but he was struggling yesterday because of his hurt knee, but I’m pretty hopeful he will be able to do his thing today.

Lakers win game 5 – I honestly thought they weren’t going to pull it off & I know die-hard fans were pretty disgruntled because of their horrible performance during game 4, especially with sports casters reminding them that no team has ever come back when down by 3-1 to win a title.

So, basically the Lakers will make history of they pull it off. The refs were pretty lenient on the Lakers especially in the last few minutes of the game.  Anyway, I’m sure the Celtics would rather win their final game at home.  :)       

Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the LifeLock 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race! Before this long anticipated victory he was on a 76 race losing streak!

He actually was supposed to run out of gas way before the finish line according to his pit crews estimations, but miraculously he an out of gas just shortly after crossing the finish line.

Turkey beats the Czech Republic to make it to the Euro 2008 Quarterfinals. Turkey’s team captain, Nihat Kahveci, scored two goals in the last three minutes of the game. Pretty awesome.  Check out the game highlights here.

Image Source:  NBA.com, ESPN.com, Boston.com, Telegraph.co.uk