THE KING OF POOP

Stu Being Stu

Stu Scott is the worst.  He is worse than the worst.  He is worse than a Chris Berman-Joe Morgan lovechild.  Does he even watch sports?  Do they let him out of the studio just so he can drop nuggets like: “Just think about the players that Shaq has played with: Anfernee Hardaway, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, LeBron James.”  Wow.  Just, wow.  Thank you for stopping the world so we can melt with that profound profoundness.  And let’s not forget his “Shaq plus LeBron equals NBA Championship!” outburst that was immediately buried by the rest of the panel.  You know, the people that are actually experts (with the exception of Mark Jackson who said that Vince Carter is superior to Hedo Turk in every capacity.  By my count VC does have a commanding lead in Sulking, Cry Babying, Injurying, Quitting, and Pouting.).

But enough of the negative negativism.  The NBA Draft is easily one of the best nights of the entire year-we’ve got trades and rumors of trades, scuttlebutt, great highlights and no Craig Sager, so there’s really no downside at all.  I was of course expecting the Clippers to F-up the first pick and take Taylor Griffin instead of Blake but Dunleavey came through in the clutch like only he can and properly used his telephone.  Nice going, Mike.  I am interested to see what the Clippers are going to do with this embarrassment of riches in the front court…it’s too bad the League is in such a financial mess because there’s so much talent that’s going to be languishing on benches that expansion would make sense from a talent standpoint.  Van Gundy may have had the quote of the night before the draft started with his “there’s only about 9-10 teams actually trying to win it and about 20 that are just trying to save money” comment.  Sad but true.

Besides Griffin, who (admit it) may very well have the best NCAA highlight reel of all time, I’m really interested to see what happens with Rubio-G. Snide and I sent emails to each other at the exact same time yesterday with the exact opposite sentiments about him, GS coming with, “Love Rubio, he could end up being really special” and me saying, “he could be a total and complete Ray Felton/TJ Ford semi-bust.”  I really want to like him and since he’s only 18 we have to assume he hasn’t hit his ceiling but I’m skeptical about PGs that can’t shoot and are going to be expected to contain the best athletes in the world on the defensive end.  As much as I would like to see the next Pistol Pete or Steve Nash I don’t think someone who might shoot 40% and be a defensive liability is ever likely enough to get enough minutes to be a star in the NBA.

And even though there is a 99% chance I end up missing the USA/Brazil game Sunday morning (11:00 our time, ESPN) make sure you set your DVRs accordingly…we are going to lose the tornado-inside-of-a-volcano match but it’s an honor just to be nominated.