Awful Post Season Officiating: As Seen In Score Atlanta

The officiating in the NBA Playoffs has been dreadful. It’s actually been worse than dreadful. Dreadful would be offended to know that NBA officiating was compared to it. Seriously, it’s one of the main topics of conversation among both hard core and casual basketball fans alike. We can literally tell how good or bad of a night it’s going to be once they announce who is officiating the game. Here’s a small list of names you DON’T want to see officiating your favorite team’s playoff contest (especially if your team is playing Lebron James). Joey Crawford, Mark Wunderlich, Danny Crawford, Tony Brothers, Steve Javie, Dick Bavetta , and Violet Palmer just to name a few. Stan Van Gundy wants people who have columns to write about the officiating because we won’t be fined $25,000. I’m only too happy to oblige. There’s always been favoritism towards the superstars in the league, but they’ve taken it to a whole new level of ridiculousness this postseason. The coaches and players can’t say too much because they’ll be fined which is absolutely insane. Someone should be able to say the officials were particularly terrible without being disciplined. The league has made it so the officials are free from criticism. They never have to stand up and be held accountable for their awful performances. They get to make one egregious call after another with no repercussions. It must be nice to have a job that you can blatantly suck at and not be fired for it. We should all be so lucky. You would think at this point in the playoffs only the best of the best would be allowed to work, but apparently they’re just going with the usual suspects. I don’t know what kind of grading scale they use to assess the officials performances, but it needs to be reevaluated because if these guys they’ve been trotting out are the best of the best then the league is in serious trouble. The officials have become bigger than the game and no league can survive that, not even the NBA

That short, sweet O.J. Mayo Interview I promised... Also featured in Score.

I’m the opposite of moderate, immaculately polished with the spirit of a hustler and the swagger of a college kid.”

That’s a line from Atlanta’s home-grown rapper T.I. off of the song “Live Your Life,” and that sentence pretty much sums up what rookie phenom O.J. Mayo is right now. He just has IT. He was in town recently to play the Atlanta Hawks as well as to help introduce the marketing agency Eighty81, which is opening up a new office in Atlanta. I caught up with him for a few minutes to get his thoughts on life in the league.

Calandra Coone: What’s life like in the NBA? How is it different from college?
O.J. Mayo: I think it’s all the travel, you know, the climate changes. The travel is really rough going from city to city. You go from a cold city to a warm city and you’ve really just got to make sure you get enough rest.
C.C.: You’re averaging over 20 points per game, so you seem to be adjusting pretty well. Is Rookie of the Year something you’re shooting for?
O.J.: Nah, not really. I’m not really a person who looks for individual goals. I’m more of a team-goals type of person. I’m just looking to help better our team.
C.C.: What was it like for you on draft night being traded from the Timberwolves to the Grizzlies? Did you take that personally?
O.J.: Well, it just let me know that the NBA is definitely a business. I didn’t know I got traded until I saw it on TV. So it just let me know that it’s a business and I have to maintain, be a professional and stay strong.
C.C.: Are you going to be extra-motivated when you face the Timberwolves for the first time?
O.J.: Yeah probably so, haha, probably so.

I'm back with random thoughts.

Okay I'm back. I've been gone for about a month and I really don't have a good excuse. To my 3 loyal readers, I do apologize. I guess I'll just run through my thoughts on a few of things I missed.

The Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. And to add insult to injury, they just gave Brian Cashman an extension thru 2011. Really? Really? I mean what has Cashman done to deserve an extension? I really can't think of anything right now. I am of the thinking he needs to go. And, he should take Hank with him. Neither of them have a clue at this point. The players were all pretty much horrible this season. Melky and Cano regressed. Jeter and A-Rod struggled. Johnny Damon still throws like a girl. Carl Pavano made it back and he started more games towards the end of the season than he's started in any of the seasons combined prior to this one. Okay, that's not true, but it feels like it. Joba got hurt. Wang got hurt. Cashman didn't do anything to address those issues and keep the team in contention. Luckily we get 3 more seasons of this type of inactivity.

Gilbert Arenas had to undergo another surgery just months after signing that monstrous contract. Penny Hardaway was his favorite player growing up. Looks to me like he's following in Penny's footsteps.

Jaguars offensive lineman Richard Collier was shot 14 times in the month of September and has just had to have his leg amputated. He's also paralyzed from the waist down. It's just a horrible situation and the NFL needs to do something to address player safety. Yeah he was out in the early hours of the morning, but you know what I hang out like that on the weekends too and it doesn't mean I want to get shot. The league can't expect these players to just go to practice and games then spend the rest of their time at home so they need to take small steps to look out for these guys. One thing they need to consider is not publicizing these players salaries all over the world wide web. Of course we all assume a player is making a lot of money since he's in the NFL, but we don't need to know exactly how much.

My Eagles are off to a 2-2 start. Brian Westbrook missed the last game with an ankle injury and the team looked lost without him. They are so average when he's not on the field it's ridiculous. And to think they were hesitant about paying him more money. He should go back to the negotiating table and ask for even more money as far as I'm concerned.

Roger Federer won the U.S. Open. I knew he wouldn't go through the whole year without winning one of the four major tournaments. He is getting a little long in the tooth though. We'll see if he's still able to catch Pete Sampras.
Serena Williams won on the women's side. She regained the #1 ranking for the first time in a handful of years.

The Hawks open up training camp soon and I can't wait to see what this new team looks like. They decided to keep Mike Woodson around because those two weeks in the playoffs apparently mean more than the 4 years preceding them. I'll have more on this later. Okay this post is so random, I'm gonna let it go, but I'll be back with an NBA preview soon.