FilteringCraig

I don’t know how this kid learned to dance so young, but he has got some amazing moves. Sure, he occasionally just throws his body onto the ground, but other times he is almost doing cartwheels. Amazing.

If the Cavs get nothing else from the NBA Playoffs this season, they can never take away this amazing dunk over Sheed. No question on this one as LeBron gets the basket and believe it or not… a foul to go along with it.

Have you seen the commercial where LeBron starts draining 90 foot field goals? That is fake. This, my friends, is not.

I would love to sit here from a cushy chair firmly planted on the plateau known as the “high ground.” Unfortunately, due to the circumstances in the NBA and the state of the game the way it is, I can not. Last night in Detroit the Cavs played yet another inconsistent game where they squandered a first-half lead to the Pistons. They had a 12 point lead at halftime, and yet here they were, down by one, with eight seconds to go in the fourth quarter. LeBron James drives on Rip Hamilton. Rip has his hands around LeBron’s shoulders as LeBron is backing in. As LeBron spins to his right hand for the shot, Rip continues to play physically with little bumps and then as LeBron lifts, Rip rakes his hand across LeBron’s arm as he is trying to take the shot to win the game. By almost all accounts, it was a pretty physical play and could have easily warranted a foul.

The old school says that referees should never decide the outcome of the game. Let the players play and all that. Maybe that worked in the days of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, but the game is too far gone at this point. Anyone who watched Dwyane Wade play against Dirk and the Dallas Mavericks last year would be able to testify to this. The refs had their whistles firmly planted in the plot line of that championship series. And at the end of it all, Dwyane Wade and his humongous free throw differential stood at the top of the mountain, a champion. So, don’t tell me that referees shouldn’t decide the outcome of a playoff game. They had a heavy hand in deciding the NBA championship last year.

The problem in the NBA right now is that certain guys get plenty of calls. When Michael Jordan was still playing it was a benefit of the doubt which was awarded to any player considered a superstar. And while I don’t think most of us are in awe of the players in today’s game, there are still guys getting that superstar treatment. The play that LeBron James had at the end of the game in Detroit is a call that Dwyane Wade, Dirk Nowitski, Steve Nash, Rip Hamilton, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, and plenty of other players would have had called in their favor. I really feel like none of them should get the call, but as long as we are in a position like this where those guys do get the calls, then the Cavs are at a distinct disadvantage when their best player can’t get a whistle sound out of the little metal objects that were so far down the referee’s throats that they probably can retrieve them this morning as they are sitting on the “throne” reading the paper.

That’s why LeBron needs that call. Without at least a bit of that treatment, the Cavs are at a distinct disadvantage in this series. Yes, they could have made things easier on themselves by not getting into that situation. Yes, they were unable to hold the lead, and they didn’t execute offensively in the second half. None of that really matters, though. They had a chance to win the game with under ten seconds left. They put themselves in that position and the referees put the Cavs at a disadvantage by following one of those antiquated, unwritten rules, which is just an excuse to act as a non-committal coward as you shirk your responsibilities to the integrity of the game.

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Other notes:

Chris Sheridan calls out Cavs coach Mike Brown for not criticizing the refs after the game.

Brian Windhorst prefers to talk about other problems other than the foul at the end of the game.

What would you do in this situation? I would like to think I would do something, but I would probably just run.

As we sit and wait for the Cavs to face the Pistons in their first Eastern Conference Finals since, ummm… errr….. ummm, let’s see… I think I was 13 in 1992.

Well, the Cavs are decided underdogs just like they were when they took the Pistons to 7 games last season a round earlier. Regardless of what happens, they can’t change the fact that I got to witness all these dunks from LeBron this season.

This is one of the coolest videos I have seen in a while.

This one is interesting for a completely different reason. Watch the end for the scare of a lifetime.

“Beyond AM. Beyond FM. It’s XM Satellite Radio.” Those words were all a part of the sales pitch that drove XM to the top of the satellite radio food chain. The product was advertised as an all new radio experience where the old rules and standards would not apply. Commercials weren’t a part of the mix because subscribers signed up directly. FCC regulations didn’t apply for the same reason that HBO was allowed to have graphic sex and violence on their TV shows. As of yesterday, when XM management decided to suspend controversial talkers Opie and Anthony for 30 days, all the promises and sales pitches started to ring hollow.

How did this situation get to this point? Last week, Opie and Anthony had a homeless gentleman in the studio who was riffing semi-coherent craziness. As the jocks have done many times in the past, they really stayed out of the guest’s way to let him ramble right on through to see what kind of entertaining pearls of nuttiness they could bring out of him in order to entertain numerous fans on the show that XM has proclaimed in the past is the most popular original show on the platform, excluding syndicates like ESPN and MSNBC. As the homeless man named Charlie continued to ramble, he made a comment about how he would like to have sex with Condoleeza Rice.

Now, as most of you have read, Anthony followed that up by saying something really outlandish. He wondered what it would look like to see the horror on Rice’s face as Homeless Charlie was on top of her and punching her in the face. I know how that looks in print. There is no way in the world that that could possibly be funny, right? I can understand those thoughts. It makes sense to me. The thing is that people who are reading this quote in print from their newspaper or on The Drudge Report have no idea what the context truly was.

Earlier on during Homeless Charlie’s ranting, Opie asked him what he did for money. Charlie said that he panhandles, or sometimes he would “punch an old bi*** in the face.” Keep in mind that these are the ramblings of a homeless crazy person. Opie and Anthony were running with it and taking it to whatever limits they could find to take it in order to keep the crazy talk coming. And it worked for the most part.

The thing is, when the news reports that Opie and Anthony talked about a viloent sexual assault of Condoleeza Rice, they are not reporting honestly and fairly. The way that reads, it would seem that the jocks were rooting for this to happen, when in fact, they were looking to exploit the juxtaposition of a crazy homeless man who has a penchant for bragging about making money by punching women in the face, who also happens to be attracted to a person who could be considered the most powerful woman in the country. You may not find it funny, but it is certainly without malice and/or ill will toward Ms. Rice.

And it is with that filter that I sit here feeling completely let down by the management team that was responsible for the suspension of Opie and Anthony for the next 30 days. They have been strong supporters of the Opie and Anthony show ever since it came back to XM. The management of the company have called and visited the show frequently, including EVP of Programming Eric Logan, Senior VP and Chief Programming Officer Lee Abrams, and CEO Hugh Panero. Their support of the show over the last few years including bits and segments that could easily have been deemed more offensive than anything said during the bit with Homeless Charlie is tacit approval at worst.

So, what has XM done? They have made portions of their advertising fraudulent. They have viloated the philosophy of free speech. Worst of all, they have failed to support their talent and let their subscribers down. If half the messages are true on Opie and Anthony’s fan message boards are true, XM has also let their shareholders down as thousands of Opie and Anthony fans have been cancelling their subscriptions ever since the announcement of the suspension came out yesterday afternoon.

I am debating whether to cancel my subscriptions or not. I am completely and totally livid. The Opie and Anthony show was supported for the last 3 years by XM and now for them to suspend them for something that they wouldn’t have even addressed more than two months ago is completely and totally disingenuous.

This special interest group climate is completely and totally offensive. Way more offensive than the comments that Opie and Anthony aired on their show. Also, don’t just read the article. Search out the audio. Nothing that is portrayed in comedy on the radio can properly be portrayed in print.

We will see how I feel at the end of the day, but this is not the kind of support that I want a company to show for their talent.

Also, I have a full article coming sometime soon about the double standard between radio and other forms of media. At the heart of my argument?

JV and Elvis just got suspended for doing an Asian joke with a stereotypically heavy Asian accent. In the same week, Entourage portrays Asians as people who give happy endings in massage parlors. I think they should both be ok, but why is it ok for Entourage, but unacceptable for a prank phone call to a Chinese restaurant on the radio?

If you happen to listen to all the pundits, the Cavs haven’t won impressively enough. The Cavs have won their last ten straight games, including four to end the regular season, four to sweep the Wizards, and now the first two games of their second round playoff matchup with the New Jersey Nets, but critics are still being heard. I say, let them keep talking.

A win is a win is a win is a win is a win, is a . . . nevermind. You get the picture. I am sure lots of Cavs fans out there would appreciate seeing a few more blowouts, but in the end it doesn’t matter. While slow, steady progress throughout a game to finish in the fourth quarter won’t earn a team bonus points in certain sets of “power rankings,” it will keep a team sharp and focused to not overreact to any situations. It will prepare them to play to get to the fourth quarter with the lead or within striking distance. That is exactly what the Cavs have done so far in these playoffs. And while critics have been pointing out how the Cavs don’t look all that dominant, they have played their way to a ten game winning streak. How, exactly, does that work?

And critics continue that the Wizards weren’t the same team without Caron Butler and Gilbert Arenas. That is absolutely true, but you can only expect the Cavs to beat the team that shows up to play the game. Even so, the Cavs won those four games by 15, 7, 6, and 7 in sweeping the Wizards. Give the Wizards and Antawn Jamison credit for keeping it that close.

The Cavs have now defeated the Nets in the first two games in the second round. The series moves to New Jersey for the next two contests. If the Cavs can win one of the two games in New Jersey, they will put themselves in a great position to finish the series without putting too much pressure on themselves. If they can somehow figure out how to win both games in New Jersey, I am sure the critics will again look to discredit the Cavs on a twelve game winning streak.

It really doesn’t matter. Domination can occur in different ways. It can occur during a single 40 point victory, or it can occur on a long calculated streak where a team always seems to come out on top. And I understand the criticism from a certain point of view. It is much harder to recognize the long drawn out streak. But, if you had to choose, which would you prefer?