Chief Noc-A-Homa was the super racist mascot for the Atlanta Braves from the 1950s until 1986. He was beloved by fans and best known for emerging from a tepee in the bleachers to rally the hometown crowd.
Black Lips is a band from Atlanta and wanted to pay homage to the former mascot. “Noc-A-Homa” is their song about the former Braves mascot. The video depicts a present-day Chief Noc-A-Homa who has fallen down on his luck. He enacts his revenge for being humiliated for years. Continue reading
ESPN’s College Gameday will have a new face this fall. Samantha Steele-Ponder will be called up to the Majors and take the spot vacated by Erin Andrews, who recently left to join Fox Sports.
Steele has been working at the Longhorn Network and worked sideline duty at various college football and basketball games for ESPN.
With the departure of Michelle Beadle and Andrews, she will most likely be the new female face of ESPN along with Charissa Thompson and Sara Walsh.
We fill you in on Steele’s background and attach a mini photo gallery to help you get to know her a little better.
Steele-Ponder, 26, is a graduate of Liberty University and her father is a football coach. She worked for Fox Sports Net and Fox College Sports before landing a job at the Longhorn Network.
She will be hosting the pre-Gameday show on ESPNU at 9am, helping at the College Gameday broadcast on ESPN, and take over sideline reporting duties during the Thursday and Saturday night football games. She will be thrust into the spotlight and college boys will surely be giving her the same rude catcalls they yelled at Andrews for years.
She’s the perfect addition to the broadcasts. She’s professional, extremely likable, and cute as a button.
Here is an ESPN podcast that introduces Steele as the new addition to College Gameday.
If you wish to follow her on Twitter, she can be found @SamSteelePonder. We wish Miss Steele the best of luck this fall.
Steele married Christian Ponder during the 2012 NFL season. He is a very lucky guy!
Here are a few pictures of Samantha Ponder on the job.
(photo credits: Samantha Steele-Ponder, Getty Images, and ESPN)
The New York Knicks made everyone anxiously wait for their decision on Jeremy Lin. I haven’t seen so many will they/won’t they moments since Ross and Rachel sucked the life out of “Friends”.
New York finally made their decision and opted not to match the offer sheet that Jeremy Lin signed with the Houston Rockets.
Lin, 23, will receive $25.1 million over three years, a price the Knicks couldn’t see as the correct value for the point guard phenom.
Houston was sneaky and their offer sheet included a back-loaded contract that would have paid Lin $14.8 million in the third year of the contract. The Knicks would have been over the luxury tax and cost them nearly $43 million in salary + “repeat offender” luxury tax.
Lin came out yesterday and said that he would have loved to finish his career as a member of the New York Knicks. It’s the politically correct thing to say, but it was sincere. Lin was a borderline NBA player before he found himself in New York.
Jeremy Lin didn’t need his Harvard education to know that signing Houston’s offer sheet was the smartest decision he could make. No one can blame Lin for signing it. He had a very exciting six-week run last year before injuring his knee. He had a few moments of vulnerability, most notably a 1-11 shooting night against the Miami Heat. A $25 million dollar offer might not be there in a few seasons.
Carmelo Anthony’s comments earlier this week about Lin’s offer sheet being a ‘ridiculous’ amount of money didn’t help the situation. Lin had most of his success when Anthony was injured and one would have to believe that jealousy could have lead to that comment. If Lin had stayed, he would have taken away from Anthony’s spotlight.
The Knicks wouldn’t have been able to pay him near the $8 million annually that Houston will pay him. His marketability will be hurt by not staying in New York, but Yao Ming did very well as a member of the Rockets.
Goran Dragic and Kyle Lowy already out of town. The core players on the team are very young. Royce White, Terrence Jones, and Jeremy Lamb will be contributing right away as rookies (if they aren’t moved in an escalated attempt to sign Dwight Howard…ugh).
The Rockets will be Lin’s team. I look forward to watching them in 2012-13…they will be a lot of fun.
After the parade of arrests that plagued this NFL offseason, Dez Bryant finds himself as the Grand Marshall.
The Dallas Cowboys wide receiver was arrested on Monday on charges of misdemeanor domestic violence from an incident that occurred last Saturday. He turned himself in and was released on $1,500 bail.
The local police says that Bryant allegedly “slapped his mother across the face and pulled her hair.” Bryant’s mother says that she had pain and swelling from the assault.
Should the NFL step in and discipline Bryant or should the Dallas Cowboys do the right thing and take care of their own players? Is this the last straw or does Bryant deserve and third or fourth chance?
Let’s paint a clear picture of what kind of off-seasons Bryant has had since his rookie season.
He was first arrested in a Dallas area mall for using inappropriate language and wearing saggy pants.
Aside from stealing something, do you realize how hard it is to get arrested at a mall? I’ve done some pretty insane things in malls as a youth and I’ve never been arrested. I had a security guard chase me around for something my friend had done, but Paul Blart’s stunt double couldn’t catch us.
Bryant then found himself in handcuffs again in January when he had an alleged altercation at a Miami Beach nightclub. He was detained, but never charged with a crime.
Both of these incidents seem minor in the shadow of his recent altercation.
Dallas needs to realize that they need to do something to control Bryant before his actions get even more out of control. If he can slap his own mother, he could easily find himself in a Pacman Jones-like situation. A bad temper is a magnet for trouble.
Deion Sanders used to be Bryant’s mentor, but since the mall incident, the two haven’t kept in touch. He needs another figure who has been in his shoes and can lead him away from causing trouble and build him up. I agree with Dan Graziano from ESPN Dallas, who wrote a post about how the Cowboys need to help him, not dump him.
I do believe that Dallas should suspend him for a few games and police themselves. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will step in and punish him if the Cowboys don’t punish Bryant and/or not punish him enough.
This is bigger than football. The man is lost. No one should ever strike their mother. I hope he finds his way before he finds himself in jail for something even worse.
The MLB trade rumor mill is in full force. Every beat writer conjures up a scenario in which every player could be traded. I think the current trade market is filled with every player in the MLB not named Bryce Harper or Andrew McCutchen.
Giancarlo Stanton found his name on the trading block thanks to ESPN’s Buster Olney (ESPN Insider needed).
The Miami Marlins opened up a beautiful new stadium this season, but currently find themselves at 43-36. They are nine games out in the NL East and six games out of the a Wild Card spot. Things aren’t dire, but they would need to leapfrog many teams to make the playoffs.
Who else is on the trading block on the Marlins? Could another Florida team also be sellers at the trading deadline?
Olney goes on to say that Omar Infante and Josh Johnson could also find themselves on the trading block if the Marlins stumble after the All-Star break.
Stanton is currently on the disabled list with an injured knee. He will be out about a month, so trading him by July 31st could be difficult or nearly impossible. He would be their best trade piece if they decide to completely rebuild, but I believe that Stanton is their franchise player to build around. He is hitting .284 with 19 homers and 50 RBI…on pace for a monster season.
The Marlins had plenty of prospects come through Miami and fizzle out. Dan Uggla, Jeremy Hermida, Josh Willingham, and Mike Jacobs didn’t do a whole lot for the franchise. They currently have Gabby Sanchez, Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez, and Logan Morrison not living up to their hype. Stanton destroyed the minors and he keeps improving. He’s not a guy you want to give up on.
Johnson has about $20 million left on his contract through the rest of this season and the 2013 season. It is a fair price for a #1 starter, if he can stay healthy. They would get a nice haul for him, especially if he’s traded to a contender with a stocked farm system. The Pittsburgh Pirates, Texas Rangers, or Detroit Tigers would be ideal trade partners, since they have an abundance of top-tier prospects to trade.
Second base is a very shallow position in MLB. Major offensive production from the position is rare these days. Infante is the current prototypical second baseman. He bats around .275 with low double-digit power and steals. He would be a nice stopgap for a team who has no current answer at second. He’s an excellent defensive player with a .989 and .981 fielding percentage the last two seasons.
I contacted Tom Green, the associate reporter for MLB.com who covers the Miami Marlins, about Miami’s trade rumors. He calms Marlins fans down by saying he “doesn’t see them selling Giancarlo or J.J.”
Heath Bell, Carlos Zambrano, and even newly-acquired Carlos Lee could also find themselves bring shopped at the deadline. Bell is having a disastrous season so far and with Juan Carlos Oviedo (formerly Leo Nunez) coming back from suspension, could find himself booted permanently from the closer role.
At the end of Olney’s blog post, he also mentions that if the Tampa Bay Rays keep sliding, they could also start to reload their team.
It’s hard to pinpoint the players who have a lot of trade value, but Kyle Farnsworth, Jeff Keppinger, and Luke Scott seem like players who are expendable. They wouldn’t get a huge haul, but with the need for bullpen help, Farnsworth would get the most in return.
Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey is slowly going insane.
He has been trying to acquire Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard for months. The amount of trades he has offered/completed in order to gain pieces to entice the Magic would make any man snap.
It doesn’t make Morey’s job any easier when Howard publicly announces that he would only sign an extension with the Brooklyn Nets.
Well, ESPN reported that Morey is about to propose the Magic an offer they can’t refuse. How much can Houston afford to offer a team for a player who has no intentions on staying more than one season?
Want to know what Morey is offering? Check it out after the jump…
The rumored offer is so lopsided and ridiculous that it is hard to believe that a GM would ever offer this deal.
Orlando Magic would receive: Kevin Martin, Patrick Patterson, Marcus Morris, Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lamb, Royce White, Terrence Jones, and at least two future first-round & second-round draft picks, AND Toronto’s 2013 first-round pick (potential lottery pick).
Houston Rockets would receive: Dwight Howard, Jason Richardson, Glen Davis, Chris Duhon, and Hedu Turkoglu.
Let that offer sink in for a few seconds.
…WHAT THE HELL, DARYL?!
Houston would be sending the Magic a top-of-the-rotation guy (Martin), their last two draft classes, and their next few drafts will be worthless without first-round picks.
What’s sad is that I really like what the Rockets did in this year’s NBA draft. Lamb, White, and Jones are NBA-ready and could all be rotation guys in their rookie season. They would be throwing it away for a shot at convincing Howard that Houston is where he belongs.
Houston would just receive Howard, who may only stay one season, and a bunch of deadweight contracts. The Magic will have a clean slate to rebuild the team in the post-Howard era.
I have a feeling that Morey was a nerd in high school. He probably had a crush on the head cheerleader (Dwight Howard). He would stay at home and think up scenarios in which she would agree to go on a date with him. He finally put together the absolute perfect plan in which he would ask her out and there would be no chance she would say no. The plan would consist of Morey riding to school in a carriage with white horses. He would be dressed in a tuxedo with tails and have a dozen roses ready to give to her (trade entire team for Howard). He would ride in front of the entire school, gives her the roses and ask her out…she would say ‘yes’ (Dwight agrees to play one season with Houston). They would go out on a date, it goes alright, and he would drop her off at home at the end of the date. He would assume that a second date is right around the corner and his life is perfect (Howard contract extension).
Well, Morey wasn’t aware that the entire school was laughing at him when pulled up in a horse-driven carriage (every NBA GM & fans). The head cheerleader said yes because she didn’t want to seem like a bitch. Also, after their date, the captain of the football team was in her driveway waiting to sneak up to her room (Brooklyn Nets).
This is a move that can and will get a general manager fired. If this deal goes through and Howard doesn’t sign an extension, he will be responsible for two separate GMs losing their jobs (Orlando’s former GM Otis Smith was fired after the season).
Everyone knows that Morey is a smart guy. He speaks at the Sloan Conference at MIT every year about using advanced metrics in sports. He is helping to pave the way by relying on new statistics to build a professional basketball team…but, I don’t see how he could argue that this trade is logical by using statistics to back it up. “Dork Elivs” is getting a little too cute and maybe the eyeball test is all someone needs to know that this is a horrible deal.
I feel sorry for Rockets fans. You have a GM who clearly has a gambling problem and he’s playing with your money. This would truly be a ‘Dwightmare’ for Houston.
The Indiana Pacers and Dallas Mavericks agreed on a trade this afternoon. Point guard Darren Collison and swingman Dahntay Jones were sent to the Dallas Mavericks for French center Ian Mahinmi.
Dallas had to finish a sign and trade with Mahinmi to complete the deal. Iahinmi will receive $16 million over the next for seasons. Collison and Jones are both in the last year of their deals.
Dallas signed Chris Kaman today and made Mahinmi expendable.
Lance Stephenson and Orlando Johnson will be taking Jones’ role. Have they impressed enough in Summer League to commit that much to the pair?
We breakdown which team will benefit the most from this trade.
The Indiana Pacers just signed Roy Hibbert to a max deal and needed a backup center. Longtime member of the Pacers, Jeff Foster retired mid-season and left a hole at center. They signed Kyrylo Fesenko as a stopgap, but he never produced at the position. That meant more minutes for Lou Amundson, who was streay and currently an unrestricted free agent.
Ian Mahinmi has had limited success in the NBA with the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks. He hasn’t logged many minutes and averaged a career-best 18.7 minutes per game in 2011-12. He has the potential to be an upgrade over Amundson. The Pacers will know what they have by second season of this deal.
Collison and Jones both lost playing time last season. George Hill overtook the Collison’s spot as starting point guard. Jones lost playing time to Lance Stephenson and Leandro Barbosa. They lost playing time because of the emergence of younger talent and from the Barbosa trading deadline deal. They are still very talented and Dallas need their skill-sets.
Dallas will reap the benefits of this trade right away. They lost Jason Kidd and Jason Terry via free agency and Collison and Jones will help immediately. The Mavericks tried to hit a home run by shedding payroll in hopes of signing Deron Williams or Dwight Howard, but those deals never materialized. They must go on without them and surround Dirk Nowitzski with enough talent to make the playoffs.
This deal is a win/win for both teams. The Pacers needed a backup center and Mahinmi’s upside and size made him attractive. Dallas needed to fill their roster this season and only had to commit one year to both of these players. They are setting themselves up with enough cap space to go after big names next off-season. Both teams got what they wanted and rid themselves of unneeded talent.
This should finally end all of the Dwight Howard to Brooklyn trade rumors…until January 15th.
According to the The Star-Ledger, Lopez and the Brooklyn Nets agreed on a maximum-salary contract of $61 million over four years.
The deal means the Nets are officially out of the Dwight Howard sweepstakes. Teams are not able to newly-signed players, other than sign and trade deals, until January 15th, 2013. Lopez will be Brooklyn’s starting center at the opening of the 2012-13 season.
What does this mean for Dwight Howard? Is this a smart move by Brooklyn? Will Howard’s asking price drop by January?
Howard appears to be the odd man out in Orlando. He has done everything but spit on the Magic franchise since he “injured” his back late last season and missed the playoffs. The big man has made it clear that he wants out and his relationship with the team is beyond fractured.
I look for Howard to realize he can’t put a Magic jersey back on and forces a trade to another team. Magic fans will no longer embrace him and he has to go.
The Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers have made it clear that they would like to trade for him, even if it’s a rental for one season. Those teams believe they could entice Howard to sign a long-term deal once he is within the organization. Brooklyn made a similar gamble when they traded with the Utah Jazz for Deron Williams…he just signed a long-term deal to stay with Brooklyn.
The Nets are looking more and more like a playoff team. Their team currently has Lopez, Williams, Joe Johnson, Gerald Wallce, MarShon Brooks (who’s underrated), and Mirza Teletovic in their rotation. This team looks like a top-five seed in the Eastern Conference.
I feel like this isn’t the last time we will hear Dwight Howard & Brooklyn Nets in the same sentence, but this should end that trade rumor for a few months.
In what could be the most ‘sneaky good’ signing of this off-season so far, according the ESPN’s Marc Stein, the Memphis Grizzlies signed Jerryd Bayless.
Memphis hopes that he will fill the void left by the all-but-certain departure of O.J. Mayo. He will be in line to backup starting point guard Mike Conley.
Bayless, 23, has already bounced around the league and has yet to live up to his potential. He was a lottery pick coming out of the University of Arizona. He has not averaged more than 22.7 minutes per game in his career.
He is coming off his best season as a pro by averaging 11.4 points per game and shooting 42.3% from behind the arc. He played the 2011-12 season with the Toronto Raptors.
The terms of his deal are yet to be disclosed, we will update when they are announced.
Here’s a video of Tom Brady singing Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”. The editing of this video must have taken weeks. This is just amazing…thank you Kristen Radu for sharing this with me.
If you’re looking for NBA free agent information, you want everything, we have everything!
The Miami Heat didn’t win the championship with only three guys, they needed to fill out their roster with competent players. The players who sign and appear on the last page of the sports section are just as important.
Players can officially sign with a team starting on July 11th. The listings below are the confirmed contract agreements so far. Bookmark this page, since I will be updating this post daily as the official free agent signings start rolling in.
Check out who your team has signed and other available free agents for the 2012-13 NBA season.
Continue reading
There is one theme that stands out early in the 2012-13 off-season…NBA GMs are spending a lot of money on guys who may end up as deadweight. Free agents are not able to sign with teams until July 11th, but the confirmed agreements have been rolling in already.
Middle-of-the-road teams are offering inflated contracts to restricted free agents who are tied to teams that lack salary cap space. Due to the new collective-bargaining agreement, the luxury tax raises to a point where it will cost owners a lot of money to go over. Players will still need to sign those offer sheets, but talent could find the money too difficult to resist.
Which players have already been overpaid this off-season? Here are the top ten most overpaid free agents so far this off-season.
Jeremy Lin: Knicks/Rockets – 4 years / $29 million
The Houston Rockets offered Lin this contract and the New York Knicks can match it. ESPN’s Marc Stein tweeted that the Knicks will match any deal he is offered. Darren Rovell would say that this contract is a bargain. The sheer merchandise sales should exceed $29 million dollars. I agree that the Asian market will support Lin, should the Rockets or Knicks be worried about giving this much money to a guy who had a nice three week run last season? If he doesn’t play well or gets injured, he won’t earn the team anything. Yao Ming was injured for most of the last three seasons he played and I doubt Houston got their money’s worth.
Omer Asik: Bulls/Rockets – 3 years / $25.1 million
The Rockets are really trying to piss off teams near the luxury tax. The Chicago Bulls aren’t in a position to match Houston’s offer of three years for $25.1 and shouldn’t. He played some key minutes for the Eastern Conference champions, but paying Asik $8 million a year for 3.1 points and 5.8 rebounds per game is very steep. Rockets GM Daryl Morey is a smart guy, but he is making some questionable offers early this off-season.
Jeff Green: Boston Celtics – 4 years / $36 million
Green is coming back from major heart surgery. His health is a major concern, but he never meshed with the team when he came over in the Kendrick Perkins trade. He doesn’t have a set position, plays defense poorly, and doesn’t rebound well at any position. Boston is taking a huge gamble by giving him a four-year deal. I worry that this will be a regrettable contract by this time next year.
Michael Beasley: Phoenix Suns – 3 years / $18 million
At first glance, $18 million dollars isn’t much money for three years in the NBA. Beasley has had limited success in the league, but he has yet to live up to his college hype. He is undersized for his position with off the court issues. The Suns aren’t going anywhere as an organization and Beasley is known to disappear in games. I don’t see this signing working out for either party.
Nicolas Batum: Trail Blazers/Timberwolves – 4 years / $45 million
Before I go on a rant on how this contract is bad, I just want to add that this deal could be worth as much as $50 with bonuses. Batum has as much potential as any young free agent available this off-season. Minnesota is offering him ridiculous money knowing that there is a small chance that Portland will/can match it. Portland is currently in the hunt for Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert and can’t overspend to keep Batum. Minnesota’s offer for Batum assures they have little faith in former #2 overall Derrick Williams. They are currently trying to trade him, but has yet found a suitor. I hope Batum lives up to the deal, but he may never live up to this big deal.
Steve Nash: Los Angeles Lakers – 3 years / $27 million
The Lakers had to trade two first-round picks and two second-round picks for the opportunity to overpay the 38-year old Steve Nash. The lauded Suns training staff has resurrected the careers of Shaquille O’Neal, Great Hill and has kept Nash looking fresh. Unless the Lakers have another move in line, say a trade for Dwight Howard, I don’t get this contract. They played well with Ramon Sessions and they could have re-signed him for half of Nash’s contract and wouldn’t have needed to trade draft picks. It will be interesting to see how Kobe and Nash will handle the last five minutes of a close game. Both players need the ball in their hands to be effective.
Landry Fields: Toronto Raptors – 3 years / $20 million
The Raptors couldn’t sign Nash, so they made a hasty decision and offered Fields an inflated contract. If Nash broke up with them, Fields is their rebound. Fields was a second-round pick and exceeded expectations. $20 million is a lot of money to offer a guy who has yet to score more than 9.7 points per game and saw a drop in every major offensive category in 2011-12.
George Hill: Indiana Pacers – 5 years / $40 million
As a Pacers fan, writing Hill’s name in this column stings a little. I think Hill is a good player and believe that he deserves to be the starting point guard over Darren Collison, but this deal feels bad. He is a local Indianapolis product and even went to college at IUPUI (Indiana-Purdue Indianapolis), but he doesn’t put butts in the seats. The Pacers had the second-worst attendance in the NBA for a team who had the #3 seed in the Eastern Conference. If they lose Roy Hibbert to Portland, this money can’t be used to sign a marquee player to fill the hole in the frontcourt.
Gerald Wallace: Brooklyn Nets – 4 years / $40 million
The (then) New Jersey Nets got themselves in trouble by shipping a lottery pick to Portland for 20+ games with Gerald Wallace. If they didn’t re-sign him, the trade would have went down as one of the most lopsided deals this decade. He had all of the cards and the Nets had to overpay him in order to not look like fools. Money will be tight for Brooklyn since they also re-signed Deron Williams and acquired Joe Johnson from the Atlanta Hawks in a trade.
O.J. Mayo: Unknown – Too Much Money
Mayo has yet to sign with a team and he has plenty of suitors. The Pacers, Bulls, Suns, and Celtics are among the favorites to land him. They will have to pay a premium price for a player who hasn’t lived up to his potential (see: Michael Beasley). NBA GMs believe that he has yet to be pushed and would respond positively. Mayo did improve his numbers last season, but if he were to go to, let’s say the Pacers, he would be coming off the bench. Paul George should be entrenched as the starting shooting guard. Mayo will be receiving starter’s money this off-season.
Others candidates rumored to be overpaid
Courtney Lee
Chris Kaman
J.J. Hickson
Shannon Brown
Marcus Camby
Boris Diaw
Raymond Felton
Randy Foye
Lou Williams
Gerald Green
Jordan Hill
Josh Howard
Kris Humphries
Carl Landry
JaVale McGee
Anthony Randolph
DeShawn Stevenson
I’m sure there will be other free agents signing outrageous contracts during the 2012-13 off-season. The GMs will slowly bankrupt teams with dumb contracts on teams whose amnesty clause has already been used. There is nothing the fans can do to stop them from spending the salary cap money so freely even though we’re the ones who pay for it in the end with higher ticket prices.
Yay!
