"Best Athlete" Quarter-Finals
We have advanced to the quarter-finals of the first ever Sports Action “Best Athlete” Bracket. There were several upsets in the first round and could be many more before this bracket is all said and done. Here is how the bracket now breaks down.
In the Deion Sanders Bracket the top overall seed, LeBron James, moved on over Miami Heat teammate Dwyane Wade. He will face the only UFC athlete in the competition, Jon “Bones” Jones, in the next round after Jones upset fourth seeded Bryce Harper of the MLB‘s Washington Nationals. The Boston Red Sox’s Carl Crawford, a three-sport all-state athlete in high school and number six seed in this bracket, also pulled the upset over the Philadelphia Eagles’ DeSean Jackson and will face Calvin “Megatron” Johnson in the quarters.
In the Bo Jackson half of the bracket the second overall seed Blake Griffin advanced easily, and now will face Dwight Howard who beat out the Atlanta Falcons’ Tony Gonzalez, who has been called one of the best athletes in NFL history. Finally Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers upset fellow NFLer Jimmy Graham of the New Orleans Saints, who played both basketball and football at The University of Miami, and will be facing Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder who dispatched the only soccer player in the bracket, Christiano Ronaldo.
Here is how the quarters look:
Deion Sanders Bracket
1. LeBron James vs. 5. Jon “Bones” Jones
2. Calvin Johnson vs. 6. Carl Crawford
Bo Jackson Bracket
1. Blake Griffin vs. 5. Dwight Howard
2. Russell Westbrook vs. 6. Cam Newton
We will post these on social media so people can vote, or you can vote by leaving a comment on this page. Voting will close tonight at midnight and the results will be announced in the morning tomorrow.
Unfair Suspension Mar’s Heat/Pacers Game 6
The Miami Heat‘s starter, and top “enforcer”, Udonis Haslem has been suspended for tonight’s game 6. For any of you who watched game 5 you have a pretty good idea about why he was suspended. Early in the second quarter on Tuesday Indiana forward Tyler Hansbrough committed a flagrant foul, later moved to a flagrant two, on Miami star Dwayne Wade. Later on in the quarter Hansbrough was driving to the basket when Haslem came in from the left side of the key and laid a hard foul on Indiana’s enforcer.
Now if both players had been suspended I would have no problem with it at all. But the NBA came out yesterday and announced that Haslem had been suspended for tonight’s game, and Hansbrough had not.
Now I understand that, for the most part, the person who acts in retaliation for an act like the one that Hansbrough committed is usually the one to get the technical in the NBA. But this is a special situation because the NBA went back, looked at the replays, and then based it’s decision for suspensions on that.
It is a travesty that the NBA, after looking at the replays, came to the conclusion that it would suspend only Haslem and not Hansbrough simply because Hansbrough’s foul was a more blatant flagrant, it LED to Haslem’s retaliation, and Hansbrough’s foul on Wade resulted in a cut on Wade’s face while Hansbrough popped right back up after being fouled by Haslem.
Official NBA Playoffs Picks
Almost mid-way through the NBA Playoffs me and Jonnie Motomochi have gone back and forth on our picks and who we feel is playing the best. This week on the show I made my final picks for the rest of the playoffs. Here they are:
Conference Semis
Spurs already advanced
Lakers/Thunder- Thunder in 5 (ends tonight)
Celtics/Sixers- Sixers in 6 (hasn’t changed)
Heat/Pacers- Heat in 7 (had them in a sweep, didn’t happen that way I guess)
Conference Finals
Thunder/Spurs-Thunder in 7 (best series of the playoffs thus far)
Heat/Sixers- Heat in 5 (Philly doesn’t have the height of Indiana, but the Sixers will make the games close)
NBA Finals
Heat/Thunder-Heat in 6 (Bosh will be back and finally at full strength, LeBron finally wins title)
The individual match ups in the NBA Finals will make it one for the ages. LeBron and Durant will battle, Westbrook and Wade will provide highlight reel plays, Bosh and Ibaka will bang down low and hit their outside jumpers. Spoelstra and Brooks are two of the best young coaches in the NBA right now. This will be the best NBA Finals since the 1998 Bulls/Jazz Finals.
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