Wednesday Morning Starting Five: The Michael Vick Has Paid His Debt to Society Edition
The Eastern Conference Finals preview will be posted in the early afternoon. Crazy the Magic has played 13 playoff games versus 8 for the Cavs. Are the Cavs having too much fun?
Michael Vick is released to home confinement. Forget the Wildcat, he’s a quarterback. 
(CNN.com)
Great Game 1 between Denver and Los Angeles. Kobe with 40. Melo with 39. Denver missed too many free throws and made dumb plays down the stretch. LA wanted it more. (LA Times)
Jr. hit’s his 615th home fun. Celebrate this cat more please. (MLB.com)
Carsten Charles does his thing again. (Newsday)
Clippers win Draft Lottery. All this Rubio talk is making me sick. I’m going with the Gumby cut as the first PG taken. (NY Daily News)
Dontrelle is back! Yes! (Freep)
Kentucky is loading up. John Wall is headed to the Bluegrass state. (SLAMonline)
There were lots of big headlines yesterday.
I thought the referees did a nice job of letting Denver and LA play the game last night. There were a few instances where it got a little chippy — but by and large, the pace of the game was not interrupted by free throw shooting. Bynum was saddled with four and sat for a loooong time. That doesn’t bode well for Denver.
Denver could have won last night. The misses at the line killed them. Also, the Laker’s length is a problem. Check the shooting percentages from last night. Chauncey — not so hot (5-13). JR — fuggedaboutit (2-7). Dahntay (0-3); Anthony Carter (0-3). The short guys struggled. The bigs did well. Carmelo was lights out. So was Nene. K-Mart was 7-14. But Denver’s big were dominated on the glass.
The Lakers were +9 on the boards and there were 17 total blocks in the game. LA was +10 on the offensive glass. Denver may need to spend more time boxing out — and that’s going to slow them down a bit.
You can’t coach size.
I swear, I haven’t heard this kinda strange fear in the voices of mainstream media since right before Nov 4th. Its like the entire sports world can’t come up with enough excuses for why Mike Vick ought to play every other position on the field except QB. This is exactly the crazy asanine stuff heard back in October…all of a sudden up is down and down is up. They’re so discombobulated – its funny and scary at the same time.
Miranda:
It says more about the advocates of this idea than it does about Vick.
The league is trying to do a “Pre-emptive Strike.” They want to create a climate where no team is under any “pressure” to play MV7 at QB. His potential to become another PR nightmare is significantly diminished if he’s off center (literally).
They also get to pay him less. It’s all BS. I just know that if he’s smart, he will not go to the Raiders.
Rubio or no rubio Mizz you and I can agree on one thing: Blake Griffin is fucked.
Just a second to talk about my beloved Timberwolves.
Three picks in the first round baby,#’s 6, 18 and 28. I say we go with players that are ready to produce RIGHT NOW!
In a perfect world we’d be able to get Ty Lawson, Sam Young, and Hasheem Thabeet. I think those picks address our major weaknesses.
Minnesota’s PG play is poor at best. Lawson, Maynor, Mills and Flynn are all upgrades in my opinion. Draft a PG. Please.
Sam Young is a pro, put him on the squad already. Give him all of Brewer and Mike Miller’s minutes. Terrance Williams has the same type of skill set but not the consistency. If motivated to play he would be a good fit as well.
Al Jefferson is a beast but he’s a power forward. We need a big body to rebound and defend so he can focus on scoring and rebounding. Thabeet probably isn’t available and that’s sad because I don’t see another option. Mullens will be a bust, he shoulda stayed in school.
I suppose another power forward that excelled at rebounding and defending in college would do. Only thing is I really don’t see that either. Jordan Hill, James Johnson and Dejuan Blair are the only 4′s worth mentioning but I wouldn’t be surprised if none of them panned out in the league. I suppose Hill or Johnson wouldn’t be bad, at least they can score.
Why are people like Trent Dilfer, Mark Schelerth and other old school media folks so scared to see Vick be a starting QB again..?
It’s alright for Vick to be a novelty or play another position like RB, but they act like it is the end of the world if Vick has an opportunity to play QB again…
If Vick succeeds, then it might open the door wider for future dual threat QBs such as Robert Griffin and Terrell Pryor…
Vick has more playoff wins than Drew Brees, Carson Palmer and Chad Pennington combined.
Analysts want to forget Favre’s late season breakdowns or Jay Cutler’s lack of leadership or Carson Palmer unforgettable past two years, but say Vick should change positions despite having a 38-28-1 record as a NFL starter and been to a conference championship game…plus a three-time Pro Bowler…
Vick was the first QB ever to beat Green Bay during the playoffs at Lamabeu Field. And actually, this loss for Favre help accelerated his decline as a championship QB. The media really hasn’t really gotten over this loss and rarely mention it.
After two years, Carson Palmer is still mediocre, Leinart is still on the bench and Matt Schaub is still trying to take a team (any team) to the playoffs–for the first time. Plus golden boys such as Jay Cutler and Brady Quinn are still trying to get a team to the playoffs for the first time.
I wish the media would just get off his back. Mike is a qb. Give him some damn weapons and he could be as good any other qb in the league. I’m with you Miranda. All this talk about him playing other positions is making me ill.
Ron Washington has done a great job so far and his Texas Rangers are currently on top of the American League West, but there is still a lot of pressure by media and fans that the Rangers can do better than Washington.
Washington is one of only three African-American managers in Major League baseball.
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/nwsltr/sports/rangers/stories/050809dnsporangnewsletter.2e6b4f7.html
Michele..
When I hear people say Vick should play another position, it reminds me of the Democratic presidential primary, when Hillary and some in the media were suggesting during and shortly after the Reverend Wright circus that Barack should ‘accept’ the VICE-PRESIDENTIAL nomination…Obama refused, because he was in it to win it, and Vick has that same spirit…however, the primarily white mainstream sports media is now lobbying Goddell that Vick should submit himself to play another position..
Its sickening Michelle….but think about it, this is the same twisted logic that told us Sarah Palin was qualified to be a heartbeat away from the highest office in the country. This same twisted logic decided that advanced degrees from the Ivy League…is now a bad thing, having one house and one car is downright elitist, but a man who married his second wife after cheating on his first wife WITH that woman is the embodiment of family values. This is that same twisted logic. Now we need to believe that a guy who has played the QB position since he was in pee wee leagues…a guy who is a World Class Athlete…a guy who in only 4 full seasons was voted to 3 ProBowls, had post game success in 2 of those seasons and broke a league record in another…that guy can’t play QB again…because he was never that good anyway…huh?..Its so damn twisted…Its so unbelievably stupid…its like saying you have foreign policy experience because you see Putin’s plane as it flies over your state. Its too stupid to process. There are 32 teams in the NFL, there are at least 3 QBs on each team…these teabagging dipshits are telling us that Mike Vick isn’t better than all 96. seriously, that’s essentially what they’re saying. Somehow, it seems perfectly logical to them to spout this bullshit because I swear to you, they honestly believe they are entitled to say any damn thing and it be bought, hook, line and sinker…its baffling to see this level of privilege and entitlement in action. It truly is. These so-called sports “experts” are actually saying OUT loud, that Michael Vick needs to change positions. Its so stupefying…..I can’t process this crap. They are saying it with the straightest of faces. Its like some Orwellian novel or something, they’re like pod people that insist down is up and up is down. WTF?!?!?
Good stuff Miranda. I agree wholeheartedly.
Miranda and everyone else – couldn’t agree more on Vick. There’s a reason when I was in the States I tried only to watch games on ESPN the last decade or so and not so-called news. It’s news the way FOX News is news – maybe not to that extent, but there is an agenda and it’s pushed broadly.
Why can’t the NFL just do the right thing? Don’t they know Mike Vick could be one the biggest stars in the league? I am not the biggest football fan, but if there was a Falcons game on, I’d watch, coz Mike combined running and passing unlike anyone since Steve Young (and obviously a much better runner than Young). Why do big multi-nationals kill their own best assets (metaphorically)? These are rhetorical questions but still….it’s just sad and stupid.
Michael Vick is definitely watchable, and I speak as a Chargers fan, the team that traded the No. 1 that year to Atlanta. LT is lovely; I’m glad we have him but Vick was just stunning to watch.