SB Nation User Blog: Big D Bam Bam

Interesting FOX Pregame-Jay Glazer note.

Big D Bam Bam — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:18:43 -0000

During the Jay Glazer update (really the only reason to bother with the show), he mentioned that the Redskins were already putting the peices in place to make a run at Mike Shanahan after the season. Nothing particularly surprising about that (never mind that the Washington players are killing themselves trying to save Zorn's job, something that Dan Snyder clearly doesn't comprehend).

I was equally unsurprised to hear that Mike has his eye on the Dallas job, but what did catch me off guard was Glazer's almost offhand comment that Dallas didn't have much interest in him. Does anybody know why, or is Jay just guessing? I'm one of the rapidly-dwindling Wade supporters, but Shanahan is on the short list of guys, along with Dungy and Cowher, that I'd fire him to get in here.

Anthony Spencer Won This Game

Big D Bam Bam — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:16:08 -0000

#93 has been getting a lot of (deserved) flack here for not having registered a sack yet, but I believe that he made the most important play of the game, with just one hand.

First things first. I was having trouble enjoying this win, for the simple fact that I thought the refs really did make a bad spot on the 4th-and-inches sneak, which was by far the most important play of the game. Watching in real time, it seemed to me that McNabb had made it by sliding down the back of his O-Line, and that Dallas had been the beneficery of a bad call, and a worse review.

But after checking the tape, I saw what really happened. If you look at where the first down marker is on that play, you can see that it's just barely touching the white outline of the Eagles midfield logo, on the small triangular extension just above the eagle's beak. That's what Michaels and Collinsworth were talking about when they said the officials could use the logo as a reference point for the spot.

Watching in slow motion, you can see McNabb sliding down the pile, in good position to reach out with his elbow or the ball to make the marker, but at the last second Spencer (who was on his feet, mostly out of the play) reaches out with his left hand, puts it right on the top of McNabb's helmet, and pushes him backwards just a few inches. Donovan tucks in his elbow as he starts to slide back and to his right (insert JFK joke here), and ends up landing on the green painted portion of the logo, exactly where the zebras called it.

Great call, great hustle by Spence.

Thoughts from around the league after Sunday...

Big D Bam Bam — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:41:27 -0000

I originally posted this in another fanpost, but was asked to move it here for others to comment on.

Here are my ten random thoughts, not all of them Cowboy-centric.

1. This is why we as fans have lost respect for the media. I read multiple articles before the game about Tampa Bay’s lack of talent on offense, and saw that opinion reinforced by both pregame shows. Then I look at their roster and I see the names Cadillac Williams, Derrick Ward, Ernest Graham, Antonio Bryant, Mark Clayton, Kellen Winslow Jr, and Jeremy Stevens staring back up at me, and I wonder what these people are smoking. Admittedly, many of those players have various issues attached to their names, but a lack of talent isn’t one of them. It was pretty clear to me that if they could get decent QB play, the way they did yesterday, they would be able to score points.

But even after the game they played, the first thing I heard on CBS afterwards was Shannon Sharpe saying that we’ll see how good Dallas really is next week, because “Tampa Bay doesn’t have much.”

Le sigh.

2. Speaking of sighs, has any QB coming off a 6-10 season ever been fawned over the way Aaron Rodgers was on Sunday? At least half the early Super Bowl picks had the Packers playing for the championship, apparently vaulting over the (lemme count) one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, (wait for it…) twelve teams in the NFC that finished with a better record than them in 2008.

Oh yeah, and Rodgers is going to win MVP.

And to think, all they needed to beat the Bears in their opener at home was for Jay Cutler to play the worst game of his life, and Brian Urlacher to miss the entire second half with a dislocated wrist.

3. Why is it when everybody else runs for 180 yards against Cleveland, it’s because they can’t tackle to save their lives, but when Adrian Peterson does it, he’s just that awesome?

4. I took a good, hard look at Philly’s offensive numbers in their 38-10 win, and they’re not nearly as impressive as you think. 267 total yards (102 passing on 17 of 29, 2.6 ypa). They ran the ball reasonably well, but mostly that game struck me of Jake Delhomme rotting like a cow carcass in the sun.

5. I think people are finally starting to figure out that Matt Shaub is really a backup, not a franchise QB. The clock is now ticking on Matt Cassel. Luckily, he’s taken a cue from Shaub and gotten himself injured, which improves shelf life.

6. People in NO shouldn’t be celebrating the fact that Drew Brees threw 6 TD passes against Detroit. They should be worried that they turned the ball over three times and the Lions hung 27 points on them.

7. NBC should have thrown giant bags of money at Moose Johnston to get him to come and do color for Sunday Night Football. He’s head and shoulders over everyone else in the business, but it feels like no one notices. It’s hard being a fullback.

8. Julius Jones had 117 yards and a touchdown against St. Louis. No, seriously.

9. Jason Campbell might not ever become a Pro Bowl QB, but he deserves better than being a placeholder in Washington, until Daniel Snyder sees another shiny passer he can’t live without.

10. LITTLE KNOWN FACT: Eli Manning’s career record head-to-head against Tony Romo is 1-4. Admittedly, the one win was in the playoffs, but I have a nasty habit of pointing that out to the people who think that Eli has somehow established himself as the best QB in the NFC. Another little known fact is that the two of them have identical December records over the last two years (3-5).

Something I noticed as I was reposting this was that most of the things that stuck out at me were fairly negative. Even after a solid opening win by the Cowboys, I was mostly concerned with how bad the defense played, and wondering how good a game Romo could have had if he hadn't made so many mistakes early.

I was starting to wonder if I wasn't becoming a little callous in my old age (28, for those counting at home), until I remembered that it was week one, and everyone is supposed to be bad. I honestly didn't see one player or team who made me sit up and take notice. Even Mark Sanchez in the Jets game looked more or less like a decent rookie QB, who was lucky enough to end up on a team with talent around him. Peterson, as I mentioned, was playing against the Browns, which doesn't count.

Big Ben put up good yardage numbers in an ugly game, but personally, I felt like Tennessee was due to fall back to Earth this year anyway. The Eagles looked scary, but not if you look too close, and the Giants have taken a step back after shedding three playmakers (Ward, Plax, and Toomer). I actually defended Eli several times before the rest of the world fell in love with him (he really owes about half his contract to Asante Samuel and Patrick Crayton, who's huge blown plays led directly to his Super Bowl win), but if New York is planning to ride his arm and Jacobs' target-covered knees to another 12-win season, they've got another thing coming.

Miami took a step back, as I thought they might, playing against Atlanta, who needs to show me they have staying power before I'll put much stock in them. Indy is still Indy, and anyone who tells you different is selling something. The number of places I've seen them picked to miss the playoffs is astounding, and unreasonable. They still have Peyton and Reggie, which means they will still win 11+ games.

Imagine if you will, that San Diego had somehow been teleported to the east coast. Could you stomach the media coverage of that circus? Just the breakdowns of when LT and Philip Rivers sit next to each other on the bench would be enough to drive me to sucide. Someone might even find time to report the fact that Norv Turner has won a few playoff games over the last two years, but I doubt it.

Anyway, there's one surefire way to beat the sloppy football blues. Watching Tom Brady throw to Randy Moss. Love em or hate em, it's still a thing of beauty, or at least it was when we last left off. Healing from a knee injury tends to take the zip off your fastball.

Did Otis Smith outsmart Donnie, or himself?

Big D Bam Bam — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:40:04 -0000

(Originally posted this on Mavs Moneyball, but I'd like the Orlando perspective on it as well.)

Having been one of the people most convinced that Otis Smith had no intention of matching the offer sheet for Gortat, I was pretty shocked when the news came down on Monday that they had done just that. The popular theory in Mavericks-Land is that Otis was playing Donnie the whole time. My personal theory is that the man has no idea what he's doing.

When free agency began, Hedo Turkoglu was probably the hottest player available. He had just come off an excellent performance in the NBA Finals, and was playing for a team that was upfront about the fact that they were prepared to let him go, because re-signing him, or even including him in a sign and trade scenario, would push them too far into luxury tax territory.

Turkoglu had been a critical piece of the team that got Orlando to the Finals, and was one of the most praised individual players of the entire series. That being said, when it came down to dollars and cents, Orlando simply did not feel that he was a twenty million dollar a year player, which is what they would have had to have paid in combined salary and luxury tax to keep him. One week later, Hedo signed a five-year, fifty-three million dollar contract with the Toronto Raptors ( I'm leaving out all of the Portland stuff, and the Marion sign and trade silliness, as it has no effect on the time line).

It made perfect financial sense for them to allow him to leave, and let his minutes be taken by younger, cheaper players such as Ryan Anderson and (later) Brandon Bass. At the same time, Orlando made a move showing that they intended to win now by bringing in a thirty-two-year-old Vince Carter.

Here's where it gets a little screwy. If you combine the guaranteed money contracts that Orlando has now taken on between Bass ( four years, eighteen million dollars) and Gortat (five years, thirty-four million dollars), you come up with a figure nearly identical to the money that Toronto paid for Hedo, and the head scratching realization that the Magic have pushed themselves deep into luxury tax territory in order to create a lineup that is doubtlessly less effective than the one they could've had if they had simply kept Turkoglu to begin with.

Nelson-Carter-Howard-Lewis-Turkoglu is the kind of starting five that can win a team an NBA title.

Nelson-Carter-Howard-Lewis-???, with Bass, Anderson, and Gortat all fighting for minutes at the same spot, while costing the Magic well over twenty million dollars a year between them, is a recipe for confusion.

Otis Smith might eventually become known as the GM that led the Orlando Magic to an NBA championship, but at the moment he strikes me more like a dog with two bones, who refuses to leave either behind, and ends up being caught by the dogcatcher.

Meanwhile, the Mavericks still have their MLE to spend on a guy like Von Wafer, and the trade chips to go out and find themselves another center. It would've been simpler for them if the Magic had simply declined, but they're still in a far better situation than they were when last season ended.

Did Otis Smith outsmart Donnie, or himself?

Big D Bam Bam — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:36:16 -0000

Nelson-Carter-Howard-Lewis-Turkoglu is the kind of starting five that can win a team an NBA title.

Let's Give Donnie and Cuban a Little Credit Here...

Big D Bam Bam — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:17:27 -0000

There seems to be a lot of distress and handwringing over the moves (or lack thereof) that the Mavs have made in the off-season so far, and I'm not quite sure why...

First things first. We're talking about a team that features two first ballot Hall of Famers, has won at least fifty games nine years in a row, beat the Spurs pretty handily in the playoffs, and was in the NBA finals only three years ago. Hop in the old wayback machine, go back to the year 1999, and tell your past self ( you know, the one who endured being a Mavericks fan in the 90's) about all that, and watch them jump for joy at the very idea.

Complaining about being a Mavericks fan right now is a little like complaining about being an American. The grass is pretty damn green over here, compared to how bad it could be. Moving along...

I might be the only one, but I think the Mavericks are doing exactly what they needed to do. I find it little silly when I hear people say "they didn't get anything in the draft", when you consider where they were drafting from. If any of you thought that Ricky Rubio was going to drop to the 22nd pick, much less the 24th, then I want some of what you're smoking. Dallas did the only thing they really could do picking from that spot, grabbed a couple of extra second rounders, and picked up a long-term project at a position where they needed desperately to get younger and more athletic.

As for the Gortat acquisition (assuming that it goes through, knock on wood), I think he's an absolute steal, and he was the guy that I wanted from the beginning. When you look at his size (a legit center, not a old power forward who's lost a step like Rasheed Wallace), his youth (he's actually younger than Tyson Chandler), the way he hustles (anyone who watched Orlando in the playoffs knows what I'm talking about), and the numbers that he put up (in albeit limited minutes), he comes off to me as a guy who's ready to take the next step in his career. Besides, his nickname is the freaking Polish Hammer, and on a team in dire need of some bone crunching toughness, I'll take that any day.

(Just imagine the first time Mark Followell puts on his Christian Bale Batman voice and screams: "THE POLISH HAMMER "HAMMERS" ONE HOME!!!)

These are The Hammer's numbers per thirty-six minutes, via Basketball-Reference.com, and how they compare to other centers that were on Mavs fans wishlists.

Gortat: 10.9ppg, 13.0rpg, 2.4 bpg

Tyson Chandler: 9.9ppg, 9.9rpg, 1.4 bpg

Nene: 16.1 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 1.4 bpg

Emeka Okafor: 14.5ppg, 11.1 rpg, 1.8bpg

Marcus Camby: 12.0 ppg, 12.9 rpg, 2.5 bpg

Again, keep in mind that of all those guys, Gortat is not only the youngest, but the cheapest. All things being equal, I'd say that the Mavericks did a pretty good job of grabbing a guy who could do exactly what they needed, wouldn't cost them any of their major trading chips, and could potentially hold down that spot for years to come.

The next move, of course, is to find a new shooting guard. That's where we're really going to find out what Cuban and Donnie are made of. To me, they don't really need to shoot for the moon here. They just need to find someone who can play a little defense and create their own shot when Jason Terry is struggling. Rip Hamilton's name is getting thrown around a lot, and he would be a very good fit, but personally I'd rather see them make a run at Rudy Fernandez , who supposedly wants out of Portland, and is basically a Manu Ginobilli starter kit.

Another name that keeps floating around in my head is Tracy McGrady. It seems fairly unlikely that Houston would trade him to a hated division rival, but with Artest gone and Yao's career potentially over, the Rockets might be stuck in a corner and simply have to cut bait and endure a rebuilding year. T-Mac's prescence might be more trouble than he's worth, given how badly the fans there have turned against him, and the Stack/Damp deal that people are so fond of talking about around here would actually make a lot of sense for them. T-Mac is a free agent after this year and probably wouldn't be coming back anyway, so they could still be in the position to be players in the 2010 free-agent class while grabbing a center (which they need) who can double as future trade bait of their own.

A starting five of Dirk, Howard, Gortat, McGrady, and Kidd, with JET and company coming off the bench, might not be enough to beat the Lakers (honestly, with Artest having signed up, the only thing that could really stop them is hubris and/or Kobe/Ron-Ron drama), but it would put them right up there with Denver and San Antonio.

Well Done and Good Luck

Big D Bam Bam — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:47:17 -0000

As a Mavericks fan, I'd just like to pass on my congragulations and good wishes to the Nuggets as they move on in the playoffs.

I've got to admit, I honestly wasn't sure that your boys had the chops to really be a threat this year, but aside from Cleveland, they are definitely playing the best basketball right now. Unless the Lakers stop sleepwalking and step up their game, it's starting to look more and more like Cavaliers/Nuggets in the Finals.

Either way, I'll be rooting for you guys.

Scattershots

Big D Bam Bam — Sun, 03 May 2009 14:39:03 -0000

Scattershooting while wondering if Walter Bond ever actually did get twenty shots in a game.

(Bonus points for anyone who gets that reference, and still remembers Blackie Sherrod.)

Since we have a few hours to kill before the real action gets started, I figured I’d go ahead and lay out a few thoughts that have been swirling around my brain during the interminable wait for game one.

Dirk Nowitzki is the most disrespected superstar the game has ever seen. Is there anyone else in the history of the NBA who has achieved more (eight consecutive All-Star and All-NBA appearances, nine consecutive 50 win seasons, 19,084 career points, the league MVP award, and an NBA Finals appearance), and yet has never been given any kind of credit by the media or (non-Dallas) fans? Earlier today, I actually heard Jamal Mashburn say the words: “What is Nowitzki going to do when Kenyon Martin gets in his grill?”

For the record, Dirk outscored K-Mart head-to-head 120-30 this year, and 2094-769 for the season. Somebody’s really got to sit me down and explain to me why that matchup is still being portrayed as anything but an overwhelming disadvantage for Denver.

Kevin Garnett, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, Rasheed Wallace, and Amare Stoudemire are either injured, or have been eliminated from the playoffs. Dirk is still standing. ‘Nuff said.

Another fun fact about Dirk. He’s 5-0 in his career in the deciding game of a tied series (game sevens and game fives, back when the first round was best-of-three). So if the Nuggets really do want to beat Dallas in seven games, the way so many people are predicting, they’re going to have to do something that Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady, Rasheed Wallace, Mike Bibby, and Karl Malone couldn’t.

Speaking of Tim Duncan, the Mavericks were the first team ever to eliminate him in the first round. They were also the first team ever to eliminate him on his own home-court, back in 2006, something they duplicated this year. It really makes you wonder what would’ve happened in the 2003 WCF if Dirk hadn’t gotten hurt. The Mavericks beat them twice in San Antonio that year too.

The prevailing wisdom around here is that JJ Berea probably isn’t going to get as much playing time in this series as he did against the Spurs, but he actually played pretty well against the Nuggets this year when he got the chance. In March, he had 22 points, 4 assists, and 2 steals against Denver, and in December he had 12 points, 9 assists, and 2 steals. Another guy who stepped up in that March game was Ryan Hollins, who had 9 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 blocks in 22 minutes. He’s going to have to be a factor if they’re going to stop Nene from becoming this year’s Tyson Chandler.

Jason Kidd and Chauncey Billups approach the game in completely different ways at this point in their careers (Kidd having nearly abandoned shooting the ball, except for spot-up threes and open layups, while Chauncey is still putting up nearly 18 ppg), but I really think the matchup favors Kidd. He doesn’t have the foot speed any more to keep up with young point guards who want to drive to the basket, but against a guy like Chauncey, who wants to shoot five or six three-pointers a game, he’s right in his zone of comfort defensively. Using his strength to push Billups off of his favorite spots will be much easier than trying to stay in front of Parker or Paul.

Something else that’s been mentioned several times is that Dallas needs to win the rebounding battle. Kidd should be a huge help there. The Mavericks actually did outrebound Denver for the season: 41.6 to 42.7, and even out-boarded them three times head-to-head, despite all the talk about matchup problems with Denver’s long, athletic frontcourt. JK was a big reason for that.

It just goes to show that the Mavericks did a lot of really good things against Denver this year, despite being swept during the season. They just need to take those small successes and add them up into wins, the way they did against San Antonio, and they should handle their business and move on to the West Finals.

My absurdly bold prediction: Mavs in 5.

It might be blatant homerism, but I also think Dallas just matches up a lot better than everyone else seems to. I also give Dallas credit for having been here before. Something that seems to slip everyone’s mind is, while this team has been disappointing (crushingly so) for the last couple of years, it’s also the same basic foundation (Dirk, Josh, Terry, Damp, plus now Jason Kidd) of the team that went to the NBA Finals and then won 67 games not very long ago at all.

This is a team that over the past decade has been in every possible situation imaginable, except actually winning a title. They’ve lost the first two games of the series and gone on to win it, and they’ve won the first two games of the series and gone on to lose it. They’ve played up-tempo, grind it out, and everything in between. They’ve had their hearts broken over and over again, but they just keep getting back up and asking for more, and I dig that about them.

We don’t know how Denver is going to react yet the first time they really get into a hole and people start asking questions. Chauncey Billups is a leader, but he was also on a team in Detroit that, after winning the championship, featured annual meltdowns every bit as dramatic as anything Dallas has done. I actually had a discussion with a friend a couple of years ago about whether or not the Mavericks should pursue him in free agency, and the question I kept asking myself was: “How could this guy keep us from imploding when the team he’s already on implodes every year?”

If I’m wrong, I’ll be the first one to stand up and say it, but I like Dallas in this series and I don’t think it’ll take seven games.

One Number: 65.5%

Big D Bam Bam — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:55:34 -0000

Been wondering how Chauncey Billups and the Nuggets were able to make such short work of the Hornets? 65.5% explains a whole lot.

65.5% (19 of 29, including 8 of 9 in Game One) was the number that Chauncey Billups shot from three point range during their first-round series against New Orleans. Now, more power to him for doing that, but the simple law of averages tell us that he's not going to be able to keep that kind of pace up, and if the Mavericks do let him keep shooting like that, then they'll deserve to lose this series.

And while we're on the subject of absurd shooting percentages, note Carmelo Anthony and his 46.2% three-point shooting thus far in the playoffs. This, from a guy whose career number from behind the arc is just over 30%. Billups at least is legitimately a good spot up shooter. Melo is far more in the mold of "just throw it up and hope for the best." Against the Hornets, the best happened. Starting Sunday afternoon, the Mavs are going to have to make sure it stops. Based on what they showed against San Antonio's shooters, I'm fairly confident they can.

Now, I'm not saying that advancing to the West Finals is going to be as simple as running Denver off the three-point line, but in the rush among the media to anoint the Nuggets as the Western Conference's new darling, I think we need to keep things in context. Denver two top scorers shot percentages from three-point land that are simply unsustainable in a long playoff run. To put it a little more bluntly, they got lucky. To put it a lot more bluntly, they got lucky against a team that was already floundering when the playoffs began.

Now we'll see what they can do against a team that's finally playing at its potential.

Do the Pats really deserve an asterisk?

Big D Bam Bam — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:47:09 -0000

When I heard a few fans say it, I assumed that it was a matter of jealousy. When Don Shula said it, I figured he was just miffed that he might lose his place in NFL history as the coach of the only ever undefeated team.

But this made me think about again. Earl Campbell doesn't mince words here. He's emphatically states that he believes that the spying controversy involving the Patriots was clearly cheating, and not only should the 2007 New England team have an asterisk next to their record, but Bill Belichick should be fired and banned from the game.

"I think if I was the commissioner, I would fire him," Campbell said. "And I'd also fix it so he couldn't coach in the NFL anymore. And those teams that played (and won three Super Bowls), I'd consider that a tie. The other teams would get a ring, too."

Now, personally, I consider the entire spying thing to be simple gamesmanship. Videotaping the opposing teams defensive signals is hardly the same as injecting yourself with performance-enhancing drugs. I felt that the only reason the league gave them more than a slap on the wrist was because they had issued multiple warnings on the issue, which were blatantly and arrogantly ignored.

In my opinion, the penalty was more than sufficient to the crime, even if it was obviously light when compared to what Wade Wilson got. Wilson was suspended for five games for putting himself in a position where he might have been perceived to have cheated, while Belichick was only fined for actually cheating, albeit in a minor way.

So here's the question. Does New England really deserve an asterisk for something that, in the grand scheme of things, is no big deal? Stealing signs is certainly bad form, but all a team has to do to counteract it is to change them up every once in a while. If anything, a clever coach should be able to turn something like that to his advantage by mixing up the signs and planting decoys, so why all the fuss?

And please, honest opinions only. Leave your homerism at the door. Imagine that it's Dallas we're talking about if it helps.

Poll

Do the 2007 New England Patriots deserve an asterisk next to their record, should they finish the season undefeated?

Yes

18 votes

No

23 votes

41 votes | Poll has closed