home run derby and summertime sports

As a person who claims to be a huge sports fan, I'm not sure what it says about me or the home run derby that i chose to watch History Channels, "Cities of the Underworld" instead of the home run derby. I mean the History Channel does have some interesting stuff and I suppose when your first round leaders hit 5 a piece, the final round is won with 3 and yet it STILL takes over 2 and a half hours i wasn't missing much. I did tune in for a few a little bit of it and Vlad Guerrero and Matt Holliday did hit a few long ones, which is always nice. Vlad Guerrero is a heck of a player to watch hit; he can hit any pitch in any location at any time. Tonight we have the all-star game to uh... look forward too?

that's all i really have to say about that. My boy Dan at Celtics Green Party mentioned i might have some thoughts on how his Celtics can get themselves another veteran like Kirilenko or Camby. Unfortunately i don't see either of these happening. In fact i doubt any huge trades are gonna happen and its unlikely more than one "big" trade will happen. (you can call the Ray Allen and Zach Randolph trades big). Kobe... not going anywhere. KG... not going anywhere. Camby most likely not going anywhere considering they traded for Iverson and are clearly making a run at the title NOW. Kirilenko is one player the Jazz might think about moving. He has a max contract which means he's tied up until 2010/2011 season at increasing salaries starting at aprox 14 mil this year and moving to nearly 18 mil in the final year. they insist they're not going to trade him, but if they have any common sense (which most NBA teams don't) they will. He clearly hasn't fit in there and other teams would trade them expiring contracts and perhaps young players for him. If the Celtics offered me Gerald Green and Theo Ratliffs contract i have to do that deal. you're saving almost 50 million dollars and getting a potential stud. on the Celtics side you've made a decision to compete now with the Ray Allen trade, so stick Kirilenko at the four and go after it.

other players that teams should try to move and realistically could would be Chris Kaman of the Clippers, Miami (and by that i mean Pat Riley) reportedly like him and if you can get rid of him for Antoine Walker and a first round pick you save yourself a looot of money over the next few years. Kaman is an ok center, but not worth nearly what they paid him; based on last years performance anyway. Andre Miller has two years left at 9 mil a piece for a Philly team that isn't going anywhere in the next couple years they need to get value for him while they can.

final thought as i look at the contracts and rosters of these NBA teams. One only need look at the contracts of Mark Blount, Marko Jaric and Troy Hudson and you'll know why Kevin Mchale is such an awful GM. The free agent signing period is about to open tomorrow and I can only look forward to seeing how these gm's will waste their midlevel exceptions on players that will tie up cap space and be untradeable for years to come. A role player who provided quality minutes for cheap working off a rookie contract becomes a useless salary cap albatross when the word midlevel exception starts getting thrown around. One only need look up Scalabrine, Brain.