Average Thoughts From An Average Fan 10-29-12

It pains me to have to write the following paragraph…

One of the worst experiences in sports is watching your arch rival win.  Last night I experienced this for the second time in three years as the San Francisco Giants swept the Detroit Tigers en route to becoming the 2012 World Series Champions.  Like many other Dodgers fans it made me sick watching the black and orange dancing around in a celebratory fashion in October.  Once in 2010 was bad enough but to have to experience it again just two years later was a big time punch to the gut for fans of the azul.

Ok.  Now that I’ve got the paragraph from the “biased fan” perspective out of my system.  It’s time to express my feelings from the “mature adult” perspective.  If the players on this team weren’t wearing San Francisco Giants laundry it’s likely I would’ve been openly rooting for them to win it all.  When you look at the Giants line up on paper you don’t see a list filled with household names and superstars from top to bottom.But that’s what makes their story so great.

These guys played a great team game and everybody bought in to the goal and made whatever sacrifices were necessary to achieve it.  Isn’t that the kind of behavior we all want to see out of our favorite teams?  Is that not the kind of values we teach our kids to not only carry with them in sports but in everyday life?

I tip my hat to the Giants.  They deserve every bit of the success they achieved this year.  (Please Baseball Gods, don’t make me ever have to write that again)

Hopefully some good can come out of the Giants success as far as LA fans are concerned and that  Dodgers management will be motivated even further to step their game up and get the Dodgers back to the top of baseball’s food chain where they belong.

Another year of “The Association”  is upon us…

As another year of professional basketball entertainment gets underway on October 30.  My predictions for the season can be found here.  If you root for the Lakers, Thunder or Heat you obviously have the most to be excited about as your teams are the overwhelming favorites to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy at the end of the season.  If you have dreams of a championship and you root for one of the other 27 teams in the league then this year is likely going to be a complete and utter failure for you.

This past Sunday night on “The Average Joe Show NBA Preview Special” I had a moment of clarity about my view of the NBA.  The “one percent” have most of the wealth while the other 99% are fighting for what’s left.

The NBA is a lot like society.  In the history of the league there have been 63 champions.  The Boston Celtics (17), Minneapolis/Los Angeles Lakers (16)  have combined to win 33 championships.  That means either the Celtics or Lakers have won 52.4% of the time.

If you add in the Chicago Bulls (6) and San Antonio Spurs (4) that means those four teams have combined to win it all 68.3% of the time.  That’s four teams with more than 2/3 of all the championships in the history of the league.  Between 1987-1998 there were no “one and done” champion.  Every team went back to back or in the case of the Bulls “three-peated”.

If there’s any kind of “occupy” movement that should be going on, it should be in front of the NBA’s office.

I know a new season brings new hope and optimism each year but if you’re a fan of any team not named, Lakers, Celtics, Thunder or Heat you’re simply fooling yourself.

Do I think it’s the NBA’s goal to have such competitive imbalance?  Of course not.  But by making it a players league where the individuals, not teams are marketed along with not having a hard salary cap, the league is reaping what they’ve sowed.  It’s the big markets in one corner and everyone else in the other.

This is what the NBA’s commercials should be saying, “The NBA…It’s fantastic!  (Offer does not apply to Bucks, Kings, Bobcats, Hornets, Wizards or Raptors fans).

Once again I would like to thank Gary Bettman…

For proving that he is far and away the worst commissioner in all of professional sports.  A few days ago the league announced that all November games would be cancelled.  Now I just read that their annual “Winter Classic” out door game is expected to be cancelled in the coming days.

Way to go Gary!  Only under your leadership could a sport that I love lose an entire season due to a labor dispute and less than ten years later threaten to do it again.

It’s already bad enough that fan interest has declined and the TV deal is worse off than when you took over once upon a time but now you’re once again taking games from me.  Please step down and hand over the reigns to someone that knows what they’re doing.  Stop ruining a great game.

Also to blame in this matter is Donald Fehr.  You might remember him as the man who ran the Major League Baseball Players Association when they went on strike in 1994 ultimately resulting in the cancellation of the playoffs and World Series that year.

You’re bad for sports Donald Fehr and I can’t stand you!  Please go away and stop taking things that I enjoy away from me.

Joe Pacheco

Co-host “The Average Joe Show”

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Average Thoughts From An Average Sports Fan 7-2-12

New Atlanta Hawks General Manager Danny Ferry should win the “GM Of The Year” award.  Yes, I know we’re in the middle of the off-season but what this guy has accomplished in less than a week on the job is awe inspiring.

Today Ferry pulled the ultimate jedi mind trick when he convinced Brooklyn Nets General Manager Billy King to take on the remaining 4 years and nearly $90 million dollars left on Joe Johnson’s over paid contract.

Who care’s who the Hawks got in return.  The fact that they no longer need to pay Johnson like he’s Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Kevin Durant or Derrick Rose  is reason enough for Ferry to douse himself in champagne like he just won a championship.

To top the day off, Ferry then pulls off his second jedi mind trick by dumping draft bust extraordinare Marvin Williams on the Utah Jazz in exchange for point guard Devin Harris, a former all-star.  Williams and Harris make roughly the same amount of money but Harris is entering the final year of his deal while Williams still has two years remaining.

Taking on Joe Johnson’s contract is the type of decision making that GM’s should lose their job over.  If I was Mikhail Prokhorov I would call King into my office and break him off like I was Donald Trump in an episode of The Apprentice.

The NBA:  Where bad contracts happen.  For further proof of that please see the  Houston Rockets signing of Chicago Bulls Center Omer Asik to a three year, $25.1 million offer sheet.  Someone please tell me again why Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey is considered such a genius.  I’ll be sitting here patiently waiting for a worth while answer.

Is anyone else sick of Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard?  I’m completely over this guy constantly changing his mind.  First he wants to get traded.  Next he says he wants to stay in Orlando and even decides to use his player option to stay for another year.  Now he wants to go to the Nets and only the Nets.  Mr. Howard, you’re a grown man who is going to make more than $18 million next season.  Quit your whining, shut up and play basketball!  Enough of you already!  To borrow a line from a tweet I read, “people can say all they want about Lebron James but at least he made a decision.”

Nice to see the Dodgers finally score some runs and pick up a 8-3 victory on Sunday over the New York Mets.  Without Kemp and Ethier this everyday line up is downright awful.  I know several of those runs yesterday were gift wrapped by New York, who was doing their best “Bad News Bears” imitation but after all the Dodgers have been though the last dozen or so games I will take it.

In other Dodger related thoughts, getting shutout all 27 innings of a three game series against the hated San Francisco Giants has to be the darkest day ever in the proud rich history of Dodger baseball.  It’s one thing to get swept, but far worse to get shutout in all three games by your hated rivals.  I know the Dodgers count on us fans for support but could you please support us by scoring one freaking run in a three game series against the Giants?

Now that I got that off my chest, I’m excited about this new Dodgers ownership and it’s great to see them involved in player signings and trade talks again after the whole McCourt debacle.  They recently had a deal in place for Houston Astros first baseman and outfielder Carlos Lee but Lee decided not to waive his no trade clause and I’m not disappointed in the least.

At 36 years old Lee only has 5 home runs and 29 RBI through 64 games played this season.  His power years are clearly behind him and if he doesn’t have that I don’t think he does the Dodgers any good.  Although they didn’t get what they wanted, I believe Magic and company will ultimately find the right guy and it will happen sooner rather than later.

Much to the dismay of my “The Average Joe Show” co-host Joe Arrigo, i’m going to just come right out and say that right now I think Mike Trout is better than Bryce Harper.  Both players are undoubtedly legit and going to be carrying the flag for major league baseball for the next decade but the stat’s don’t lie and other than triples, Trout’s numbers are better across the board.  I know Trout has the better line up protection but at the end of the day he still has to execute and so far he has and better than his rookie counterpart.

My beloved Stanley Cup Champions (don’t think I’m not going to milk that for all it’s worth in the next year) Los Angeles Kings re-signed forward Dustin Penner to a one year, $3.25 million.  I know he was an important piece in the Kings run to their first ever championship but in the regular season he flat out sucked.  Let’s face it, Penner picked up his paycheck with a gun and ski mask.  I think $3.25 million is a bit much but I take solace in knowing that it’s just for one season.

Congrats to Spain for shutting out Italy 4-0 to take home the Euro Cup.  A great day for the Spaniards no doubt.  This American would be lying if I said I cared or watched even a minute of the tournament for that matter.  Call me in two years when the World Cup comes around because that’s the only soccer event that matters.

The NFL season is a little more than a month away with the Cardinals and Saints set to take each other on in the Hall of Fame Game on August 5.  In case there was any doubt, I am extremely excited about that.  Not for the pre-season games but to know that another football season is right around the corner.  I’m sorry but if you don’t like football you’re simply un-American.  Dare I say, even a communist.

Joe Pacheco

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The Greatest Day Of My Sports Life

It was a day I had waited over 30 years for.  Year after year I had hope that this year would be the year.  My head knew when they had absolutely no chance, and it also knew when they had a good chance.  No matter what my head said my heart always believed there was a chance for a dream to come true.

Finally on June 11, 2012 my dream became a reality.  With a 6-1 defeat of the New Jersey Devils in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, the Los Angeles Kings had finally reached the pinnacle of the hockey world.  They had become the Stanley Cup Champions!

The Los Angeles Kings aren’t just a team I root for, they are part of my DNA.  They are woven into the very fabric of who I am, not only as a sports fan but as a person.  They are my favorite team amongst all my favorite teams in each respective sport.

The Kings are another member of my family.  My father and uncle have been fans of the team since their inception in 1967, and they passed their passion for the Kings on to myself, my brother, and many of my cousins.

I first fell in love with the Kings when my father would take my brother and I to games at the Forum in the mid 1980′s back when guys like Marcel Dionne, Bernie Nicholls, Terry Ruskowski, Jim Fox, and Brian Engblom wore the not so attractive “Forum Blue and Gold” uniforms.

To say those teams weren’t very good was a understatement as they either didn’t make the playoffs or were bounced in the first round.  The Kings were definitely one of the worst franchises in the NHL.  While the results on the ice were lacking, the passion from the fans was not.  More so than when I went to Dodgers games or other sporting events, the loyalty from Kings fans was second to none, and I knew that I wanted to be part of it for the rest of my life.

Fast forward to the late 80′s and early 90′s.   Wayne Gretzky came to LA in a blockbuster trade, the uniforms changed to silver and black and for the arguably the first time in their history, the Kings were regarded as a respectable franchise.  Like all Kings fans I felt as though a Stanley Cup championship was inevitable.  With the greatest player in the world finally on our side instead of against us, how could a championship not be?

The 1993 season was magical.  With players like Luc Robitaille, Tomas Sandstrom, Tony Granato, Jari Kurri, Rob Blake and Kelly Hrudey playing alongside the “Great One” the Kings made a magical run all the way to the Stanley Cup Final where they faced the Montreal Canadiens.  After a 4-1 victory in Game One and a 2-1 lead with two minutes to go in Game Two, I was starting to taste the Cup.

Then the unthinkable happened.  Kings defenseman Marty McSorley was penalized for having an illegal curvature in his stick.  Montreal scored to tie the game on the ensuing power play and then won in overtime.  I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.  I felt like the Trix Rabbit when he was told that Trix were for kids.  Except this time the Hockey Gods had told me, “Silly Kings fan, the Stanley Cup is not for the sun and palm trees of Los Angeles.”

My beloved Kings eventually lost the series in five games, losing game’s 3 and 4 in overtime.  Despite the disappointment, I felt like the Kings had arrived on the scene and would be a cup contender for years to come.  Little did I know…

In between there were many more years of disappointment filled with no trips to the playoffs or first round exits on the rare occasion they got to the postseason.  It was like reliving the mid 80′s all over again.  I never stopped rooting with every ounce of my being, but like many Kings fans I would sometimes ask, “Is it ever going to happen?  Am I ever going to watch my team skate with the Stanley Cup?”

Fast forward 19 years to the 2011-2012 NHL season and I can now finally answer the word “YES!!!!”  to that question.  Not only did it happen, but it happened in one of the most unlikely yet dominant postseason runs in the history of the NHL.

The Kings went 16-4 en route to their first ever Stanley Cup championship defeating the top three seeds in the Western Conference, and in the Finals they defeated a team in New Jersey that had won three Stanley Cups since 1995 with a future hall of fame goaltender in Martin Brodeur.

Not only did they win hockey’s ultimate prize, but they did it in the truest sense of the word team.  17 different players scored at least one goal along the way.  Conn Smythe winner Jonathan Quick set playoff records by having a goals against average of 1.41 and a save percentage of .946.

As the final minutes were winding down, I thought about all the years of disappointment that were now erased.  No longer will I be haunted by Kings teams with really good players who underachieved.   No longer will I be bitter about McSorley’s curved stick and the disappointment of 1993.  No longer will I feel inferior to fans that have experienced the glory of watching their team skate with the greatest trophy in all of sports.

As I watched the final minutes of the game I thought about my parents taking me to games as a kid.  I called my father to share the moment with him.  I thanked him for making me a hockey fan and I told him I loved him.  I called my brother and one of my cousins just to say, “I can’t believe it finally happened.  The Kings are the champs!”

I yelled in pure joy several times as I saw the streamers come down from the rafters.  I clapped until my hands were sore as Captain Dustin Brown lifted the Stanley Cup high above his head in the most triumphant moment in franchise history.  This was the moment I had dreamed about coming to life right before my very eyes and let me tell you, it felt better than I could have ever imagined.

Watching the Kings win the Stanley Cup was the greatest day of my life as a sports fan.  Better than the numerous Laker championships I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy.  Better than the underdog Dodgers winning it all in 1988.  Better than anything in sports.

Kings radio announcer Nick Nickson said in the closing seconds of the Cup clinching game, “The long wait is over.  After 45 years the Kings can wear their crown.  The Los Angeles Kings have won the Stanley Cup!”

Thank you Kings for letting me share in the moment of your crowning achievement.  It’s a moment that will live with me for the rest of my life.

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The Average Joe Show: Episode 5

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Next Stop The Second Round

The roller coaster which has been the 2011-2012 Los Angeles Kings season continued Sunday night in a series clinching 2-1 overtime victory over the top seeded Vancouver Canucks.

Jarrett Stoll’s game winner at 4:27 of the extra period propelled the eighth seeded Kings into the second round for the first time since the 2001 season where they will face the second seeded St. Louis Blues.

This series saw all the ingredients which had contributed to the Kings season long success.  Strong play by goaltender Jonathan Quick, solid defense, aggressive forechecking, physical play and timely offensive contributions from several lines.  In short it was a total team effort.

What makes this victory so satisfying is the Kings have not been without their share of adversity.  Since being eliminated by the San Jose Sharks in the first round of the 2011 playoffs Los Angeles has endured the firing of  head coach  Terry Murray, fans calling for the head of General Manager Dean Lombardi after two controversial trades and a flat out terrible offensive showing that saw the Kings at or near the bottom of the league in the goals scored department all season long.

To cap things off the Kings  final two games of the regular season against the San Jose Sharks saw them blow leads in both games resulting in the loss of a division title, a fall in the playoff standings from three to eight and a first round match with the Vancouver Canucks who finished the regular season 16 points better than Los Angeles.

Despite all this the players never stopped believing in themselves or the philosophies of current head coach Darryl Sutter.  They showed determination, heart, grit and toughness in the dispatching of Vancouver in five games.

The tone for all of the above traits was set by the play of Kings captain Dustin Brown.  Throughout the series he proved why he wears the “C”.  Whether it was two shorthanded goals in game two or his message sending hit on Henrik Sedin in game three, Brown never backed down from the physical play while showing the heart of a leader.  Hard to believe the Kings reportedly considered trading Brown earlier this season.

Brown lead the charge offensively while goaltender Jonathan Quick continued his season long all-star level play.  Quick made big save after big save and turned the tide in the game five clincher when he stopped Daniel Sedin on a second period breakaway to keep the Kings within one goal.  Quick finished the series with a record of 4-1, a goals against average of 1.59 and a save percentage of .953.

I have rooted for Kings my entire life.  I wasn’t alive when Rogie Vachon was making his name in Kings history.  I do however remember goaltenders like Markus Mattsson, Kelly Hrudey, Glenn Healey, Felix Potvin and Dan Cloutier.  If I say nothing else with more sincerity about the Los Angeles Kings than what I’m about to write next it’s this…”I thank the hockey gods daily for Jonathan Quick!”  Let me repeat this, “I thank the hockey gods daily for Jonathan Quick!!!”

Without his play the King season would have been a epic disaster.  He won 35 games this year.  The Kings scored the second fewest goals of any team in the NHL this season.  Imagine how many Quck could have won if the Kings finished in the middle of the standings or higher.

Because of Quick and the defensive play in front of him Los Angeles has proved it can compete with any team remaining in the postseason.  The only question is can the offense score enough?

Don’t get me wrong, I want a Stanley Cup for the Kings more than anything.  That being said, my definition for success for this years team was an appearance in the second round.  After two first round exits the previous two years preceded by a decade of no postseason hockey I felt that was a reasonable goal given the talent of the team along with recent accomplishments.

For this fan the 2011-2012 season is a success regardless of what happens from here on out.  Starting this weekend and who knows for how long, the Kings are playing with house money.

But let’s not stop there, let’s continue to dream and think big in Tinseltown.  A championship CAN be won here.  A June parade down Figueroa to celebrate the accomplishments of a hockey team IS possible.  A first round elimination of the team with the best regular season record was a crowning achievement but a Stanley Cup would be the ultimate jewel in the crown.

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