Good Baseball Day, NBA Draft

Hello,

Yesterday was a good day for me in the MLB. All 4 of my teams that played won. Thankfully the McCourt Fiascos didn't play to ruin the streak. (I'm really hoping the rumors are true that the McCourts have finally have reached a divorce settlement. If that's true then Frank and Jamie McCourt and their kids can finally get on with their lives. Less importantly maybe the Dodgers can get on with being a well run team.) Boston and Atlanta strengthened their playoff chances, both teams have been playing very well. Pittsburgh is looking to have their first above .500 season record in about 17 years. I'm so excited that the Pirates are going in the right direction. And Chicago? Well they are the Cubs, one can only expect so much.

There are going to be more inter league games for everybody but Dodgers-Astros. The Pirates go to play the Indians in Cleveland. Strangely enough the Pirates have a better road record than home record. They are 20-15 on the road, whereas they are 15-18 at home. Cleveland is a good team, but they have been struggling. The Indians are only 3-7 over their last 10 games. Milwaukee plays Boston at Fenway Park, two first teams playing each other. Texas plays the Braves in Atlanta, which will be a good test for the Braves. The Yankees travel to Chicago to play the Cubs. Chicago is at home which is good as they need every break they can get. Game 3 of their series will be ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball game.

Thursday night is the NBA Draft. Mostly everyone agrees that Kyrie Irving will go first to Cleveland. After that though the draft seems to be wide open. The Jazz own the #3 and #12 first round picks. As a Jazz fan I hope Arizona's Derrick Williams falls to the Jazz at #3. He seems to be ready to play in the NBA but still hasn't reached his full potential. I also don't think he fits with the Timberwolves, owners of the # 2 pick, with Kevin Love playing essentially the same position.

Many NBA experts are projecting the Jazz to draft Enes Kanter at #3. I'm fearful about that pick as he's a European player. Most European players have been failures in the NBA. For every Dirk Nowitski, there are several busts. The Jazz have had some success with European/ foreign players. They've had Andrei Kirilenko and Mehmet Okur, who certainly have had their share of highlights. However those two have been injured way too often, that could be the lasting legacy of both players.

I'm very worried about what the Jazz are going to do with their #12 pick. If Jimmer Fredette is still there at #12, I expect the Jazz to take him. Honestly I don't think they have a choice. He performed well at the Jazz's tryout of him this past week. Maybe if his workout had been a disaster, possibly the pressure wouldn't be so great. However I think the pressure is just too great from fans for the Jazz not to pick Fredette. I'm just very afraid that he's going to be a partial bust. The Jazz have already had too many draft busts.

Of course the wild card is there might be a trade, actually I expect at least one major trade. That of course would throw everything up into the air. Following the draft there may be a NBA lockout which might make a lot of these things irrelevant for awhile anyway.

themusicaddict