Opening Day

Smells like baseball. Opening day is a magnificent things. Its the day where everyone gets to start anew, clean slate, and hope springs eternal no matter if you're the Royals, Rangers, or Yankees. I can't explain my never ending defense of JD or my unrequited love of the Rangers, who never seem to return the favor with any significant wins... make no mistake, I am the ultimate Rangers apologist. Maybe its because I want to be a part of this thing as a fan when I'm ultimately rewarded with playoff success. I think with the Rangers I always feel like it could be just around the corner and with the talent on its way up the system I feel like that more than ever.

I don't expect a contender this year and thats ok. 80 wins I'l lbe happy with. I just want to see progress. I want to see 20/20 from Kinsler, another .300 year from MY, a resurgent Blalock, 35-40 HRs from Hamilton (and a comfortable feeling that we have found our CF and another building block), Millwood and Padilla circa 2006, Murphy being the scrappy type player every good team needs, Luis Mendoza become a reliable piece of our rotation, Brandon McCarthy get healthy and fulfill his potential, CJ Wilson be a lights out stopper (he might be my favorite Ranger), Eric Hurley up here late in the year pitching like Volquez did last year, Davis and Teagarden raking in Frisco and eventually Oklahoma City, Andrus continuing to progress with his hitting, Matt Harrison become a legit pitching prospect, Engel Beltre dominate A ball, and so on and so forth. If I see this from a team that only wins 75-80 games and finishes 3rd again... I will be pleased. However, if the Rangers get solid years from Millwood and Padilla, a strong season from Jennings, and one other starter steps up they can make a run at the playoffs. The hitting is going to be there folks. If this things continues on the natural progression through the baseball franchise life cycle I won't even be able to contain myself come Opening Day 2009 and 2010.

On that note about franchise life cycles, heres a good piece from Evan Grant on what exactly the Rangers are building here. They've got a defined direction that the whole organization is buying into (except for maybe Michael Young who is extremely insistent on winning now) for the first time since they were a playoff team. Just stick with this thing. I've got a really good feeling about it.

On that note, I give you the lineup for opening day:

2B Ian Kinsler
SS Michael Young
CF Josh Hamilton
3B Hank Blalock
DH Milton Bradley
LF David Murphy
RF Marlon Byrd
C Gerald Laird
1B Ben Broussard

P Kevin Millwood

Jerry Jones presents the Dallas Cowboys circus

Pacman Jones and Chad Johnson? Wow. What a sick team if we could make it to the end of the year. Why not? It would be fun. Just don't trade 3 picks to draft McFadden. Anything else I'm on board with.

What ails the Mavs

I'll make this short and sweet. Its pretty simple. Our half court offense has been terrible. Kidd can't help this team if our half court is the same putrid stagnancy its always been. He has helped this team score in transition and its the only way we've been able to score consistently lately. Its pretty sickening when you hold Boston and San Antonio to 30% shooting and lose both games. All of these games have been close losses (except for the Rockets debacle) and the missing component here is we can't close out games because we can't score in the half court. Theres not much more to it than that. Without Dirk I have no idea how we score points in the half court. His isos have made up about 70% of our half court offense lately. He has been awesome. Having said that, we may actually have a shot against Denver and GS if they want to run because we can score in a transition oriented game. We've been blowing out bad teams because A.) they suck and B.) they keep missing shots and don't get back on defense so we score on a ton of runouts.

If Dirk is going to be out a long time or won't be fully healthy when hes back I'd rather just not make the playoffs. Whats the point? Give me the lottery protected pick back from NJ and save me the inevitable heart-ache.

Rangers almost had a Johan/Hunter package

If you believe these rumors... it would have made for an interesting situation here. The Rangers would have certainly been able to give up more than the underwhelming package the Mets sent over but I have a feeling it would have completely mortgaged the momentum we had been building in the minor league system. It would have only been worth it if we would have been able to contend this year but I'm not sure we would have. In the end, the Twins balked when it seemed Santana was non-committal about waiving his no-trade claue.

The Rehab Rangers

Kevin Millwood - sore hamstring
CJ Wilson - biceps tendonitis
Brandon McCarthy - strange forearm maladies
Travis Metcalf - slightly torn hamstring
Taylor Teagarden - bone bruise that won't stop hurting
Jack Benoit - sore shoulder
Milton Bradley - coach attack
Hank Blalock - car accident/sore back
Ron Washington - male pattern baldness

Yeah I think that about covers it. Ominous.

Kobe's early Christmas

I know that the Lakers game was a week ago but I just saw this quote from Kobe and found it funny. To set the scene, he is talking after the game about the fact that the Mavs never doubled him (until 2 minutes left in OT). But not only did they not double him, sometimes they doubled off him to double on Gasol.

“I’ve never been doubled off of since Shaq [O’Neal] left,” he said. “They doubled off of me, and I was sitting there like it was Christmas. It was a good feeling.”

Do what you will with that. Personally, I'm going to go vomit some more then enjoy 4 more ass-kickings of crappy Eastern Conference teams.

Oh yeah, congrats to Dirk on the Mavs scoring record. Hard to believe hes been here so long already. Lately, he has played like a German possessed and hopefully he will continue to carry this team while J-Ho continues to ruminate on how to not play lazy basketball, Jet consults with Webster on the meaning of consistency, Stack talks with Stella on how to get his groove back, Damp attends the Pete Newell Big Man Camp on how to not pick up 3 fouls in 8 minutes, Juwan Howard attends to his herpes, and Avery comes up with new ways to say the phrases "attack the basket" and "our intensity was not high enough".

Porn and the Texas Rangers

What is there to say

Allow me to quote myself from 3 days ago:

"If it hadn't been for Dirk being a total hoss lately has our half court offense really been any easier or more efficient? Has it been changed much to fit Kidd's abilities?"

A pathetic effort all around tonight. We looked lost and listless on both ends of the floor.

And another thing

It took Avery 52 game minutes yesterday to figure out it might be a good idea to get the ball out of Kobe's hands once he crossed half court. After watching "therapist" drop 9 million points on us in the 4th quarter and OT, Avery decided to employ a novel strategy that he came up with called the half court trap. Trap the ball handler after he crosses into the front court to force the ball out of his hands? Ridiculous, can't be done. It was such a novel idea that Avery even mixed it in a little in the 2nd half tonight against D-Will. A day late and a dollar short. I don't even know if that expression fits here, whatever, sue me. For the next great idea he should take Kidd off the court in key situations in order to have his best shooters on the floor (Erick Dampier included) and watch Jet run around and repeatedly hit the panic button. Wait, whats that? He already did that? Oh, well nevermind.

About Avery

Did Avery lose this team after he took Kidd out in the last 30 seconds of the Spurs game? If it hadn't been for Dirk being a total hoss lately has our half court offense really been any easier or more efficient? Has it been changed much to fit Kidd's abilities? It has been a ridiculously tough scheduling spot for the Mavs but they've been there at the end of every game. The game tonight was one we really needed. Houston at home on Thursday becomes a must win. I think its a crossroads game for the season. At this point you have to start wondering if Avery will be the head coach next year.

9 of 10 at home can't come at a better time. We need to win 8 out of the next 10 but most importantly the Houston game for our confidence.