Jay Cutler's opening?

I actually had to work yesterday, but I had nothing to say about Clippers-Suns Game Seven. I didn't watch it-my whole world felt upside-down after the Mavericks finally closed out the Spurs. What were the odds? And how crushing was that loss after Ginobili’s gutsy go-ahead three late in regulation?

Anyway.

I feel like I’ve been in Jake Plummer’s corner for a long time, but he's testing my patience. From the Denver Post:

Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer has been issued a summons by the Englewood police in connection with a purported "road-rage-type incident" last month, investigator John Hoehler said Tuesday night.

Police were sent to East Hampden Avenue and Downing Street on April 20 after a report of a hit-and-run accident.

I used to pass through East Hampden and Downing Street on the way to work one summer, and so far this story checks out. If I hit something over there, I’d run, too.

The victim of the incident - identified by Fox 31 News as Doug Stone - told officers he had been involved in a road rage incident with the driver of a gray Honda van.

When the van stopped at a red light, the driver got out and kicked the front of Stone's truck. The man then got back into the Honda, put it in reverse and hit the front of Stone's vehicle causing minor damage, then left the scene, Hoehler said.

Ha ha ha ha ha. I don't know if you can really call it "minor" damage:

"When he backed into my truck, he broke my license-plate frame," Stone told Fox 31.

The victim explains further:

Stone also said, "He actually kicked the front of the truck and said, 'Stay off my tail.' He proceeded to get back into his van, he put it in reverse and backed right into the bumper and actually pushed there for 10 seconds and then took off."

Awesome. What did Stone do to provoke this attack?

Stone said he saw the gray Honda cut off three other drivers before he was cut off.

"He pulled in front of me," Stone said. "I wasn't very polite. I did honk my horn quite a bit."

That's messed up. You can't just go around being not very polite.

A witness - identified by Fox 31 as Marjorie Casse - got the license-plate number of the van and reported it to police, he said.

"I was just very appalled," Casse told the station. "I couldn't believe what I saw."

The plate was listed to Jason "Jake" Plummer of Cherry Hills Village.

"Jake Plummer?" Stone said. "Yeah, it would surprise me. Was it Jake Plummer?"

Casse said, "Being who he is, he should really be a role model, and I'm really shocked that he would do such a thing."

Thank you, grandma. I’m shocked, too. Jake Plummer drives a gray Honda van? Isn’t that guy a millionaire? She might have been talking about the “purported road-rage-type incident”, but Jake's taste in wheels is the best evidence I’ve seen that his shaky decision-making extends to all aspects of his life.

The officer did give a New York Times-style explanation of Jake’s side of the story.

"Mr. Plummer's recollection of the incident was not as reported by the victim and independent witness," Hoehler said.

You don't say. Topic for today’s discussion: is this incident better or worse than when Brian Griese rear-ended that car in a funeral procession?

Last night's NBAction

The NBA playoffs seem like a paradox. On one hand, upsets are very rare. In the first round, for example, the team with the better record won every series. Most of the time, a series has no real suspense. Any individual game, though, can have drama on any number of levels.

The first game last night was Cavaliers-Pistons Game Five. The series was tied at 2-2, with the Cavaliers 1-0 since Rasheed placed a guarantee on his own hubris. This game was on the Pistons’ floor, though, and the relatively untested Cavaliers were sure to fall to the battle-hardened Pistons. The Cavaliers were in the lead for most of the game, though, and held on for the win. A few scenes were very telling:

1) It’s 84-84 with forty seconds left, and Ben Wallace is on the line. At this point in the game, Wallace is already oh-for-five on his foul shots. (Really more like “free chucks” or “foul prayers”.) Wallace is a lot of things-a good shot-blocker, a great rebounder-but even passable at the line is not one of them. Of course, he misses both.

I don’t understand the Ben Wallace phenomenon. Sure, he hustles like crazy, and that’s something we all respect. But do you think Shaq would have gotten a pass for missing those free throws? Not a chance!

Wallace is reportedly one of the hardest workers at improving his own game. And that’s great. But why do we believe that? Isn’t free-throw shooting something anyone can get better at? And isn’t he a huge liability in close games? Yes, he’s not a go-to guy the way Shaq is, so he’s less likely to have the ball late, at least on purpose-but I don’t feel like cutting the guy slack just because he’s bad on offense all-around.

2) LeBron James is amazing, yet still shows huge potential for growth. He’s a hulking forward with a point-guard’s skill set-that much you know already. But he also settles for point guard shots when he can manufacture more. Twice in yesterday’s endgame he settled for drives ending in short to mid-range runners. Both missed. LeBron has so much talent that he doesn’t always have to make the right decision to be successful-but he could have had two higher percentage shots there. When he learns to use his body to his advantage the way, say, Carmelo does, he’ll become unstoppable in crunch time.

I was even more impressed with James in the postgame interview, though, when he pointed out that Detroit was down 3-1 to Orlando in the first round in 2003 but came back to win the series. In other words, Cleveland still has work to do. I hope the Pistons saw that-he gave them just enough props to let them remain overconfident. (So maybe this series will have real drama.)

I also saw the end of the Spurs-Mavericks Game Five, and was surprised to see Dirk Nowitzki make a few tough shots in a real game. That said, the Spurs’ versatility-their ability to play any style well-proved to be the difference-maker at the end. Thanks to perimeter hustle, the closing seconds turned into a couple of jumpballs, taking the air out of Dallas' late rush.

Can the Spurs come back from a 3-1 deficit (now 3-2) and win the series? I’m not sure. Dallas is better than I give them credit for. But that’s not the same as great. I would like to see...forget it, we’ll make it official: the Spurs will win this series.

Kiki Out

I know it’s a couple days old, but I can’t pass up commenting on the departure of Kiki Vandeweghe as Nuggets GM.

First: it’s honestly too early to say if this is a good move for the Nuggets, mostly because we don’t know who will replace him.

In theory, though, replacing Vandeweghe shouldn’t be hard-he was steady, decidedly unspectacular, and, like a good veteran, avoided making any killer moves. While he was inclined to overpay for free agents (Andre Miller, Kenyon Martin), they usually stayed healthy and played hard (until the Clippers series, at least). That put Vandeweghe miles ahead of previous regimes, which handed long-term, guaranteed contracts to the likes of Tariq Abdul-Wahad.

That said, even Kiki’s best moves were tarnished by what could have been. The selection of Carmelo Anthony with the third pick in 2003 finally gave the team a true go-to guy, at least in the regular season. Yet it’s clear that Dwyane Wade, who went two picks later, has surpassed Carmelo as a player. Kiki’s finest trade was moving Tin Man Antonio McDyess (and Frank Williams) to the Knicks for Marcus Camby and Nene (and Mark Jackson and a second-round pick). But the Nene pick could have been used on Amare Stoudemire or the player I liked at the time, Caron Butler. (The Nuggets also passed on Stoudemire that year when they drafted Nichol…Nicolo…Nik…when they drafted Skita with the fifth pick.)

In the context of recent Nuggets history, Kiki has been fantastic. While the Nuggets still aren’t title contenders, they’ve made the playoffs three years in a row. It’s easy to take for granted, but the playoffs were a pipe dream for years.

Lately I’ve enjoyed reading old issues of Sports Illustrated. One article came during the 1997-98 season, when the Nuggets went 11-71 and narrowly avoided setting a new NBA benchmark for losing. Remember that? The strategy that year was basically to tank the season in exchange for a high draft pick and huge cap room. The Nuggets even traded away so-called “star of the future” McDyess to help in future acquisitions. It worked, in a way; after the year, the Nuggets had plenty of money to throw around. Their big signing? Antonio McDyess! Looking back on it, I can’t believe I still root for this team.

So yes, Kiki has erased some painful memories and brought the Nuggets back to prominence in the local sports scene. Now he must be replaced. Are the Nuggets smart enough to find the right man for the job?

Wow!

Don't look now, but ESPN's MLB standings list the Colorado Rockies in first place in the National League West with a 16-13 record.

Why link to ESPN? Because MLB's site lists Arizona first (it's a tie). I'd be surprised if it lasts, and I haven't watched any games, so I've really got nothing to add, but I thought it's something you should see once in your lifetime.

Games Six

Tonight has two awesome Game 6s, and one lame Pacers-Nets game the league has mercifully scheduled on NBA TV.

I saw good chunks of the fifth games of the Heat-Bulls series and Lakers-Suns series, so here are some “thoughts”:

Miami at Chicago: This Bulls team is a lot more fun in theory than in practice. They play together about ten times better than the Heat do, and they hustle like crazy. Admirable virtues. But if Kirk "Zoom zoom" Hinrich and Andres Nocioni's constant whining weren't annoying enough, you've got former Dukie Chris Duhon celebrating on the bench. It's a tossup whether it’s more fun to watch them play or to spend a quiet night at home filing down your nailbeds with sandpaper.

The Heat aren’t much better, a total hodgepodge of random players who, unlike the Bulls, you have in fact heard of. They roll the dice every night with The Glove, Employee No. 8, White Chocolate, and James Posey and hope one comes up as a good outside shooter. For some reason jacking it up your whole career doesn’t make you efficient in the twilight of your playing days, imagine that.

Game 5 was a total deadlock through three quarters, and the Heat-especially Payton and Shaq-looked very frustrated. Miami flipped the switch before the fourth and owned the rest of the game. Payton was guarding Hinrich like it was 1994, Posey finally hit a three, and Wade came back from a hard fall and played very well, but mostly the Bulls self-imploded.

That’s the problem with a team that relies so hard on hustle and guts and whatever else-they don’t have any kind of extra gear. Once Miami turned it up, the Bulls were toast. But the home team has won every game this series, and tonight’s in Chicago, so I can’t give the Heat more than about 60-40 of finishing out the series tonight.

Phoenix at L.A.: I don’t know why this series has turned into a referendum on the MVP award-it’s not like Steve Nash and Kobe were the only worthy candidates this year. But it’s still been fun watching Kobe stick it to Nash. I don’t love Bryant, but he’s so obviously superior to Nash. Why do some try to explain that Nash’s passing to scorers is more valuable than Bryant’s actual shot-making? It’s the same kind of over-thinking, now so prevalent in sports, that leads to Mario Williams going No. 1 overall.

Anyway, it’s been a pretty chippy series, which is fine with me, and Raja Bell will be sitting this one out after laying Kobe out in the open field. Actually, I think tackling another basketball player is retarded, because the other player’s always in a defenseless position. It just makes you look like a tool.

Kobe got up after the hit and had to make a big show of brushing himself off. Man, that guy’s cocky…but you know, I would have been tempted to do the same thing. I don’t like Kobe or Bell, but I almost find myself pulling for L.A.

Another potential factor tonight is the bizarre sexual assault investigation of Kwame Brown-I say bizarre only because the timing is so surprising. (Then again, no one’s ever accused Brown of taking basketball too seriously.)

I don’t know if the investigation will even find anything, but since Kobe had a similar experience a few years ago, he and Phil Jackson ought to be as supportive as Brown can hope for. Kwame’s the team’s third-leading scorer in the playoffs, and it’ll be a huge boost if he can play well.

Can he? I don’t know. Kobe was able to block it out a few years ago, which probably wasn’t as creepy or crazy as everyone made it sound. Basketball games are probably the only time for someone in that position to get any peace. (I'm not saying you have to feel sorry for Brown, especially if he turns out to be guilty, but either way I'm sure he'd like to have his mind on something else.) Then again, Brown has never reacted well to pressure. I think he does nothing special tonight, but Kobe picks up the slack, and the Lakers advance.

Leftover draft notes

My reaction to some other picks:

The Top Three: Does anyone anywhere think Houston made the right pick? Even Mario Williams’ family is like, “Man, I can’t believe we got away with that.” Do you think Gary Kubiak would have signed on to coach if he’d known they’d pass on Young and Bush? Kubiak has been publicly supportive of the pick but come on, he knows football better than that.

At No. 2 the Saints got Reggie Bush. After the Drew Brees signing, I can understand passing on Vince Young. Unfortunately, there’s potential for a T.O.-type situation here. Can Reggie Bush stomach taking a pay cut from last year?

Now the Titans had the kind of a draft a crappy team is supposed to have, reeling in the best quarterback in Young with the third pick and a top runner in LenDale White in the second round. White should push incumbent Chris Brown for playing time right away.

Young’s the type of player who could win MVP or take the Titans back to the Super Bowl. He might want to wait a while, though, because as soon he does that, the Titans’ll lock him out and start the search for his replacement.

Matt Leinart: I blew it. Last week I started writing an honest assessment of Leinart’s pro potential, but didn’t post it. The kicker is that since he struggled in bad weather-see: the windy UCLA game-I was going to suggest he go to a warm weather team, like Arizona. That’s as close as I’ll ever come to calling a draft pick.

Leinart can certainly be a solid starter, I just don’t see him as a perennial Pro Bowler like some do. Once again, if the Broncos actually wanted him but landed Cutler, then how fortunate we are.

Colorado Buffaloes: Tight end Joe Klopfenstein went to St. Louis. I’m not sure what the team’s direction is there-if they were still passing on every down, I’d love his chances to become a well-known player. Even without it, he can be a solid pro. Since they’re from CU, he and new Raven Quinn Sypniewski probably already have more blocking experience than most NFL lifers, so they can step in and contribute right away.

The Eagles picked former Buff Jeremy Bloom in the fifth round, continuing their quest to employ every sub-six-foot receiver available. He could be a Dante Hall-like return man, the main difference being that I won’t cheer if he blows out his knee.

The Browns tabbed fullback Lawrence Vickers in the sixth round, which is fitting, as his hard-nosed and versatile style calls to mind Cleveland lead-back Reuben Droughns. Vickers was one of the baddest ballers in all of college football. Why don’t the Broncos ever draft CU backs? Don’t you think they’d fit in well in our scheme?