So I was away for a while...

1. Hey, it’s been a while! The Spurs swept the NBA Finals. I was wrong about my six games prediciton. Tony Parker was Finals MVP. Third non-American to do it. (Hope I’m saying that right.) What I thought was interesting is that the first two, Hakeem Olajuwon and Tim Duncan, both played for the U.S. Olympic team.

2. Some sad news out of Atlanta today: apparently police want to talk to Pac-Man Jones of the Tennessee Titans about a shooting that might have involved people he knew. I’m just sad because nothing was beaten to death more than Pac-Man Jones jokes, especially among sports bloggers. Seriously, one “making it rain” joke in the comments and I’ll ban you from here for life. (For the record, it doesn't sound like anyone was seriously hurt.)

3. What else…here’s a weird story on SI.com. Delta Airlines is going to have a plane with a picture of Hank Aaron on it. (Apparently Delta is based in Atlanta, though I always think of them as the airline who thinks everyone should fly through Salt Lake City.) I guess it’s named after Hank, and it’s a Boeing 757, which is sort of close to his home-run total of 755.

Aaron had some surprisingly odd/awed quotes:

"I am honored and sometimes you know I pinch myself every now and then to see whether it is real or not," Aaron said.

Added the 73-year-old Aaron: "I am so thrilled to have an airplane named after me. This is something I never dreamed about. As my mother always said, you've come a long ways baby, and enjoy yourself."

Wow. Did Aaron never get recognition for anything as a player? What a dorky thing to get so excited about, though I guess that’s what’s so endearing. Incidentally, I don’t believe the part about him never dreaming about it. Who wouldn’t put a plane being named after them high on a list of life’s goals?

If you actually read the story, it sort of beats you over the head with the real point: Delta, like everyone else, suddenly decided to honor Aaron because Barry Bonds is about to break his career home-run record. This is offensive to everyone, but puzzling to me.

Why do people hate Bonds? Because he ignored the non-existant rule prohibiting the use of steroids in baseball, and because he’s about to break one of the most hallowed records in sports. So what?

Here’s the thing: does owning that record make Bonds a better player than Hank Aaron? No! (Eight Gold Gloves and the 500-500 club do that.) But there’s no law that says you have to honor Barry Bonds now.

No one cares but me

Oh, hail yes. Check out the cover of All-Pro Football 2K8.

Finals tonight

Championship days are great.

Tonight the San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers tip off in Game 1 of the NBA Finals (7 p.m. MDT, ABC). Two teams with two of the biggest stars in the league. If you can't get excited about this, you don't like basketball. But I guess you already knew that.

It should be an interesting matchup of styles, one the Spurs will eventually win in six games. The Spurs have been to the Finals before and won, while the whole "over .500" thing is still pretty new to the Cavs. The Spurs feature a big man who can be dominant on both ends in Tim Duncan, while the Cavs are led by a dynamic and versatile perimeter offensive star in LeBron James. The Spurs have a number of wildly overrated role players, whereas only one Cavalier will get credit even if they win it all. (Of course, San Antonio's supporting cast really is better than Cleveland's.)

Shoot, even the boring star (Tim Duncan) follows the rules of modern capitalization, but the flashier LeBron James has neither use nor need for convention.

A few numbers I found interesting:

* The Spurs gave up the fewest points in the league this season (90.1 per game).

* The Cavaliers have given up the fewest in the postseason (86.7 per game).

* The Cavaliers swept the two-game season series. I never put much stock in that, until the Warriors continued their dominance of the Mavericks in this year's first round. (Doesn't it feel like that upset happened last year?)

* Despite his recent 48-point explosion, LeBron is still scoring less than he did in the regular season.

* Like every Eastern Conference team not from Michigan, the Cavs had a losing record on the road this year. And the Spurs have the homecourt advantage. However, with the championship round's 2-3-2 format, the Spurs will actually be on the road more if the series lasts only five games.

Why do I pick the Spurs? I think they're a better team and came from a better conference, meaning they've already faced tougher competition and won. I think Duncan is better than LeBron, and the team with the better star almost always wins the Finals. I also like the Spurs' ability to excel in any style of game. But I think the Cavs will last six games because the Spurs tend to let teams hang around. Their last Finals (2005 with the Pistons) went seven games after Duncan lost all touch from the foul line. Also, I think the Cavs will pull out a game or two on their own merits, considering how well LeBron has played lately.

Pistons & Cavs

The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Detroit Pistons handily on Saturday night, putting the Cavs in the NBA Finals.

The Cavs won Game Five behind a remarkable effort from LeBron James, who scored 48 points. In the closeout game, he put up "just" twenty with fourteen rebounds and eight assists. But the leading scorer was rookie guard Daniel Gibson, who was quite the hyped player himself coming out of high school. Gibson scored 31.

Good for the Cavs and good for LeBron. Sure, it was a down year for the East, and the Pistons must have thought it was a best-of-three series, but it's still an impressive accomplishment at his age. I think the Spurs will make short work of the Cavs once the Finals finally start (Thursday!), but it's at least interesting now.

What really strikes me, though, is the Pistons. The Pistons defeated the Lakers in the 2004 Finals, which was fun to watch as a Laker-hater but just a bizarre series in retrospect. It was the Lakers' last few games with Shaquille O'Neal. Some observers said the Pistons had found an answer for O'Neal-which is true, except the answer was: hope his teammates don't pass to him. I also remember Kobe showing a distinct lack of conscience in shot selection, even for him, and even admitting to it in one postgame press conference. (Fun to hold that over the Lakers fan I'd watched with.)

Anyway, the Pistons' victory was hailed as a victory for the virtues of team play. History was poised to look pretty favorably on the Pistons. But I don't think they'll get it anymore. Yes, even in 2004 the Pistons looked like one-hit wonders, which is saying something in the NBA, where almost every team that wins a title wins two.

But the Pistons stayed in the headlines as an Eastern Conference favorite for several years, even sending four of their starters to the 2006 All-Star Game. But in the last three years in a weak conference, they've made the Finals just once, losing to the weakest of the Spurs' championship teams. If LeBron was an underachiever this year (are people still saying that?), surely the Pistons have underachieved for the last three.

A-Rod shouts

Yesterday's Denver Post had some choice words for Alex Rodriguez, who yelled something during a pop-up recently in a game against the Toronto Blue Jays Wednesday (yes, this is all a few days old).

Rodriguez ran from first base toward third base on a high popup. He shouted "Hah" - his version - or "Mine!" - Toronto's version - causing Howie Clark to pull up and let the ball drop for a critical RBI single. The Blue Jays blasted A-Rod's play as "bush league," and all but guaranteed he will get hit with a pitch when the two teams meet again.

How unfair! The poor Blue Jays, getting picked on by the big mean man like that!

I've never played baseball. I don't mean I never made it to the major leagues. I mean I have literally never played a real game of baseball (the nine innings with all the players sort of thing). So I'm the ultimate outsider. But this really couldn't bother me any less than it does. What's all the fuss about? Post:

Renck's take: It's remarkable how every time Rodriguez attempts a "hard-nosed or baseball-smart" play he ends up getting barbecued, whether it was his attempt to knock off a Red Sox player's glove in the playoffs or his hard slide into second baseman Dustin Pedroia recently. About this verbal assault? A-Rod is better than that. This move smacks of Bill Romanowski or Rick Mahorn, athletes who resorted to cheap tricks to compensate for a lack of talent. In 11 years of covering baseball, I have never seen another player pull this move. Even more troubling, Seattle Mariners infielder Jose Lopez said A-Rod does it all the time, calling his act stupid. While it's true major-league baseball is viewed as a win-at-all-costs game, it shouldn't come at the expense of class.

Funny that the Post's Troy Renck would invoke Bill Romanowski, then act like yelling in a baseball game is the epitome of dirty play. And the whiny reference to "class" makes me think Renck is a Utah Jazz fan. As Michael Wilbon pointed out on PTI Friday, you can throw a spitball but you can't yell at someone?

Of course, spitballs are truly illegal but winked at, whereas distractions break no rules. What a dumb sport sometimes. While I'm hardly an A-Rod or Yankees apologist, I think you'd be dumb not to yell once in a while. (You should do it every time, except they'd stop falling for it.) What kind of pros are the Blue Jays if they can't take it?