Hole Punch Sports

If Carmelo Anthony wants out so badly, let’s make him stay. I used to think the Nuggets should keep Carmelo for the whole year since having Carmelo gives us our best shot at a championship for the foreseeable future. (Not that it’s an especially good shot.) But now? Let’s just keep him out of pure vengeance. Recent rumors suggested Carmelo would only sign his extension with the Nuggets if they trade him to New York. Here’s how it works: in the NBA, a player’s current team can offer a guy more money than any other team. This is intended to give teams a fighting chance in free agency to hold on to their best players. But if Carmelo wants out of Denver so badly, let him go! I can’t see a single reason for the Nuggets to give him the max deal if he’s not going to play here. Well, there is one reason, and that’s if we can trade Carmelo for something truly worthwhile. That’s unlikely. We could probably get some projects, or maybe one good player and some stiffs, for Carmelo, which isn’t c...

Today the Denver Broncos fired Josh McDaniels as their head coach. The team (and, by extension, the league) feels worth following once again. McDaniels got his first shot at a pro head coaching job in Denver at the age of 15. He was, it turned out, the Brian Griese of coaches. Like Griese, he followed an absolute legend, one of the best ever in the game, in Denver, where expectations run a mile higher than they should. Griese had a weak arm at a position that almost demands a strong one; McDaniels came to town without the instant respectability a tenured NFL coach carries. Both were young, promising, and disappointing. And, as with Griese’s 2000 Pro Bowl season, McDaniels showed one flash of brilliance that gave him just a little too much leash. His 6-0 start last season was the stuff of legend, a brilliant-if-misleading spark that gave him just enough job security to make it until today. (I say misleading because three of the wins came in one-score games, and the record since suggests...