Topics de Tuesday

-- Kevin Durant did the expected and is going pro. Totally blindsided me. I'm shocked. Personally, I spent four years in the military and six years in college before I felt I was ready to enter the "real world". More power to him, but by leaving early he will be missing out on a lot. Namely beer pong, flip cup, sorority parties (although I bet the NBA groupie scene is 10x better), the art of falling asleep in class and still having an answer when called on, and keg stands. The good news for Durant, however, is that his days of drinking cheap beer are long over. Adios Natty Light.

-- Interesting mention of the hometown Devil Rays in Bill Simmons's latest column. Simmons writes:

Enjoying the Devil Rays for selfish reasons (Rocco Baldelli and Elijah Dukes on my fantasy team) and legitimate reasons (they have the greatest collection of young athletes I've ever seen on a baseball field). Seriously. If MLB ever staged some sort of offseason "Superstars"-like decathlon where teams had to send 10 representatives to compete in touch football, basketball, bowling, golf drives, the 100-yard dash and so on, the Rays would legitimately destroy everyone else. It's absurd.

No argument here. Good to see people jumping on the Rays bandwagon. I've watched most of the Devil Rays's games this year and they are extremely talented and athletic. Unfortunately, championships aren't won on athleticism alone. If pure athletes won championships, being a general manager would be much easier (paging Mr. Isiah Thomas). I really think eventually the Devil Rays are going to have to part ways with one of these super-athletes (Rocco Baldelli?) to get some pitching help. The bullpen is looking rough.

-- Lastly, I'd like to mention a very cool post by Flyers Fieldhouse about one of my favorite video games of all-time: NBA Jam. I used to play this game until the buttons on my Game Gear nearly fell off. Give me John Starks and Patrick Ewing over anybody. Of course, the Knicks were more likely to win it all in NBA Jam than in real life - due to a contract/licensing issue, there was no Michael Jordan.

Like I said, this is a post-packed week for me. We will see how long this lasts.

(Oh yeah, the ship - that's the USS Durant. It "went pro" on 16 November 1943.)


- Jordi