The Adventures of Diesel and Flash II The Next Rise to Power – featuring LeBron James

The Adventures of Diesel and Flash II

The Next Rise to Power – featuring LeBron James

Shaquille O’Neal and Dwayne Wade team up again to deliver another blockbuster deal, saving the city of Miami from basketball mediocrity. Like all great duos the two parted ways looking for brighter pastures, but when the city of Miami came calling, Diesel and Flash again came to the rescue.

I’m not here to predict a third Shaq trade in 2 years. Instead Shaq is going providing South Beach with a duo of such magnitude you could only create it on NBA Live. The Shaq Experiment in Cleveland is a failure, and in 2010, LeBron is heading south. There, I said it.

Bring on the hate mail; tell me I’m crazy. Better yet, show me some numbers and prove me wrong. I’ve been a critic since I saw the trade come across the bottom line on June 26^th and I’m not backing down now.

There’s a reason Team USA doesn’t win the gold in every single Olympics, there’s a reason the Yankees don’t win the World Series every year and there’s a reason the Detroit Pistons knocked off Shaq’s hall of fame cast in 2004. It’s called chemistry. If you could just grab the best talent and spew it on the court, why would we pay coaches and general managers so much?

Let me explain why the Shaq experiment was doomed to fail.

What makes LeBron James great? It sure isn’t his jump shot (he’s not Kobe), it’s not his amazing ball skills and quickness (he’s not D-Wade), it is LeBron’s ability to drive the basketball at 6’8’’ 250lbs. He very well may be better at driving than anyone in NBA history. He is a freight train in perfect control, able to glide through the air and deliver with such force, shot blockers need not apply. When he begins his drive, you are at his mercy.

This isn’t to say LeBron James doesn’t have a good jump shot, or that he doesn’t have exceptional ball handling skills and quickness. But when you take away his drive you take away who he is. The funny thing is, the only person that has proven, and will continue to prove, to be able to take away his drive is his own center Shaquille O’Neal.

10 years ago, this may have been a fantastic duo. But an aging Shaq that just clogs the lane is not what the Cavaliers need to get by Orlando and Boston in the east. When Shaq clogs the paint, it forces LeBron to switch to his secondary weapon of a jump shot. It’s like when Ohio State asks Terrell Pryor to step back and pass too much, you just gotta let the kid play.

What’s ironic about the whole thing is that the Cavs were right in grabbing a Phoenix center; they just grabbed the wrong one. Could you imagine a mobile, agile Amare Stoudemire running the pick and roll with the King?

All this only builds up to the NBA’s shuffle-up and deal off-season of 2010, where James will reportedly test the free agent market if Cleveland can’t surround him with a cast capable of winning a championship.

Without going into too much detail here, one of the teams that in fact can afford him, is the Miami Heat. There has been lots of speculation that LeBron would love to join his friend and Olympic teammate Dwayne Wade down in Miami and we can only imagine the possibilities. Would the chemistry be there? It sure looked like it was there in Beijing.

(If the right GM steps in I’ve even heard rumors that they could find a way to fit Chris Bosh on the payroll as well, I’m not even gunna tread those water yet though.)

I understand that we’ve only had 20 or so games this season, and much is still to be hashed out. But when it all goes to hell in Cleveland (a.k.a. they don’t advance past the 2^nd round of the playoffs), you heard it here first.

-JT Dec. 4, 2009

The Sunny and C Show

Thompson: Will Notre Dame's return to glory be the Brian Kelly story?

Another no-show last week by the Notre Dame defense against Stanford left everyone with little to speculate regarding the future of coach Charlie Weis.

After a five-year tenure (or internship, as some fans will call it), a 6-6 record became unacceptable to the Irish faithful. Quite frankly, Weis only made it to Monday because it would have been politically incorrect for a Catholic university to fire someone on a Sunday.

An era is over, and Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick has begun his search to find the man to bring Notre Dame “back to glory.”

Can Notre Dame – with their high academic standards and less than spectacular campus location – ever reclaim the dominance lost when Lou Holtz left in 1996? Do players want to play at Notre Dame anymore? Are the Irish even relevant to a generation that has seen nothing but undelivered promises from the “storied program?”

Most of these questions are irrelevant because as coaches like Brian Kelly, Urban Meyer and Nick Saban have shown, the story in college football begins and ends with the head coach. Just about any school can be one hire away from plunging onto the national scene.

That being said, who can right the ship in South Bend?

Remember, Notre Dame isn’t your typical job.

In-state recruits don’t exist, so you had better be a great recruiter.

You must be an ace with the media because from the minute you sign up, you will be relentlessly questioned and second guessed.

Finally you will need to be one of the “good old boys.” There are a lot of old-fashioned Irish alumni digging deep into their pockets to buyout Weis’ mistake of a contract, so they better like you at face value.

With all of that in mind, isn't the search fairly simple?

Its a two-tier process consisting of three coaches: Meyer, Kelly, and Bob Stoops.

After multiple failures, Swarbrick can’t afford to get cute and look at a Gary Patterson, a Butch Davis or a Jim Harbaugh. They need someone with hardware and a name.

Swarbrick owes it to the Irish fan base to throw the kitchen sink at Meyer. They underbid him in 2004 and lost out to Florida. Notre Dame is still close to the heart of Meyer, and if Swarbrick could bring him to South Bend everything in the world would be right again.

Likely? No. Meyer has already publicly shot down the idea of ever leaving Florida, even after admitting Notre Dame is his dream job. But then again, Saban did the same thing to Alabama until the pot was sweetened. So Irish nation can dream right?

Once Swarbrick fulfills his obligation and forces Urban Meyer to tell him no, it comes down to Stoops and Kelly – pick your order.

It took Stoops far too long to dismiss the rumors of him coming to South Bend, and nobody should be shocked if more rumors start surfacing in the coming weeks. Stoops is said to feel underappreciated in Oklahoma, and his midwest-Catholic roots would fit right in at Notre Dame.

Kelly, one of our own from Grand Valley, is neck and neck with Stoops. Kelley has had success wherever he has gone, and nobody needs to be reminded of what he has done with average talent in Cincinnati this year.

The knocks on Kelly are his unproven track record on the recruiting trail and a lack of Division 1 hardware. But, if he is the second coming of Meyer like some have proclaimed, can Notre Dame afford to pass him up?

In addition, all speculation says Kelly will be half way to South Bend before he hangs up the phone with Swarbrick.

With loads of excitement and speculation surrounding the Irish football program, don’t be surprised if little noise is leaked out of South Bend in the coming days.

All three of the coaches still have bowl games with their current teams, and Notre Dame can’t afford for any of them to pull a Les Miles and bail because word was leaked too early. On paper, two of the three are still in the national title hunt, and, as Miles showed us, no future job can pull a coach away from that.

Pending the games on Saturday, this is how the coaching search will shake out:

If...

...Notre Dame hires before Saturday - Stoops (only one of the three not in the title hunt)

...Texas wins - Kelly becomes available (statistically out of title hunt)

...Florida loses - Meyer becomes available (out of title hunt)

...Texas loses and Florida wins - Kelly and Meyer are locked up

...Notre Dame doesn't hire before the National Championship game (a game not featuring Cincinnati) - Notre Dame fans can get excited

Here are the odds, Las Vegas style:

Kelly 1:1 – Up and coming, open to the idea, makes the most sense
Stoops 2:1 – Brings the hardware and a name, but leaving Oklahoma will be hard
Meyer 7:1 – Best coach in America, good coaches don't move much
The Field 8:1 – Any other selection better panout or Swarbrick is fired

Rumors and controversy will surround not only the Notre Dame football program, but programs around the country as more names are thrown into the Irish coaching mix. We’ve seen these insecurities already, as rumored candidates Jim Harbaugh and Gary Patterson were given large contract extensions by their universities as added insureance.

Notre Dame has a huge decision to make in the coming weeks, maybe one of the biggest in school history. Time is of the essence, as recruits grow restless of being committed to a leaderless program.

The Irish have missed on their past three coaches. If Notre Dame misses on another, they could slip farther into irrelevance, effectively crushing the dreams fans have for a “return to glory.”

-JT Dec. 2, 2009

The Sunny and C Show