Lawson to have injection prior to tip-off Sunday

There have been recent rumors swirling about whether or not Ty Lawson will play tomorrow when North Carolina hosts Duke at 4 p.m. As of now, he will play. But he will receive an injection prior to game time in an effort to ease pain in his ailing right foot. He injured the foot in practice yesterday, as has widely been the report of message boards all over the place.

Say It Ain't T.O.

Lord. Can we get this guy off the news? Full disclosure here: I'm a huge Terrell Owens fan. I don't know, I just tend to pull for the misunderstood, as the phrasing often goes. That said, T.O. is in some deep do-do. The Randy Moss parallels shouldn't even exist. Randy was 30. Owens is 35 and coming off a season in which his statistics took a major hit. Sixty-five yards per game? That's good enough for 15th in the NFL. If you've ever read this blog, you know I'm a Redskins fan. ESPN's Christ Mortensen says that the 'Skins are absolutely out of the question. I guess I can understand that. But the way I see it, we've got a cast of bums as wideouts. Part of me wishes that Snyder would trade some of those chumps for some line help on either side of the ball and sign T.O. I think about it this way. Things are always great in the beginning. Owens comes in, makes his promises and minds his manners in hopes of showing up whichever team just gave up on him. Trade some of these goons, sign T.O. and draft my man Hakeem Nicks out of the University of North Carolina with your first-round pick. You'll get the most out of T.O. in the first year because he's going to be hell-bent of proving the Cowboys wrong. What better way to do so than with a rival that makes up half of one of the fiercest rivalries in all of sports?

Then, while everyone is still thinking, "Hey, this T.O. thing just might work," you dump him. Dump him before he has a chance to dump you. Then you've got help on the line, a potential playmaker with a season under his belt in which he had a chance to learn from one of the best and no chance of a headache. Hey, nothing else has worked since 1992. Why not?

Hope you brought your umbrella

I'm sure all five of my readers will be delighted to know that I showed signs of athleticism tonight. I managed to score for the first time in five games in my recreational basketball league, pouring in five 3's and adding a sweet drive to the basket for a dun ... I mean, lay-in, giving me a nice, round total of 17 points. The best part? That was all in the first half! My teammates sent me into exile in the second, leaving me a mere 0-for-2 from beyond the arc. Still, it was an infinitely better performance than my other two on the season. We've played four games, but I've missed two. One for the UNC/Duke game, and the other to visit my grandmother.

The downside is that we lost. That puts us at 4-1 on the year. It is a four-on-four league at the Cary YMCA. We have a dude that is 6-foot-11 and another that is 6-foot-9, so we generally dominate. But our two big men weren't there tonight, leaving four mortals - all standing below about 6'2" to deal with a pretty good team. We kept it close until about midway through the second half, when we all ran out of steam. Still, with four games to go in the regular season, I think we're the odds on favorite. Especially if I can continue to shoot like a white boy.

I'll keep you posted as I know you'll all be dying for updates.

LeBron vs. Michael

I never thought I'd say this about anybody:

LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan.


Now, I know you probably think I'm crazy to say that a kid who is younger than me, and has yet to log five years in his NBA career, is better than the greatest player of all time. And I know that the argument persists that LeBron isn't even the best player in the league right now. LeBron has never won a national championship, an NBA championship, never won even an MVP outright. He didn't score 81, or even 63 in the playoffs. My argument to that is simple. Who cares? Hank Aaron never hit 50 home runs in a season. But the fact that he hit more than 20 for 20 straight years is staggering. That is what LeBron is doing right now. He scored 40+ last night against the Miami Heat, giving him seven such games on the year. Combine his point totals (second-highest PPG in the league at 28.5 a game) with the fact that he averages more than seven rebounds per game, is 10th in the NBA in assists, and that he's doing all of this while playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and you've got the greatest player of all-time - already.

His team is terrible. The teams in contention in his conference and in the West all have more than one star. The Celtics have three, the Magic have a couple, the Nuggets, Spurs, Lakers ... they're all loaded. LeBron made Mo Williams an all-star. Mo Williams? Kobe would've demanded out of Cleveland a long, long time ago had the front office waited this long to make a move. Kobe complained about wanting another threat after he forced Shaq out of town. LeBron would like to have Joe Smith. That's laughable. James just needs four other competent mammals on the floor, to get within a game of two consecutive Eastern Conference titles.

Look at his bio. This guy is the youngest to do everything. He is the first athlete to rival the marketability of Jordan, to whom a comparison cannot exist in terms of marketing, since Michael is the reason all of it exists in the first place. Yes, Michael set the stage for someone else to come along and blow our minds. Well, that someone is here. And we are all witnesses.

The Losing Formula

A friend made an interesting point the other day regarding North Carolina's three losses this season. Three names that leap from the box scores of the Tar Heels' losses to Boston College, Wake Forest and Maryland are Tyrese Rice, Jeff Teague and Greivis Vasquez, respectively. Rice had 25 in a 7-point win. Teague scored 34, and the Demon Deacons won by three. And, most recently, Vasquez put up a triple-double, scoring 35 in Maryland's 88-85 win in overtime last Saturday.

The one thing all three have in common?

Marcus Ginyard wasn't guarding any of them.

While many were hopeful that the Tar Heels would run the table en route to their second national championship in five years, it is understood that the team likely was to lose a game or two during the course of a 40+ game season. That said, the circumstances of UNC's three losses this season highlight how important a lock-down defender like Ginyard is to a championship contender. If you look back to the Tar Heels' title run in '05, you notice that Jackie Manuel started 36 of the team's 37 games and averaged more than 20 minutes a game. The guy couldn't throw a golf ball into the ocean from the deck of a boat anchored two miles offshore, but he had unprecidented value. I remember going to games and hearing even "Jackie Manuel's Posse" hold its breath when the ball found its way to an oft-wide-open Manuel around the perimeter in a tight game. Sporadic shouts of "No!," or "Don't shoooooot!" could be heard throughout the arena. But his defensive presence in the face of a go-to scorer for the opposition was paramount for North Carolina.

I think fans and critics alike have all but forgotten the fact that the Tar Heels have been contenders all season - and done so without a starter ... a very important starter. There are other good defenders on the team, but none can compare to Ginyard, who's strength and aggressiveness often have led to frustrated opponents. Defensive prowess can be measured in steals and blocked shots, but still is very difficult to quantify. Altered shots and a scorer's inability to get a clean look at the basket, or at a teammate cutting in that direction, need only happen two or three times in the course of a one-, two- or three-possession game to change the outcome. Now, I'm not saying that Carolina is 27-0 with Ginyard in the lineup, but I am saying that teams would have to find other ways to win.

I need a new computer...

Mine broke like eight years ago, so that's why I never post anymore. This one came to mind in an effort to keep my site from being deleted forever. I know none of you want to see that happen. At the moment I'm sitting here watching Davidson get annihilated at Purdue. Stephen Curry will probably be the Player of the Year at season's end, but he is stinkin' up the joint today. He was 3-of-17 at the half.

North Carolina didn't look so hot against Valpo today, either, but the margin of victory was still a hefty 22 points. While the Tar Heels have been dominant on the court, I've noticed that they aren't covering spreads at the same rate they did a year ago. Of course, that doesn't amount to a hill of beans to Roy Williams, but it has effectively kept me from betting on games. Maybe that's a good thing.

On the subject of UNC's dominance, I think it's safe to say that if Carolina loses a game at any point in the season, it will certainly be considered a rather epic upset. That's not to say that they won't lose, they coughed one up to St. Mary's in 2005 and we all know how that ended up. But with the depth they posses, there is really no comparison between the Heels and the rest of the NCAA. In fact, I'm thoroughly convinced that North Carolina is the best basketball team in the state ... including the Charlotte Bobcats.

Speaking of the NBA, the fact that the Big 3 aren't there is a pretty good reason why the team is 11-0. This may turn out to be the best decision of Ellington, Green, Hansbrough and Lawson's respective careers. This year's draft won't nearly possess the same prospects as that of a year ago. There is a potential repeat of the 2005 draft in which UNC sent four lottery picks to the NBA.

The person who's stock has risen the most has to be Lawson. His decision to return has dissolved notions that he is selfish and he has shined on the court. I think at this point Steph Curry has to be POY, as I said before, but Lawson is certainly at the top of the list. He was considered by most a second-rounder a year ago whereas at season's end he'll likely be projected in the top 10.

Anyway, my birthday is eight days away, so maybe my parents will read this and buy me a computer. I'll get this ball rollin' again soon.

Redskins ... sweet

I'm not sure who sucked more this past week - the Tar Heels or the Redskins. I'm gonna go with the 'Skins, though, because at least North Carolina won. Got to see most of the game. Missed a lot of the first quarter because I was at work. One thing is certain about the Giants - Plaxico Burress is going to be a beast this year, which is good for a couple of my fantasy teams. And he's from Virginia, so he's cool with me. I didn't think the Eli was all that impressive. Moreover, I think the Washington secondary was stank. Carlos Rodgers blows and not having Shawn Springs hurts. Fred Smoot is OK, but inconsistent. And man, do I miss Sean Taylor. LaRon Landry seemed to have regressed since his rookie season a year ago. Of course, that might have a little to do with the fact that he got truck-sticked by Brandon Jacobs early on. The defense did make stands when it needed to. And they were on the field a lot in the first half, thanks to a clueless offense.

On the other side of the ball, I don't think Jason Campbell was that bad. He made very few mistakes from what I saw, other than moving around in the pocket every now and then, rather than hanging in long enough to check down to an open option. I'm not calling for Colt Brennan just yet, but I think he should be the backup. I thought Clinton Portis looked pretty good, all things considered and even though Santana Moss caught the 'Skins' only touchdown, he still showed why he'll never be the playmaker we need on offense. He's just too small. Anyway, enough is enough. Campbell is one of my two fantasy QBs, so it looks like I could be in trouble until he gets in the groove. Great.