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6/25/14 Let’s call it Wednesday

Posted: June 25, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in basketball, sports, Uncategorized
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So the NBA draft is tomorrow (Thursday) and the Cleveland Cavaliers have the 1st pick. It looked like a lock that the Cavaliers would take Joel Embid a 7 (seven) foot center out of Kansas. Of course Embid broke a foot and required surgery that will keep him out anywhere between 3 (three) to 6 (six) weeks and one doctor said it might be better for him to miss the entire 2015-16 season. Cleveland appears to have moved on from Embid and has it’s choice of Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker the top two (2) players in this draft now. There was a statement attributed to Parker that said if given the choice he’d prefer to play for the Milwaukee Bucks rather than the Cavaliers. Milwaukee has the 2nd pick in the draft and should take the player not taken #1 be it Wiggins or Parker. In the last couple of days there have been some trade rumors involving the #1 pick. The Orlando Magic and the Boston Celtics have been two (2) of the teams mentioned in trying to deal for the 1st pick. Both teams have to fairly earlier 1st round picks. Orlando has pick #4 and pick #12; plus it’s been reported they’d include Aaron Afflalo. The Celtics have pick #6 and pick #17, but don’t really have a player the quality of Afflalo to include in there deal. So it’s possible Cleveland takes one of these deals and still selects Embid in the 1st round where there won’t be such an uproar by Cavalier fans. They’d also have a second 1st round pick to get a player who’s healthy to start training camp. I think Cleveland will go with one of these trade offers and move down in the draft. The team that may turn out to be the biggest loser in this draft is the Philadelphia 76ers. The 76ers pretty much tanked all of last season to have the chance to get Wiggins and it looked like the plan would work until Embid got injured. It seemed like Wiggins would be sitting their at #3, but now it looks more and more like Wiggins will go #1 overall to Cleveland or to a team that trades into that spot and then Parker will go #2 to Milwaukee. There is always the chance that these players will flip-flop with Parker at #1 and Wiggins coming off the draft board at #2. Either way Philadelphia loses out on a player projected to have a very good NBA future. I’ve seen some mock drafts that have the 76ers taking Embid, but if you remember they selected Nerlens Noel with their 1st round selection last season. Noel sat out the entire season with an injury, but he plays the same position as Embid. Would the 76ers double up at the center position? in back to back drafts. Besides the top three (3) guys in this draft there are some interesting players that will be drafted tomorrow. Dante Exum is a guard out of Australia who’s been compared to Russell Westbrook and Kobe Bryant. Exum is 19 years old and their may be some growing pains for the team that takes him, but he’s a top 5 pick in this draft. Noah Vonleh is another player who has made some big jumps up draft boards after the college season has ended. Vonleh played one (1) year at the University of Indiana and is a solid rebounder with a nice outside shot for a player his size. There are so many guys that I could go over that will be drafted that I don’t want to end up giving you another mock draft to read. A couple of players I’ll be interested to see where they get picked are Marcus Smart and Doug McDermott. Smart is listed as a point guard, but I’m not sure if he’ll play that position in the NBA. Of course at 6’3 it would be a good spot for him. McDermott can shoot the basketball and will fit into the right system. The biggest issue he might have in the NBA will be getting his own shot, but like I said in the right system he’ll be able to score. I’d look for the foreign players after Exum to start coming off the draft board in the 20’s. Dario Saric from Croatia, Clint Capela from Switzerland, Bogdan Bogdanovic from Serbia and 7’3 center Walter Tavares from Cape Verde are four (4) of these players. What does your favorite team need in this draft? Is your team in a position to draft that player?

The NBA draft is a little easier for me to watch. It’s just two (2) rounds and the clock is shorter than an NFL draft type of deal. Will you be watching?

With that; let’s call it Wednesday.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

6/21/14 How was your Week?

Posted: June 21, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, sports, Uncategorized
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If you’ve been listening to Sports Time Radio you know that I’ve been giving Dan the Man & Mr. Fantasy NBA & NHL playoff games to pick along with other miscellaneous games to pick. We ended this until next season on Tuesday with Dan the Man taking them out on a high note going 3-0. Sadly even with a perfect last day they still ended up under .500 at 39-45-1. Mr. Fantasy has suggested that they pick against each other next season; so maybe will go that way for picks. Schaumburg Stu also helped out making picks any time he filled in as a co-host.

I get to talk sports 5 times a week on Sports Time Radio. It airs Sunday at 11:00 a.m., Tuesday at 5:00 p.m., Wednesday at 5:00 p.m., Thursday at 4:00 p.m. and Friday at 5:00 p.m. You can find the show on Blog Talk Radio, the one Dan the Man is supposed to be on three days a week with me and then of Mr. Fantasy is on twice a week. As I mentioned Schaumburg Stu is a more than capable fill in any time we need him to do that. With all the sports talk it started me thinking back to how I developed my love for sports. Like most this goes back to when I was a very young boy. My father was a huge sports fan and I’m talking about every sport. We watched them all together and he would try to explain what was going on during the games. Now this really picked up in the summertime especially on Sunday’s. My father was a chef; so every Sunday morning he made a big breakfast for my mother and I and then he’d get whatever we where having for dinner going. After that he’d take his 10 inch black and white television and he and I would head out to the backyard for the day. Now my father had a Goute; so he wasn’t really able to run around with me in the backyard, but he watched like it was the most important game on. Since he couldn’t get around all that well and I was an only child I was supplied with the equipment to play games myself. I had a Johnny Bench Batter Up and I also had a Pitch Back. Do you remember those? The Cubs game would come on first; because they didn’t have lights at Wrigley Field yet. Now my father was a Cubs fan; so this was a must watch. After that if it was early spring we might catch the end of a Bulls or a Blackhawks game. That was if the Blackhawks where on the road. You might not remember, but they didn’t show Blackhawks home games on television. In the summer he’d try to find the White Sox game to watch but it seemed every Sunday in the backyard ended with golf on that little black and white television. As I got a little older my father put a hole in the backyard; so I could practice putting at home. Now my father was a little older than the other kids father’s when I was born. He was 40 years old when I came along and sadly I lost him 28 years ago this month to cancer. Looking back I realized how he passed his love of all sports on to me. What I’m wondering is where did your love of a sport or sports as a whole come from?

On Wednesday Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw pitched what is being called one of the greatest games ever pitched in major league baseball. Kershaw no hit the Colorado Rockies and was one Hanley Ramirez throwing error away from a perfect game. Kershaw threw 107 pitches; 79 of which where strikes in the game and he struck out 15 Rockies hitters during the game. It was an 8-0 Dodgers win and Kershaw improved to 7-2-on the season. A pitching performance like this one re-establishes Kershaw as the premier left-handed pitcher in major league baseball. It was I who had mentioned that White Sox lefty Chris Sale had passed Kershaw as the best left-handed pitcher in baseball, but it looks like I was off on that. Bill James has come up with a sabermetric stat called Game Score. Game Score is a simple way of measuring the effectiveness of a pitcher’s start. A pitcher starts with 50 points, gets a point for each out, two points for each innings completed after the fourth inning, and one point for a strikeout. He is docked two points for each hit, four points for each earned run allowed, two points for each unearned run allowed and one point for each walk. An average Game Score in a given season usually ranges from 49 to 50. The way Game Score is calculated, nearly every start ends up scoring between 0 and 100, with occasional exceptions for extraordinarily good or bad pitching performances. Kershaw 15 strike out no-hitter was the 2nd highest game ever scored on Game Score. The only game it scored lower than was Kerry Wood’s one hit 20 strikeout performance from May 6th 1998. My only negative to this game was I didn’t get to see it. Being that it was a west coast game I was in bed long before this game ended. I know I’m just nitpicking, but I would’ve loved to see it live.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

So how was your week?

Let’s call it Wednesday 6/18/04

Posted: June 18, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in basketball, sports, Uncategorized
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Since the followers to this blog seem to be increasing I figured I’d try to start writing a 2nd blog during the week and Wednesday seemed a good a day as any to do it. The plan is to get a blog up every Wednesday along with the Saturday blog and we’ll see how this goes.

While I wasn’t surprised to see the San Antonio Spurs beat the Miami Heat to win the NBA championship it was the way they beat them that surprised me. Game 1 was a 15 point win 110-95. Game 2 of course was the only game Miami won during the series. A 2 point Heat win 98-96. Game 3 of course went to San Antonio 111-92. Game 4 saw San Antonio win 107-86. San Antonio won the championship with a Game 5 victory 104-87. While I never made a prediction in this series; I just said I’d like to see the Spurs win. The majority of the experts I heard predicted the Heat to win this series; actually come to think of it I didn’t hear anyone pick the Spurs to win the series. While the experts thought the Spurs would keep the series close and some even said it would go seven games none of them thought San Antonio would win it let alone win it in the fashion they did. No one had Miami winning only one game in this series and no one had them being beaten the way they where. Going into the series I thought Miami was the better team, but San Antonio dominated Miami in winning the championship. Kawhi Leonard was the Spurs player who broke out in the finals. He averaged 17.8 points per game for the series, but in the final three games he went for 29 points in Game 3. 20 points in Game 4 and 22 points in Game 5. Leonard actually posted double-doubles in Games 4 and 5. He grabbed 14 rebounds in Game 4 and then 10 rebounds in Game 5. For his play Leonard was named NBA finals MVP. While Leonard was the breakout star San Antonio’s big three did their part to win this championship. Tim Duncan had double-doubles in three games; Game 1, Game 2 and Game 4. Tony Parker made a case for himself being the best point guard in the NBA. Parker averaged 18.0 points and 4.6 assists during the finals. Manu Ginobili averaged 14.4 points and 4.4 assists during the finals. When Danny Green struggled shooting the ball in Game 5 it was Ginobili who stepped up and went 3 for 6 from behind the three-point line. Green was held scoreless in Game 5 and the Spurs needed Ginobili to come up big like he did. Will this be the Spurs last title with this big three no one can be sure. Duncan is 38 years old, Ginobili is 36 and Parker is 32. Head coach Greg Popovich has said he plans on coaching next season after some rumors came out that he might retire if the Spurs won the title. There was also that same rumor floated out there about Duncan, but nothing has been confirmed. Ginobili as well may retire from the NBA and return to Argentina and play for their team. Will have to wait and see what these Spurs do, but they’ll do it as champions.

Let the NBA off-season rumor mill start. Will LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh all stay in Miami? Where will Carmelo Anthony be playing next season? The Houston Rockets and the Chicago Bulls are the reported front-runners if Carmelo does opt out of his deal and become a free agent. All reports have indicated that he will opt out, but remember the New York Knicks can pay him more than any other team out there. How would interest in Carmelo change if LeBron opted out of his deal in Miami and became a free agent? Could a team Like the Los Angeles Clippers who are on the verge of winning a title make the moves they’d need to make to bring in a player like Carmelo. The Clippers are a team that could be a dark horse for a guy like Anthony. Can Kevin Love force the Minnesota Timberwolves to trade him? and where would he end up. Love has mentioned the Bulls as well as the Golden State Warriors as two places he’d like to go. Could Carmelo be a sign and trade player for the Knicks? Could LeBron end up playing in Cleveland next season? Is there a team that’s willing to pay the price Minnesota would want for Love? Plus the NBA Draft is right around the corner; Thursday June 26th. All this and more will be answered in the NBA off-season.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

How was your Week? 6/14/14

Posted: June 14, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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Did you stay up to watch the Los Angeles Kings beat the New York Rangers in double overtime to win the Stanley Cup? I can say that I did. While I didn’t watch the entire game; I go back and forth between the hockey game and the different baseball games o that where on. Once overtime started I was locked on as the Kings where one goal away from winning the Stanley Cup and the Rangers where one goal away from going to Game 6. Schaumburg Stu had this series right on; he had the Kings in five games while I thought the Kings would win the series in six games. Alec Martinez scored the Stanley Cup winning goal for the Kings in the 2nd overtime. Martinez scored 14:43 into the second overtime on a rebound off of Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist’s pads. It’s the second Stanley Cup win for the Kings in three seasons; they won in 2012 as well. This is also three Stanley Cup wins in a row for the Western conference and four out of the last five as well.

With the NHL season over there is only one playoff series left. The San Antonio Spurs lead the Miami Heat, 3 games to 1 in their NBA finals series. After a win on the road by Miami, San Antonio bounced back and won both games in Miami this week and I don’t think anyone would’ve predicted that. We talked on the show about San Antonio being able to go into Miami and split games, but I didn’t think they would win both games. The Spurs have their 1st chance to close out the series tomorrow (Sunday) in San Antonio. Kawhi Leonard has been the breakout star for the Spurs especially the last two games. Leonard has drawn the defensive assignment of guarding LeBron James and has done a solid job. Let’s face it no one player is going to shut down James and Leonard has done a better than average job. James is also guarding Leonard and part of the reason for Leonard’s success on defense is he’s making James work to cover him. Leonard has put up 29 points on Game 3 and then 20 points and 14 rebounds in Game 4 both Spurs wins. Do you think the Spurs close out the series tomorrow night?

Besides the NBA finals there’s a lot of talk about where a couple of players will be playing next season. Carmelo Anthony has been saying for a while now that he’ll opt out of his contract and enter free agency and Kevin Love has told the Minnesota Timberwolves that he won’t sign an extension and will enter free agency after next season. It seems like Anthony has been linked to every NBA team since he announced he’d opt out. There;s been a lot of Carmelo to the Chicago Bulls talk, a little Carmelo to the Los Angeles Lakers talk, but the new one if Carmelo to the Miami Heat. This talk started when the Heat got into trouble in their series. This could be done in Miami, but it would take some doing. I believe LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh would have to opt out of their deals and then agree to resign at lower salaries than they have right now. Carmelo would also have to agree to a much lower salary than he could get from another team. This is the main reason I don’t see this happening, but if some how Carmelo ends up with Miami it will kill the NBA for me. Now in Love’s case he has a contract for next season and the only way he’s going anywhere is if Minnesota agrees to trade him. Love has mentioned the Bulls and the Golden State Warriors as two (2) teams he’d like to play for. It would be a blockbuster trade if Love is moved, but would a team take him without an agreement on a new contract. Love would be a great fit for either the Bulls or the Warriors, but there’s no guarantee that he’ll end up with either of those teams. Minnesota hasn’t mentioned anything at all concerning Love, but it’s very early and as we get closer to the draft and then the season things should pick up.

If you’ve been listening to the show; Sports Time Radio
you know that Dan the Man and Mr. Fantasy with help from Schaumburg Stu every now and then have been predicting games not well, but they’ve been predicting games. It started as just selecting winners in the playoff games, but as the playoffs got smaller other picks have been added. They’ve had a bad week and going into today (Saturday) they are 32-41 overall. Mr. Fantasy made the picks for today and he went with Uruguay to beat Costa Rica in Group D of the FIFA World Cup. He has Shelby Miller pitching more innings today than Steven Strasburg; they’re pitching against each other today. His 3rd pick was Robinson Cano to get an extra base hit in the Seattle Mariners game tonight. You can tune in tomorrow (Sunday) at 11:00 a.m. and hear us discuss they struggles they’ve had or just follow along with their picks.

I woke up this morning to find out that former Pittsburgh Steelers coach and Hall of Famer Chuck Noll passed away. Noll went 209-156-1, including the postseason. He also led the Steelers to four Super Bowl titles. Noll was the Steelers head coach when their defense had the “Steel Curtain” nickname. Noll is seventh on the NFL’s all-time list for regular-season wins by a coach, and in 23 seasons he went 193-148-1 during the regular season. Noll was 82.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

So how was your week?

6/7/14 How was your Week?

Posted: June 7, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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So we’re into June and finally the NBA and the NHL seasons will be coming to an end. While I’ve enjoyed the NHL playoffs quite a bit this season and Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals was an overtime thriller the season is just too long. The same goes for the NBA. These finals can be great, but it’s June and it’s baseball season with football mini camps right around the corner. There has to be a way to end these seasons soon than they do, but I’m not sure either league would be will to try to do those things. I still don’t understand why the playoff series games aren’t every other day. I know television has a lot to do with the scheduling and the leagues aren’t going to turn down that money, but you’d think the networks would be willing to work with the leagues. I’m under the impression that the NBA and the NHL think the playoffs going longer are a good thing and maybe I’m the only guy who’s lost some interest in them. I guess it’s one of those issues someone will have to let me know about.

We’ve been having some fun on the show (Sports Time Radio)) as Dan the Man and Mr. Fantasy have been picking the playoff game winners and some other random games that I’ve been throwing at them. Schaumburg Stu even picked some games when he filled in for Dan. Mr. Fantasy had a rough Friday as he went 0-3 and their record fell to under .500 at 24-25. Now since Saturday is an off day for the show I did have Mr. Fantasy make some picks for Saturday. He selected Maria Sharapova to win the French Open woman’s title. The match is actually being played as I write this. He took Mark Buehrle to get a win in today’s game for the Toronto Blue Jays. Now if Buehrle takes the loss or gets a no decision that will be a loss for Mr. Fantasy as Buehrle has to get a “W”. His third pick was the Los Angeles Kings to win Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals. Not only have Dan the Man and Mr. Fantasy to pick the NBA and NHL playoff game winners they’ve had to select winners in WNBA games, NASCAR races and as you read a sentence or to ago professional tennis. Along with, if certain baseball players themselves will do certain things during a game. A couple of predictions they had to make was, would Nelson Cruz or Jose Abreu homer in the game they where playing that night. As you see somethings it doesn’t boil down to just winners and losers, but what will happen in a game. Like will Mark Buehrle get the win today? Of course the tag line for Sports Time Radio is any sport any time and we’ve proved that.

It’s been reported by ESPN that former University of North Carolina basketball player Rashad McCants has said while playing at the school that he rarely went to his classes and that his tutors wrote his papers for him. McCants was the 2nd leading scorer on the North Carolina team that won the national championship in 2004-05. McCants also said that he made the Dean’s list in 2005, but didn’t attend any of the four classes he received A’s in. Those are just a couple of the statements McCants made about his time at North Carolina. None of his former teammates have come out to back up these statements and North Carolina’s head coach Roy Williams has denied knowing anything about these allegations. While I had never heard much about academic issues with the North Carolina men’s basketball team the football team did have some issues with this. The NCAA sanctioned the football program for improper benefits and academic misconduct involving a tutor, but the athletic department’s sports programs largely emerged from the academic scandal penalty-free. As sad as it is to say I actually do believe that this goes on in big time college sports programs, but that doesn’t mean that McCants is telling the truth in this case. I’m sure there will be some type of investigation and will have to wait and see what comes out of that.

I was happy to see the Baltimore Orioles call up two time Cy Young award winner Johan Santana even though he had to go right on the disabled list. Santana has been recovering from arm issues that forced him to under go two major shoulder surgeries. While he wasn’t ready to pitch for the Orioles his contract had a set call up date in it and the Orioles had to either call him up or let him go. As we know the Orioles called Santana up and placed him on the disabled list. Santana was in extended spring training in Florida when he suffered another injury. This time it was a torn Achilles tendon that will end his 2014 comeback attempt before it even gets going as Santana will have season ending surgery on the torn tendon. I hope he’s healthy and given another shot to make a comeback for the 2015 baseball season.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

So how was your week?

How was your Week 5/31/14

Posted: June 2, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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The New York Rangers have advanced to the Stanley Cup finals by beating the Montreal Canadians 4 games to 2 games in the Eastern conference finals. With the exception of one bad game in the conference finals Henrik Lundqvist has carried the Rangers in the playoffs. Now Lundqvist and the Rangers will get a chance to play for the Stanley Cup as they wait for the winner of the Chicago Blackhawks/Los Angeles Kings series. That series is tied at 3 games each with Game 7 being played tomorrow (Sunday) in Chicago. The Kings had a 3 games to 1 game series lead, but the Blackhawks found ways to win Game 5 in double overtime on a Michal Handzus goal and last night (Friday) got a game winning goal from Patrick Kane. Kane has always been considered one of the top players in the NHL, but has really shown his worth against a tough Kings defense. On the show I actually thought the Kings would win last nights game, but did mention if the Blackhawks found a way to win Game 6 they’d win Game 7 at home and go to the Stanley Cup finals again. No matter which way Game 7 goes the Rangers will be facing a team that has won the Stanley Cup recently. The Kings won in 2012 and the Blackhawks won it just last season.

The NBA playoffs are in the same situation as the NHL playoffs. One team the Miami Heat has closed out their series against the Indiana Pacers and are waiting to see of they’ll play the San Antonio Spurs or the Oklahoma City Thunder. San Antonio leads this series 3 games to 2 games with Game 6 being played this afternoon. The game has a 2:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (CST) which is where I live. The home team has won every game in this series; so can the Spurs be the first road team to win a game in this series and close out the Thunder or does Oklahoma City hold serve and go back to San Antonio for a Game 7. Serge Ibaka wasn’t the factor in Game 5 like he was in Games 3 and 4 and some reports have mentioned he’s injured again, but Oklahoma City has denied those reports. While the Miami Heat struggled in Game 5 against Indian they bounced back and closed out the series with a 117 – 92 win in Game 6. It’s looked like through the playoffs that we would get a rematch of last seasons finals, but can Oklahoma City change that outcome or id it Spurs vs. Heat again for the title.

Johnny Manziel went to Las Vegas over the Memorial Day weekend. What did you do? They showed Manziel in the crowd at the UFC fight and you just knew the media would try to turn this into something and they did. Now he didn’t miss any practices with his new team the Cleveland Browns and even if he wanted to go to the Browns facilities he couldn’t because they were closed for the holiday. New Browns coach Mike Pettine pointed out that other players went away for the Memorial Day weekend as well mentioning that South Beach was a destination for some of the players. Was there any media coverage of these players in South Beach? I didn’t see any; so why is Manziel’s trip news? I get it he’s Johnny “Football” or now Johnny “Cleveland” but maybe we should find out if he can play in the NFL before we start reporting every single thing he does. I did find it odd that this story really didn’t start getting reported until the Tuesday after Memorial Day. I guess all the media people where away for the holiday weekend.

On the show yesterday (Friday) I let Mr. Fantasy pick a line up for me that I entered under my Fanduel account. He end up finishing 3034th out of 3910 entries. Sadly not the best showing for Mr. Fantasy, but not ever entry can be a winner.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

So how was your week?

5/24/14 How was your Week?

Posted: June 2, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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I think that the NHL playoffs have been pretty exciting this season. The problem I’m having now is the scheduling with the Western conference finals. For some reason they went away from the every other day format and now seem to be working with two days off in between games. In a way I guess it’s good for the teams as players get an extra day of rest, but this will stretch out the playoffs until June. By the time the Stanley Cup finals rolls around I’m not going to care who wins the cup. Now that would be sad because like I said the playoffs have been exciting. The Blackhawks/Kings series is tied at 1 game apiece with the series headed back to Los Angeles for Game 3 tonight. The New York Rangers have a 2 games to 1 lead over the Montreal Canadians in the Eastern conference finals with Game 4 tomorrow in New York. In the Rangers/Canadians series the home team hasn’t been able to win a game in the series.

The NBA playoff scheduling is just as bad if not worse than the NHL’s. The Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers played Game 2 of their series Tuesday night. Then the teams were given three days off to travel to Miami for Game 3 tonight. The series is tied at 1 – 1 and the extra rest might help the Pacers more. Paul George got hit in the back of the head by Dwayne Wade in Game 2 and suffered a concussion. Now with the extra rest George has been cleared to play tonight. Even with George playing the Pacers will have a tough time beating the Heat. In the Western conference finals the San Antonio Spurs have looked like the best team in the playoffs. They have a 2 – 0 lead in their series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. I think everyone thought the loss of Serge Ibaka would be a big issue and the Spurs have taken advantage of this situation. There’s been some reports that Ibaka will be available to play in Game 3 tomorrow. If Ibaka isn’t completely healthy I don’t think he’ll be able to help the Thunder, but just his presence might make a little difference on the mental side for the Thunder. The Spurs/Thunder series resumes Sunday with Game 3 in Oklahoma City.

If you’re a fantasy baseball player injuries are a big concern for you right now. Of course I guess the injuries would be a big concern for major league baseball teams as well. Off the top of my head there where some big name players that ended up on the disabled list (DL) this week. The Cincinnati reds got Jay Bruce back from knee surgery, but Joey Votto went on the DL the day Bruce came off the list. Ryan Braun is on the DL for the 2nd time this season. The Brewers played okay with Braun out the first time, but you can only be without your best player for so long. Prince Fielder went on the DL for the Texas Rangers with season ending surgery on his neck. Fielder has been bothered by a herniated disc in his neck and has opted for surgery to correct the problem. Then just to add to the Rangers injury issues top prospect and projected starting 2nd baseman for this season Jurickson Profar had a set back in his injury rehab and the reports are saying he’ll be out 10 – 12 more weeks. Profar hasn’t even had an at bat this season. Those are just some of the injuries I thought of off the top of my head and I didn’t even get into the injuries pitchers have suffered this season. Just going over the list of pitchers who need Tommy John surgery this season is a long one. Dan the Man, Mr. Fantasy and I are in a couple of large fantasy baseball leagues. One league has 18 teams and the other has 20 teams; this makes injuries tough to deal with. You can’t go out and pick up a star player on the waiver wire when one of your top guys gets injured. To me it makes the leagues fun to play in, but it also will drive a lot of fantasy players away. A lot of fantasy players want the easy smaller leagues to play in where if you lose a player or a guy is having a bad year you just drop him and there’s an all-star out there on waivers waiting for you to pick him up. Dan the Man has told the story on air before where two people he knew got in our 20 team fantasy football league a couple of seasons ago. These guys ended up meeting in the leagues Super Bowl that season. Then the next year neither of them came back to play in the league because 20 teams was too hard and they where looking for easier leagues to play in. This is the first time ever that I’ve been in any type of fantasy league where the top two teams didn’t return the next season. I guess it’s to each his own when it comes to fantasy sports.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

So how was your week?

How was your Week? 5/17/14

Posted: June 2, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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We’re down to the conference finals in the NHL and the NBA playoffs. Last night, the Los Angeles Kings where the last team to make the conference finals with a 6 – 2 win over the Anaheim Ducks. The Kings advance to face the Chicago Blackhawks in the Western conference finals. It’s a match up that features the last two Stanley Cup winners. The Eastern conference finals starts this afternoon with the New York Rangers vs. the Montreal Canadians. Chicago and Montreal have home ice advantage for the conference finals series. As you know from listening to the show we live in the Chicago suburbs; so I’d like to see the Blackhawks come out of the West. How about a Chicago/New York Stanley Cup final? I’m sure the NHL would love to see a match up like that with two big market teams in the Stanley Cup finals. In the NBA conference finals I think everyone got the match ups they expected. In the Eastern conference it’s the Miami Heat vs. the Indiana Pacers. Even after all there ups and downs the Pacers got by the Washington Wizards to make the conference finals. Miami has looked like the best team by far in the Eastern conference, but don’t forget the Indiana has the #1 seed and has home court advantage in this series. A lot of experts think home court won’t matter, but you never know and Indiana has it. The Western conference final feature the Oklahoma City Thunder vs. the San Antonio Spurs. The Thunder had struggled finding its way to the finals while the Spurs have been by far the best team in the Western conference playoffs. With the way the playoffs have played out so far it looks like more and more we’re going to get a rematch from last season and will see the Heat vs. the Spurs in the NBA finals. I’d like to see the Spurs win one more title before Tim Duncan’s career ends, but Miami is going to be tough to beat for any team. While I don’t like the way that Miami has went about winning their titles you can’t argue with their results. LeBron James seems to be understanding that he needs to take over with Dwayne Wade no longer being the player he once was. Chris Bosh used to be a top NBA player, but since going to Miami he has had big outputs every once in a while he’s not the top player he once was. The Spurs have their fair share of top NBA talent in Duncan and point guard Tony Parker. I’m not sure if Manu Ginobili is still a top NBA player, but he hits big shots and knows how to fill his role in the Spurs offense. Of course there is no guarantee at all that the NBA finals will have the Spurs or the Heat in them, but they look like the best two teams playing right now.

I was happy to see Michael Sam get drafted. He was picked by the St. Louis Rams in the 7th round of the NFL draft. It was a good landing spot for Sam as he played his college football at the University of Missouri and he’ll try to make the jump to the pro’s in the same state. Some people had issues with the fact that Sam and his boyfriend kissed a few times on television after he was drafted. It caught me off guard at first, but then I realized that it’s no different from any other draft pick kissing his girlfriend after he’s selected. The one negative that I had heard was the planned reality show that the Oprah Winfrey Network was going to do. I heard a report late last night that the show has been postponed and I think that’s in Sam’s best interest. The last thing a rookie 7th round pick needs is a camera following him around while he’s trying to make a team. Sam has an uphill battle to just make the team and the last thing he need was a show bases around that.

A lot of baseball talk on yesterday’s show, It Snowed Here Today, with Mr. Fantasy. A player that came up and is off to a hot start is Troy Tulowitzki. With about 25% of the baseball season in the books Tulowitzki leads the national League in batting average at .389, is tied for the league lead in home runs with 11 and is 2nd in RBI’s with 33. Now I’m not saying that Tulowitzki is going to win a triple crown, but I wondering if this is the season he stays healthy and we see the kind of numbers he can put up. I think a lot of baseball people have wondered the same thing. What do you think; is this the year Tulowitzki stays healthy?

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

So how was your week?

5/10/14 How was your Week?

Posted: May 10, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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So the NFL draft has pretty much taken over the sports world with round 1 starting Thursday night and rounds 2 & 3 following up on Friday night. This is the first year that I’ve had the NFL network during a draft, so i was interested to watch it on that channel. I have to tell you I thought their coverage was terrible. I get it that they have more or less 10 minutes to fill between first round picks, but that wasn’t an issue. They almost seemed unprepared to cover the draft and they did a lot of stalling for no real reason. They some how even managed to get behind on picks even though there was the 10 minute gap. Maybe I expected to much, but since it is the network that just covers pro football I thought the coverage would be better.

I think everybody’s mock draft was shot after the Jacksonville Jaguar’s selected quarterback Blake Bortles at #3. I read quite a few mock drafts and no one I read, had Bortles going to Jacksonville. I give Jacksonville a ton of credit for being able to hide their interest in Bortles for this long. I even heard a report that said Jacksonville had been targeting Bortles when they 0 – 8 last season. I’m not going to go over the draft, pick by pick as there will be enough of that from every other blog out there. I was surprised to see the quarterbacks drop like they did, but three did go in the 1st round like most experts thought. Johnny Manziel went #22 to the Cleveland Browns and the Minnesota Vikings traded for the last pick in the 1st round (#32) and took Teddy Bridgewater. No running backs were taken in the 1st round as the position has pretty much been devalued by the new rules favoring throwing the football. There was a run on running backs in the 2nd round as three went in four picks. Rounds 4 through 7 are held today as teams fill out there rosters.

I did find it weird that the NFL draft did better ratings wise than playoff games in the NHL and the NBA. I saw a report that said the only place a playoff game beat out the NFL draft in the ratings was Miami. I know Heat fans arrive late and leave early during Heat games, but they did support their team on television. The NFL draft also beat out all of the baseball games that it was up against, but that’s no surprise as it;s still very early in the baseball season. What did you watch?

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

So how was your week?

How was Your Week? 5/3/14

Posted: May 3, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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The playoffs are rolling along in the NBA and the NHL. I guess slowly rolling along in the NBA would be the way to put it as they’re still in the 1st round. Not that the NHL is a whole lot faster as they just got their 2nd round started. As much as I enjoy watching playoff games the way they have them schedule is terrible. I believe that there was only one back to back set of games and that was in the NHL. I know they do these schedules for television, but by the time the finals come around I get to the point where I almost don’t car who wins the championship. Now I don’t expect these guys to play seven in seven days or anything like that, but would one set of back to back games hurt a series.

If you like game 7’s you’ll have a few to watch in the NBA. There are three on Saturday for starters. The Indiana Pacers have managed to hang around and take the Atlanta Hawks to a game 7. They’re the first game on television today. That’s followed by the Oklahoma City Thunder vs. the Memphis Grizzlies. Of course the Grizzlies will be without one of their top 3 as Zach Randolph has been suspended by the league for this game. Randolph threw a punch at the Thunder’s Stephen Adams. After seeing the video it looked more like a shove to me, but the NBA decided that it was a punch and it will cost Randolph a game and could cost his team the series with him watching. The final game 7 on Saturday has the Golden State Warriors vs. the Los Angeles Clippers. A lot of experts I’ve heard talk about this series have said that they thought it would’ve been over by now if not for the Donald Sterling comments that came to light earlier in the week. I’m not sure about that, but either way the series ends tonight. You’ll have two more game 7’s on Sunday as the Brooklyn Nets and the Toronto Raptors are the early game with the San Antonio Spurs vs. the Dallas Mavericks as the late afternoon game.

I mentioned the NHL 2nd round of the playoffs kicked off with a great double overtime game. P. K. Subban scored the game winning goal for the Montreal Canadians as they got a win over the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of their series. Sadly a great hockey game was marred by stupid Bruins fans going on social media and making racial comments about Subban. I went into a long. long commentary about this situation on Friday’s show; so I’m not going to go over it all again other to remark how stupid these people are. In some other NHL 2nd round playoff action from last night the New York Rangers got an overtime win over the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Chicago Blackhawks won game 1 against the Minnesota Wild. The last 2nd round series gets started today featuring the Anaheim Ducks vs. the Los Angeles Kings.

The NFL draft starts this Thursday with the 1st round taking place. I did a sort of kind of mock draft on Friday’s show just for fun. Who knows which players will end up going to which teams, but it’ fun to guess. Who do you want your favorite team to pick? I don’t mind the three day NFL draft television coverage, but now they’ve talked about going to four days. You have to wonder if the NFL is getting greedy and if it will cost them sooner or later. There’s already talk of playing more games on weekdays. Also talk of expanding the playoffs. How long before fans say enough and stop tuning in. How much football could you or would you watch?

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

So how was your week?

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