Weekly Sporties

-Late in the week another of Lance Armstrong's former teammates came out and said he saw Lance taking performance enhancing drugs. I am so sick of this story. First off, Lance hasn't been a competitive rider for years and secondly these people only come out of the woodwork when they have either been caught doping themselves or have a book to sell. As you can imagine, they make for a less-than-credible witness. At this point I only want to hear from the world of cycling if someone has proof Armstrong failed a doping test and even then I probably wouldn't care all that much.

-Minnesota Timberwolves GM David Kahn stuck a major foot in his mouth this week. Shortly after losing the draft lottery to the Cavaliers, Kahn said he knew the team was going to lose because the NBA has a 'habit' of creating draft lottery storylines and the Cavaliers had sent the owner's 14 year-old son, who has a rare medical condition, to represent the team at the draft. Kahn said the Wolves simply couldn't compete with a sick kid. Now, I'm sure that Kahn was trying to make a joke, but he forgot the first rule of comedy - people aren't going to find a joke funny when the punchline involves a kid with a rare disease. He's probably going to get fined by the NBA for it, but considering the Wolves have gotten worse every year he's been in charge it wouldn't be shocking if that comment turns out to be a fireable offense.

-Staying in Cleveland, they're feeling pretty good about themselves because they not only won the lottery with a pick they got from the Clippers, but they still have their own pick, which ended up being #4. They think this could be the beginning of a turnaround for the franchise. I would just like to offer the Cavalier fans a warning: draft picks are only as valuable as the person in charge of making them. Take this from a fan of a team that once had three picks in the top 21 and walked away with no players who would help the team.

-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar came out this week saying he was very disappointed that he didn't have a statue in front of Staples Center in Los Angeles. I'm sorry, when did getting a statue become the ultimate sign of respect? What happened to simply retiring a number and being put in the team Hall of Fame? It used to be statues were for important historical figures, but now anyone who wins one championship feels they should be bronzed. Let's have a little higher standards - those things are expensive.

-In that same vein, it was announced this week that Drew Bledsoe is going to be inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame later this year. See, that's an appropriate level of praise and respect for a guy of Drew's character who had a good, but not great career. For the entire 2001 and 2002 seasons I was firmly in the Drew camp during the "Brady vs Bledsoe" debate (yes, kiddies, at one time that was a real controversy around here). Clearly, I got that one wrong. But, it's nice to see the Krafts haven't forgotten about Drew. Hopefully he will show up to a few more team events now.

-So, after a year of making googly eyes at the Phoenix Coyotes only to be shunned by them at the last minute, a group representing the city of Winnipeg quietly and quickly made a deal to get the Atlanta Thrashers to move to their city. (It's always interesting to watch the deals that try to get done in public flameout while the deals that actually get finished are always finalized behind the scenes.) The most amazing thing I learned in this whole ordeal is that the Thrashers have been in Atlanta for 11 years. Seeing as how they have never made an impact in the NHL I still think of them as an expansion franchise who have only been around a couple of years. Normally I would be against a team getting stolen from their fans, but I'm not sure the Thrashers have any fans in Atlanta. At least in Winnipeg they might play in front of a crowd.

-A couple days ago the Ryder Cup announced the 2018 match is going to be played in France. (I'm not sure if planning events seven years into the future is confident or naive.) It used to be that the Ryder Cup was only played in Great Britain, but organizers have said they want to make an effort to include more European nations as host countries to grow the sport. That's all well and good, but... France? Not only did they not have anyone on the last Ryder Cup team, but the people who projected the team out to 2017 (golfers have that kind of time on their hands during a particularly rainy spring) don't even see any great French golfers down the line. To me this is like when the NFL tries to build up fans in Europe - they can show the games there all they want, but they would be better off playing more games in Mexico, because at least those guys pretend to watch. Golf already has a foothold in Spain, so hosting the Ryder Cup there seems to be the wiser choice.

-As a child of the 80s, I would be remiss if I didn't take a second to mention the death of Randy "Macho Man" Savage yesterday. Admittedly, he was never my favorite wrestler, but he was a major player at the time wrestling really took off as a main-stream sport. If Hulk Hogan was Magic Johnson and Andre the Giant was Larry Bird, then Macho Man was at least Isiah Thomas. His impact was amazing considering the business he was in.