Posts by Matt Watson at FanHouse

I love the NBA. I love the regular season, I definitely love the playoffs and I even love the summer league.

But I hate the preseason.

Why? First and foremost, the NBA makes it nearly impossible to watch a game. I'm a Pistons fan, and even though they were one of the last four teams standing last year, the four months from the end of the conference finals to the start of the preseason felt like an eternity. So when the Pistons took the court for their first preseason game last week, I was understandably geeked ... until I realized it wasn't even televised, at least not in the Detroit market.

Sadly, that's actually a common occurence for preseason games -- of the eight games on Detroit's slate, only three will be televised in metro Detroit. I'm baffled by the decision -- the best I can gather is that TV execs are worried about ratings what with the MLB playoffs, the NFL and college football, the NHL and cars with lots of advertisments driving in circles competing for the average sports fan's attention.

But still, there are a lot of fans who only have eyes for the NBA, and denying them a chance to watch not one, not two, but a full 60% of the preseason? It just doesn't make sense. Certainly there's at least one station willing to show the game, right? And if there's not, why not just put it online? In fact, that might actually be preferable since it'd kill two birds with one stone: appeasing local fans who'd otherwise be shutout as well as throwing a bone to international fans who weren't going to have a chance to tune in.

Larry Bird has been frank with his concern about the Pacers' image problem, telling the Indy Star last month, "All the off-the-court problems have been a disaster for us. ... It's something we said we were going to clean up and we're doing that."

He started a couple of years ago by dealing Stephen Jackson (guns!) and Al Harrington for a couple of overpriced stiffs and continued this summer by letting David Harrison (weed!) walk and exploring ways to move Jamaal Tinsley (target! Wait, how is that his fault? Okay, how about: bar fight! Better than nothing).

Today, Bird took one more step toward making his roster squeaky clean: Mike Wells of the Indy Star reports the Pacers have traded Shawne Williams (who has a tendency to be pulled over by police in cars containing weed and loaning cars to friends wanted for murder) to the Mavericks in exchange for Eddie Jones, two second-round picks and $1.8 million in cash.

Jones is about as professional as they come and would be a great influence on Indy's roster, but HoopsHype cites a source claiming Jones will be waived immediately, which would explain why cash was included. Williams will be reunited in Dallas with Rick Carlisle, who coached Williams his rookie year. I'm not entirely sure how he fits in with the Mavs or whether his prospects for playing time will be increased, but a fresh start will probably do him as much good as it will the Pacers.

This is just heartbreaking. This morning, just hours before his team took the field for Game 2 of the NLCS, Phillies skipper Charlie Manuel lost his mother:

The Phillies said that June Manuel died Friday morning at Roanoke (Va.) Memorial Hospital after a brief illness. She was 87. The Phillies had no information about the cause of death.

Manuel found out Friday morning after a meeting with his staff before the game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Despite the loss, Manuel is in the dugout for this afternoon's game. How can you focus on baseball at a time like this? If I had to guess, you don't. You put on a brave face and you do what you've done for most of your adult life for a few more hours, but I don't think anyone can truly postpone the grieving process.

And that's okay. His coaching staff is extremely experienced and his players have been to the playoffs before. I wish him my condolences, and for at least the next few hours, I'll be rooting for the Phillies.

Apparently Jose Canseco is taking his training for his next fight seriously, even if the opponent and date have yet to be determined. How serious? Details are still sketchy, but SPORTSbyBROOKS passed along the absolutely shocking news that Canseco is still juicing.

Apparently David Vassegh of KLAC-AM in Los Angeles reported that Canseco "was recently detained at the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego by Federal authorities for alleged possession of steroids." Here's the embarrassing part: the specific steroid Canseco was caught with was HCG, or human choronic gonadotropin. For all of you non-bodybuilders out there, HCG is frequently used "during and after steroid cycles to maintain and restore testicular size." Zing!

For a guy who's been so cavalier about his steroid use in the past, I'm a little shocked that Canseco thought he could get away with making a quick jaunt down to a Mexican pharmacy without drawing the attention from a customs agent. I mean, that's what drug mules are for. (Unless ... maybe Canseco is so hard up for cash he was the drug mule? Hmmm ...)

I always had a soft spot for Haywoode Workman, and I think it's because of his name. He was an NBA journeyman by every definition of the word (former second-round pick out of Oral Roberts, played for three different teams in his first three years) but like his last name suggests, he worked hard and carved out a pretty decent career for himself.

He was an occasional starter for some pretty good Pacers teams in the early 90's (ie, the "Reggie Miller stomping on Spike Lee's heart" era) but spent the second half of his career warming the benches of some pretty awful teams. I forgot about him long ago but was happy to see his name this morning when I saw that he was staging a comeback ... as a ref. From Kyle Hightower of the Orlando Sentinel:

Now 42, Workman has been coming up through the ref ranks the past five years and was on NBA referee roster in '06-'07 and '07-'08 as preseason ref, while working both of those seasons as a NBA Development League official.

Workman is one of three NBA ref hires this season.

He was on the court working Orlando's 118-80 preseason win over Atlanta Wednesday.

Once Workman works his first regular season game, he'll become just the third former player in league history to successfully make the jump as a ref. He's been working toward this goal for awhile now -- I just did some digging and found this old article David Aldridge wrote in 2003 about Workman's transition from player to ref, which at that point was already two years old -- so it's nice to see that he finally made it to the top.

We've talked about it and made our predictions, but now it's time to play the games! It's the East Coast vs. the West Coast as Cole Hamels and the Phillies host Derek Lowe and the Dodgers tonight in Game 1 of the NLCS.

These two teams split their eight regular season matchups. The Dodgers won each of the last four meetings, but Hamels has been nearly unhittable so far in the playoffs. What's going to happen? Join us below the jump at 8:15 PM ET to find out!

When Curt Schilling realized just how badly his shoulder was injured last winter, his surgeon, Dr. Craig Morgan, suggested he undergo surgery immediately. After having their medical staff look at him, the Red Sox disagreed, declaring that mere rehab would get him back on the field sooner.

In the end, Schilling was contractually bound to follow his team's orders, even though he disagreed with them. Ultimately, it was a bad call; rehab didn't work, and Schilling went under the knife in June. And on Wedneday, on the eve of Boston's appearance in the ALCS, Morgan had no problem reminding the Red Sox what they missed out on:

"If the (team) would have let me do the surgery in January, he'd probably be pitching in the playoffs now," Morgan said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

To be fair, I'm guessing the real reason Morgan was talking to reporters was to give an update on Schilling's recovery -- his shoulder is said to be in "phenomenal" condition just three and a months after the operation -- but the timing of his comments just seems petty.

Last month Tim Robbins and writer/director Ron Shelton openly discussed the possibility of a Bull Durham sequel with the media during a 20th anniversary ceremony for the film at Baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Well, it seems like the project is gaining steam, at least if you believe the New York Post's gossip page (via SbB):

THE long-awaited sequel to "Bull Durham" is finally getting off the ground. A spy tells us Kevin Costner recently met with director Ron Shelton at Trader Vic's in LA to discuss reprising the role of carousing catcher Crash Davis from the 1988 baseball flick. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon are also expected to return as pitcher Nuke LaLoosh and baseball groupie Annie Savoy, who are now married and owners of a Major League team that Costner manages.

Wait, Nuke and Annie get married? And they somehow own a major league team? Last month Shelton and Robbins suggested that Crash and Annie would be married, and that Nuke would be a washed-up drunk. What gives?

My guess is that nobody is right. Shelton admitted that he only recently warmed up to the idea of a sequel, so I'd wager that an actual script has yet to be written (and once it does, it probably won't be leaked before the project even starts filming). But for better or worse, it looks like this is really going to happen.

When the Knicks opened training camp, Stephen Marbury wasn't shy about his demands expectations -- the money quote was, "I'm not coming off the bench here in New York." Less than two weeks later, though, he's already changed his tune. From Marc Berman of the New York Post:

"I don't want to go through any more distractions," Marbury told The Post. "I want all of us to concentrate on winning and not if I'm going to start or not. I want us to be able to go forward. If the Knicks want me to come off the bench, that's what I'm going to do. I just want to win a championship in New York because we as New Yorkers deserve a chip."

Of course, it's one thing to say all right things now, before the first tip-off of the first preseason game, and it's another to still mean it come December or January when the Knicks are riding a 10-game losing streak. To his credit, though, Marbury finally seems genuinely concerned about his status as a locker room pariah. Why didn't he seem to care last season? Perhaps because Isiah Thomas was equally responsible for all of the drama and controversy.

This year, with a new coach that's still universally revered by the fans, players and media, even Marbury has to realize that he's solely responsible for whatever fate awaits him. If he embraces his role as a sixth-man behind Chris Duhon and handles the switch from point guard to shooting guard, he still has a chance to re-write his legacy. If he pouts and makes life uncomfortable, he'll cement his status as one of the franchise's biggest mistakes.

The White Sox rode the left arm of John Danks to stay alive in their ALDS series with the Rays. Today, we see a matchup of two talented pitchers making their playoff debuts: Andy Sonnanstine for the Rays, Gavin Floyd for Chicago.

Who cracks? Who shines? Is this series going back to the Trop, or do the Rays start scouting that Angels/Red Sox game tonight? Find out along with us in a very special "FanHouse Live Chat"!