We all have seen sad things and breathtaking things in boxing. I saw Jimmy Garcia fall into a coma. Watched Mike Tyson for most of his post-prison circus comeback. Sat with Muhammad Ali, in a limo, watching the world out the window.
But I cannot remember a more heart-breaking personal moment than witnessing Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez, with a shattered nose swelling up his face, in the minutes and hours after he quit during his huge lightweight title bout against Oscar De La Hoya in 1996.
Hernandez went into that fight with a fractured nose, but told no one, because he desperately needed the fight and thought he might still have a fractional chance to win it.
Eventually, De La Hoya destroyed Hernandez’s nose, as Hernandez knew he would.
There were boos after Genaro went to the referee and waved off the bout after six rounds. A little later, though he could’ve gone straight to the hospital, Genaro walked up to the podium, long before De La Hoya arrived.
“I feel bad I let down a lot of people, but I have to give up,” Hernandez said, before halting, as he cried softly into the microphone and his brother touched him on the shoulder.
Then Genaro started speaking again. Eyes closed. Still crying.
“There’s been a lot of serious injuries in boxing lately, and I’ve got a daughter and a beautiful wife,” Hernandez continued. “I don’t need to end up like other fighters. It’s better to say no mas than not to say another word.”
I’ve been thinking about that speech a lot the last few days, after recently hearing that Genaro has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and that his insurance will not pay for all of his treatment.
I’ve been agreeing with that speech–Genaro is still so young, has so much to live for, has always had so much, because he is such a genuine, thoughtful person.
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If the ESPN.com report is true and Jim Harbaugh is getting an extension from Stanford possibly worth more than $1.25M per year, that sounds very, very lucrative for him, but about right.
This is how I break it down: The combined value of his old deal (three remaining years at about 500k) plus the three new years (at about $1.25M) is about $5.25M, with an average annual value of about 875k.
AAV is the true measure of long-term deals, or so all the agents tell me.
That’s almost identical to Johnny Dawkins’ five-year deal with an AAV of 900k. So, though both contracts are GIGANTIC compared to Stanford’s normal buttoned-down way of doing sports business, it’s the new reality of the Cardinal effort.
(I’d love to hear what Mike “Final Four” Montgomery–who, I believe, never made $1M at Stanford–or Tyrone “Rose Bowl” Willingham–who was probably at 600k when he left–think of these new deals for a guy in Dawkins who had never been a HC anywhere and a guy in Harbaugh who hasn’t yet produced even a .500 season. Or hmm… Tara VanDerveer?)
The structure of the Harbaugh extension, though, is fascinating.
If the $1.25M salary starting in 2012 is legit and not puffed with accounting sleight-of-hand (bad for JH) or jammed with pre-2012 bonuses (good for JH), the deal is the best of both worlds for Stanford and Harbaugh.
* Bob Bowlsby doesn’t have to dip deep into athletic department funds immediately, which is key since Harbaugh hasn’t yet delivered a bowl bid or regularly filled up the new Stanford Stadium.
And if Harbaugh leaves before 2012, Stanford might never have to pay the $1.25M rate.
* Harbaugh gets to see the financial light at the end of the tunnel and also gets that big $1.25M figure associated with his name–that’s Jeff Tedford/Mike Bellotti/Rick Neuheisel money and way more than Mike Riley.
Not only does Harbaugh get the comfort of knowing that, if he stays at Stanford, he’s going to cash in–he doesn’t have to fret about one bad season being a financial bloodbath–Harbaugh also can use that $1.25M figure in future negotiations with the NFL.
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* Don Nelson and Anthony Morrow post-game Q & A’s on bottom…
It started slowly: Anthony Morrow, trying to follow up his 37-point revelation from the weekend, went just 1 for 2 in a full first quarter tonight against Portland.
Not much there. Kind of quiet. He barely touched the ball.
Then the Trail Blazers sunk into a zone to counter-act Corey Maggette’s driving, Morrow hit a three-pointer 57 seconds into the second quarter, and… it was on again, though Portland really didn’t seem to recognize it until too late.
“He’s the real deal,” Don Nelson said after Morrow made 8 of 12 shots, 4 of 5 from three, and scored his 25 points very, very efficiently in 36 huge minutes.
(I haven’t looked at the reader comments yet, but I presume there are at least 10 ripping me for daring to suggest Morrow might not score a lot tonight and maybe there was an on-TV rip in there, too.
(Go ahead. It’s fair. Rip away. I can’t believe Portland Coach Nate McMillan chose to focus on Maggette instead of Morrow for so long tonight, but Morrow took total, blistering advantage. What a shooter.
(Morrow has convinced me of one true thing: He’s such a potent scorer that he MUST be dealt with in defensive gameplans, the way Leandro Barbosa or Rudy Fernandez must be dealt with. That’s large. That’s a large thing.
(If opponents treat him like just another guy, he’ll kill them, like he has killed the Clips and Trail Blazers. That means teams have to put a tough guy on him, but then wonder what to do about SJax and Maggette, and if they help on any two of those guys, Biedrins breaks free.)
Here’s what’s happening: Morrow is now the main man at the 2, which has totally energized the Warriors offensive flow.
That allows Nelson to play Corey Maggette at the 4, where Maggette is a very tough cookie (ask LaMarcus Aldridge, who looked befuddled against the smaller man for all 19 of Aldridge’s terrible minutes tonight).
And it opens the floor for Andris Biedrins and takes a lot of pressure off of Stephen Jackson. (Biedrins fell one rebound short of extending his double-double streak. But 17 and 9 is good, good. I don’t care about double-double streaks. I care about consistent quality play, which Biedrins is providing, whether he had 9 rebounds tonight or 15.)
For now, it’s the way the Warriors have to play, Nelson said, and I must say that I totally agree. I saw it happening in the Clipper game and tonight was a prime example–if small works, and if you can fake it on defense, you go small.
Especially when you have a young, surging player like Morrow swishing everything he sees. As Nelson said: Morrow at the 2 and Maggette at the 4 suddenly are making the Warriors go. It’s obvious. We’ll see how long it lasts, but this is the best they’ve looked all season, no question.
Plus, Morrow was servicable on defense tonight–Nelson kept him on Rudy Fernandez in the fourth quarter, and though that caused some trouble, Morrow more than made up the difference by torching Fernandez a few times.
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–Better get this in now: As I was just reminded, Morrow is not likely to be a free agent this summer; he has partial-guarantee trigger-options (next one is in January) that, if exercised by the Warriors, will bring Morrow to a team-option year next season. It hasn’t been triggered yet, but if he keeps shooting, the triggers will be obviously exercised. The person who negotiated this good deal for the Warriors? Guy named Pete D’Alessandro. Recently fired.
On the Morrow miss… My OOPS. I deserve heat for that one.
Quick hit from Don Nelson’s pre-game presser:
* Anthony Morrow will get his second consecutive start tonight against Portland, as Nelson sticks with his small line-up.
That means Stephen Jackson at point, Kelenna Azubuike and Morrow at the wings, Corey Maggette at the 4 and Andris Biedrins at the 5.
* I asked who Morrow will guard, and Nelson said Portland point guard Steve Blake. That obviously could change quickly, but that’s how it’ll start, I guess.
Makes sense. That’d put Azubuike or SJax on Brandon Roy, the other one on Nicolas Batum, Maggette on LaMarcus Aldridge and Biedrins on Joel Pryzbilla/Greg Oden.
* I really believe Morrow and Maggette are a tandem in Nelson’s mind–playing Morrow allows Don to play Maggette at the 4.
Maggette is better when he draws bigger players, if Nelson can trick up the defense to support Maggette inside.
And Morrow is better when he draws littler players.
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Oh my, the GSW homers are probably going to hate this post. Which is why it has to go up. Has to.
And if the Warriors should win this game tonight at home against Portland–I’d say a 50/50 shot, even in my deepest cynical mood–this promises to stir up the great gangly hornet’s nest of GSW homer fervor.
It’s still out there. Maybe 10 to 15% of this tremendous Warriors fan base swear by and furiously follow the Lead Warriors Homers, and I’m glad of it. Makes it more fun to do this all-Bay Area teams counter-homer blog.
The Warriors image mavens tend to the Homer Factor carefully, put a lot of effort in it, and should be so grateful for it, since I don’t know how long this can last–12 consecutive non-playoff seasons before a one-time (incredibly entertaining) appearance, raise ticket prices, raise ticket prices… and yet a critical segment of the fan base believes, believes, BELIEVES.
That’s tremendous for the Warriors, tremendous for me drawing great hatred when I don’t tow the company line. Passion = EXCELLENT.
Anthony Morrow is Ray Allen re-born (though oops, Ray Allen isn’t dead oh well), I guess.
Andris Biedrins is better or younger or better-and-younger than Everybody, I heard that on the radio, presented As Fact.
Stephen Jackson is Larry Bird re-born. Or Michael Jordan.
Monta Ellis is coming back very soon and will fill all of the holes–well, if the Warriors had any holes, which they do not, apparently.
The Warriors are a great young team and they’re a great time out and this is all wonderful wonderful wonderful (and you don’t need a playoff berth to prove that! N-O! just keep buying tickets, buy buy buy buy buy)…
Now, I have my positive thoughts about each of those guys, especially Biedrins and SJax (TREMENDOUS PLAYERS), and about some of the other things that are happening with the Warriors, presuming Brandan Wright and Anthony Randolph play regular minutes at some point in the distant future.
Most people who watch the Warriors have some positive thoughts, as do 85% of the very smart Warriors fans.
However…
Most of this over-the-top homer-ing is image-tending. Most of this is premature or wrong or both. We just don’t know that much about this team this year, through 10 games, because…
* Tonight vs. Portland is the first Warriors game since the opener against New Orleans (which the Warriors lost at Oracle) vs. one of the presumed West powers.
* That’s right: In the 9 games between the opener and tonight, none were vs. the Lakers, Spurs, Jazz, Hornets, Rockets, Suns or Trail Blazers.
The Warriors went 4-5 in those games, beating New Jersey and the Clippers on the road and Minnesota and Denver at Oracle.
* Tonight, finally a West Test: Portland is young and can get scattered, but the Blazers are 6-4, went 3-1 on a recent road trip (this game doesn’t count on the trip since Portland got back from Minnesota Saturday), its only loss a tough game at New Orleans.
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I’m all too happy to believe the words of a college football coach, but I’m also not naive and neither is Jim Harbaugh, the Stanford administration, or other potential Harbaugh bidders, up to and including Al Davis.
I’m willing to accept Harbaugh’s repeated long-term devotion to Stanford–today at the Big Game press conference he said that he hasn’t been contacted by the Raiders, that “I don’t anticipate” such Al D. contact, and that he’s “100% committed to Stanford University.”
Harbaugh said he’s close to agreeing to an extension with Stanford and that sounds right and smart:
* Stanford should keep Harbaugh happy and maybe bump up his salary from its current level around 500k to somewhere close to the Johnny Dawkins 900k stratosphere (for Stanford).
* Harbaugh should make sure to sweeten his deal in case he doesn’t get an NFL call or can’t get a deal straight with Al, and in case his patron, Stanford AD Bob Bowlsby, happens to take another job in the near future, which is possible.
Of course, Harbaugh never said he absolutely is ruling out the Raiders, and even if he did… well, Nick Saban said similar things when he was the Dolphins coach about the Alabama job, right before he, you know, took the Alabama job.
Even after the extension is signed and sealed, Harbaugh has to be keeping his ears open for the NFL and particularly the Raiders, and I’m sure he will.
(College extensions have little practical weight in NFL hiring matters: The coach gets the raise, and is obviously more amenable to a long stay, but the school still knows he could bolt, anyway. Ask Louisville, which kept giving Bobby Petrino new deals, then he bolted for the Falcons and then he bolted the Falcons for Arkansas. Do you think the number of years Pete Carroll has left on his USC deal is going to matter if/when he decides to jump back to the NFL? It will not.)
Here’s why the Harbaugh/Raiders talk will go on:
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When Pete Newell spoke, the basketball world went quiet. Today, this world–and all of the sports world–ought to be quiet for a good long time.
Because Newell, the towering figure of Bay Area college basketball and far beyond for a half century, died today.
There’s this from Jon Wilner. And here’s the Associated Press story. UPDATE: Here’s Bruce Jenkins’ piece today–beautiful, just beautiful. Jenks wrote the Newell biography and, obviously, this is a great tribute.
There will be tributes and remembrances all day today and through the weeks and months, I’m sure.
I was talking to a good friend on the phone a little while ago. When he said ESPN’s crawl had something on Pete Newell, I skipped over it, just too many things going on. It didn’t compute. We kept talking about other things.
It just did not dawn on me that Pete Newell could leave this earth. I don’t know exactly why, but it just didn’t sink in at all. It was one of those things, I guess, I had to see to comprehend.
Then I got off the phone and saw the AP story on-line: The titan of Cal and USF and the 1960 Olympic gold medal US team and the Big Man camps has passed away.
I think I spoke to Newell two or three times when I used to cover college basketball–he was always the nicest guy imaginable and always knew everything about every technical aspect and every team and every coach you could bring up, college or pro.
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Warriors fans are so smart I really don’t have to say it, but I’ll say it:
Undrafted Georgia Tech rookie/summer league superstar Anthony Morrow’s incredible 37-point explosion against the Clippers on Saturday (I’m late, I’m late, I know! Football eats me up) in his first career NBA start probably will not happen again soon.
At least until Jan. 25 when the Warriors play the Clippers again and Morrow gets to go up against Baron Davis’ no-effort defense. Or Memphis when Morrow might draw Mike Conley’s no-defense. Or… not too many others like that.
Still, the Morrow performance cannot be tossed away. It happened. In the NBA. With NBA players trying to guard him, well, except for the times Baron decided not to. Morrow did this in summer league. He occasionally does this in practice.
HE CAN SHOOT THE BALL.
For the stat line, Morrow went all Del Curry: 15-for-20 shooting, 4-of-5 from three, plus 11 rebounds.
What does this mean for the Warriors? Don Nelson knows that, until Morrow shows he can pass and dribble and defend his position, he has to pick his spots with Morrow, and the Clippers happened to be the perfect spot.
Morrow already has skipped ahead of Marco Belinelli (obviously) in any rotation, Morrow has already guaranteed himself at least a few minutes in every game–just for an instant heat check, if nothing else–and Morrow probably has ensured that he will get a multi-year deal from somebody next summer.
Shooting is a precious commodity in the NBA. Just look at Matt Carroll, Jason Kapono and Michael Redd.
Anyway, the point of this post…
* Looks to me like Morrow, presuming decent shooting for a while, basically replaces Al Harrington in Nelson’s production-rotation (floor-spreading, mismatch-creating shooter, though Morrow does it differently), which is very good for the Warriors.
-On Saturday, Morrow also MORE than replaced Monta Ellis’ projected production and yes, the Warriors need that.
I don’t know Ellis and Morrow can work as a combination when/if Ellis comes back at full speed, but it sure is interesting to consider.
-The rest of this post presumes that Maggette is a must-play guy if healthy. However, if Morrow keeps shooting like this, one way to keep him on the floor vs. tougher teams is to play him over Maggette.
We’ll see if that ever happens. I’m not assuming it, for now.
* That means Nelson has to go small up front when Morrow’s in, which I’m sure doesn’t break Nellie’s heart–Corey Maggette/Stephen Jackson at the 3-4, with Andris Biedrins doing the grunt work at center and Kelenna Azubuike knocking around with Morrow at two more swing spots.
* That ALSO means that it’s going to be very hard for the Morrow Thing to work against Portland tomorrow and in the following two games.
Nelson could get away with Maggette-Morrow-SJax against the Clippers because the Clippers started Tim Thomas at PF and when they went big, still only could put Marcus Camby at PF and you don’t have to guard Camby with a big man necessarily.
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First off, Maiocco, as usual, makes a great point: You can’t just rail repeatedly on 49ers exec Paraag Marathe just because he’s there and because he’s an easy target.
I whole-heartedly agree and concede: Often it’s me doing the easy-target thing.
Marathe’s not the main reason things have fallen apart for the 49ers. (It’s the Yorks. Always the Yorks. They’ved hired everybody. They’ve kept the wrong people. They’ve hired more PR people. It’s the Yorks.)
Too many times Marathe is lined up as a pinata for knee-jerk criticisms, for things that he probably and at times cannot possibly have been involved in and things that Mike Nolan, Scot McCloughan and now Mike Singletary AND DEFINITELY THE YORKS THEMSELVES were first and foremost directing.
Can’t blame Marathe just for being there. Can’t blame him for being smart and political (well, maybe that second thing). Can’t blame him for gaining the trust of the Two JYs and the fidelity of the Powers That Coach, GM and Mumble on the Radio.
Can’t just rip Marathe for being in the coaches’ booth when so many weird things happen that should and could involve the communications from the booth to the sideline.
We don’t know who is saying what from the booth at key moments and you don’t know what the coaches on the sidelines are doing with the info, if anything.
I have tried to avoid knee-jerk Marathe-ripping, but not always successfully, since I hear much chatter about Marathe from both within and outside the building.
I’m sure many feel that I’m in the raging Anti-Paraag Camp. (I actually consider myself a leader of the Please-Explain-What-Paraag-Does-Camp, which is slightly different but I can see why there’s confusion.)
*** OH WAIT. YES. FORGOT. Let me break away from my point, in the middle of it, to reveal the actual purpose of thise post. Which is to pass along thing, from Bud Geracie:
-Bud says: Ann Killion hosts from Candlestick Party. Mark Purdy, Tim Kawakami and Daniel Brown will be there as well. Morning Buzz guy (John Ryan) and Wake of the Week guy (Bud Geracie) will chime in from their respective couches. Doors open 10 a.m. Don’t miss the postgame Q and A. You ask, we answer.
Find the festivites at http://blogs.mercurynews.com/nfl/
Anyway, back to Marathe…
My resonating point, which is not often made well, is that Marathe’s murky power–which is at its most mysterious point in dealing with his coaches’ box performance–is a symptom of the Two JYs’ impulsive, erratic, incoherent management style.
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Quick and to the point… (Purd is on a big winning streak.)
—-KAWAKAMI (last week 1-2, overall 18-11-1)/
* NORTHWESTERN +3, over Michigan: Testing my season-long perfection on alma mater picks. NU is OK except vs. power teams. Michigan is NOT a power team. I’ll grab the points, even on the road.
* FLORIDA -21, over South Carolina: Got to go with the Gator Machine, which chewed me up last week and might win by 75 one of these games. Ol’ Ball Coach might not be too pleased, though.
* STANFORD +23, over USC: I don’t think the Trojans, even in a revenge game, are getting over 35, unless Pritchard starts handing them the ball at a rapid rate. So can the Cardinal get to 13? I wanna know. I don’t know. I’m saying it’ll happen. 30-13, Cardinal cover.
—-PURDY SPECIAL BONUS COLLEGE PICK (last week 1-0, overall 7-3)/
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