Hey Now, You're an All-Star

The All-Star Game Comes to Dallas next year …One big detail is the bold claim by Jim Lites that all FULL season ticket holders will get a chance to go to the All-Star game. I hope that is true…

BREAKING NEWS: Mario Retires today ...again...but he is greatness...

Mavs at the Halfway point And Art Garcia takes a hard look at the 31-10 team …

The Mavs have put themselves in position to contend for the No. 1 seed in the West by buying into Johnson's system. He's done a masterful job dealing with injuries by developing a roster that might be the deepest around.

Stackhouse, Josh Howard, Marquis Daniels, Keith Van Horn and Jason Terry have missed a total of 58 games. Dirk Nowitzki, Erick Dampier, DeSagana Diop and Devin Harris are the only Mavs to suit up for every game.

"We've overcome a lot," said Nowitzki, an obvious MVP candidate at midseason. "At one point, we had something like three guys out in the starting five. But we kept on working on the system and doing the stuff that got us here."

The Mavs, winners of five in a row, are in the league's top 10 in points scored and fewest allowed. Only pacesetting Detroit can make the same claim.

The Pistons are the lone team with a better road record than the Mavs' 16-6 mark.

The Mavs are 3-0 on the current five-game trip, and they have never had a five-win trip in franchise history.

Johnson's team is 15-7 against teams with winning records, including 5-1 against last season's conference finalists.

Soak in some of those fun facts. The Mavercks, who we all said would have to wait until the playoffs to prove if they were better, certainly have impressed in this first half. The days of Nash and Finley are well behind us, as is the Bradley-Era, and you know what? They are better. This team is quality. We shall see what that means come spring time…

Could Kobe get 100?…

Heisler says, it was Jordanesque …

"You know those steel cage matches in wrestling?" said TNT's Doug Collins, who coached Jordan for two seasons in Chicago and two more in Washington, as Michael's personal choice.

"I would love to see Michael at 27, Kobe at 27, lock them in a gym and see who comes out. And you know one thing, the other one will be dead on the court.

"Kobe is the best player in the game right now. People don't want to recognize that because of the things that happened that caused people not to like him. …

"Kobe at 27 has the worst talent around him he has ever had. When Michael was 27, he had the best talent around him he ever had. It's as if their careers flip-flopped."

At 27, Jordan hadn't won a title and had learned his limits the hard way, but with Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant emerging, was surrounded by the best talent he'd play with.

Bryant won three titles with Shaquille O'Neal by 24, but now, at 27, is learning the hard way how far he can carry the Lakers by himself.

Bryant is every bit as ferocious as Jordan and works even harder at his craft (Jordan got more serious as he got older; Bryant was born serious).

Of course, Kobe is doing it his way, with his impossible, long-range, covered, falling-backward, leaning-in, off-balance, no-no-no-nice shot repertoire.

"I've always said Michael is the most fundamentally sound player I'd ever seen," Collins said. "Now when you throw in that spectacular physical talent, you've really got something…. If this was like gymnastics with degree of difficulty, Kobe's shots wouldn't just count two points."

Here is what the national media thinks of the Cowboys bias ….

The Pro Football Hall of Fame balloting won't take place until the morning before Super Bowl XL, but some media folks in the Dallas area have already begun banging the drums, in their typically ill-informed fashion, about contentions that a bias exists against the Cowboys' candidates. In the same week, two columnists from the Fort-Worth Star Telegram penned pieces, apparently trying to win votes and influence selectors. The annual rhetoric is every bit as petty and small-minded as the Dallas area media accuses the selectors of being. It never affects the votes, and won't this year, but that probably won't stop the columnists from grinding their axes on days when they've apparently got nothing better to write.

I hate to say it, but I would bet more people agree with this guy, than disagree with him...

Stars 4, Coyotes 1 ...Brendan Morrow was wonderful...

Bonds bows out of the World Baseball Classic …Does anyone care about this tournament?

Did Anna Benson get her husband traded? …

Toyota joins Nascar …prediction: Nascar fans will never, ever go for this. They hate drivers who are not from Confederate States, so I am guessing a car from the country that brought us Pearl Harbor will go over like a ton of bricks…We shall see…

Ronaldinho vs Zidane …Genius…

Gary reformats my best team spreadsheet …By the way, we now need to add points to Seattle and Pittsburgh…

This is the comedy treat of the day: Aggie who may qualify as gay …

Mel Kiper has filed his early draft projection …need subscription…

1. Houston -- *Reggie Bush, RB, USC
2. New Orleans -- Matt Leinart, QB, USC
3. Tennessee -- *Vince Young, QB, Texas
4. New York Jets -- D'Brickashaw Ferguson, OT, Virginia
5. Green Bay -- *Mario Williams, DE, NC State
6. Oakland -- A.J. Hawk, LB, Ohio State
7. San Francisco -- DeMeco Ryans, LB, Alabama
8. Buffalo -- *Haloti Ngata, DT, Oregon
9. Detroit -- Jay Cutler, QB, Vanderbilt
10. Arizona -- DeAngelo Williams, RB, Memphis

18. Dallas -- Jimmy Williams, DB, Virginia Tech

And now, some email about the black coach topic of last week:

Sturm,

Long time no bother. Hope all is well with you and yours. As your resident P1 "american who happened to have been born brown" aka black guy, here's my take: Yes you've traveled but you're from Wisconsin and you - like many - live in this bubble of happiness where you just because you believe something makes sense to you you assume that it makes sense to everyone else. You say that you're color blind so you assume that everyone else is or should be like you. Sorry my friend, that's not the case.

Before you get defensive let me say that there are extremes on all sides. I don't agree with everything Blackistone or Jean Jacque Saint whatever writes just because they're black either. Being from Champaign, Illinois I too grew up thinking everyone had the same "love thy neighbor...for the content of their character...yada yada" until at 17 my high school date's (blonde, blue eyed...) father refused to shake my hand. He was a strength coach for the U of I. Guess we were good enough to help him earn a living but... you know the rest. It was the first time, but not the last. Forgiven, but not forgotten. That's our life - every day.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. The situation with Romeo C. and the group of young coaches, who happened to have been born white, with little experience and poor track records that were hired this week is really too blatant for even my usually right minded - can't we all just get along - self to accept as "chance".

Dan was right, it's a matter of hiring someone like the GM, like the advertisors, like the season ticket buyers, and in college like the boosters - because they understand each other. They speak the same language. They look good on the sidelines and sound good on the coaching shows. They SELL TICKETS when winning is a crap shoot.

If minorities (that includes bald guys) want to get jobs you need to either have a person like yourself owning the team, running the team, or you better have a resume so great that winning with you is a likelihood and not a hope - taking over a perpetually down team makes this easier to swallow aka Lovie, Romeo, Marv, & Denny or you better "fit in" aka Herm & Tony.

Sorry Bob, likeism really does exist and in many forms. How many bald guys do you see doing the news? Do you really believe there are just not that many qualified guys with shiney domes out there or do you just accept it? Blackistone and many others are just tired of accepting it. Answer to the prob? Call Oprah, Cosby, and P Diddy (haha) and have them buy a team. Think they'd have hired Payton? Doubt it. Doesn't make it any more right - just makes it life as we live it.

Kage

And then, Dion sent me this one:

I think what bothers me is not the # of black coaches in the league, but the way that they're treated. Haslett loses his job and picks one up for next year. Black coaches so far get their one chance and that's it for a while. They get their shot, then if they fail or when they eventually get fired as most coaches do, they're done. We can't complain because people will say "hey we gave Dennis Green a shot and he failed". White coaches however, get recycled all the time. One day hopefully I'll be proven wrong.

And if you think race is no longer a factor in 2006, I'm so sorry to tell you, but you're wrong. It is and always will be. As long as there are races, there will be problems.

Dion

My response to this? Here I go:

Has Haslett been hired? or Tice? or Sherman?

I know Dennis Green was not out of work long before he was hired a second time. Same with Ray Rhodes. Tony Dungy.

My point is that people say things like, "the black coach never gets another chance" and the "white guy gets recycled" but where is the truth really?

And what about the life-time coordinators who are white and never got their chance to be a head coach? Fritz Shurmur, Jim Johnson, Monte Kiffin, and Jim Bates all come to mind as far more qualified than 99.9% of coordinators (white or black) that get hired. Do they just not interview well? Do they not have the interest? Who knows? What we do know is that no one wants to write a column about the poor white guy who can't get hired, because that doesn't make very interesting segments or conversations.

I am just trying to say that race is not always the reason someone gets hired or fired. Sports are very complicated, and to suggest it is that simple is irresponsible by responsible journalists.