Seattle Sports: In the Morning

Honestly, what the hell is Clay Bennett talking about?

Brandon Roy is an All-Star! He's the first Blazer NBA All-Star since Rasheed Wallace in 2001.

He's the first ex-Husky NBA All-Star since Detlef Schrempf in 1997 (Roy and Schrempf are the only ex-Huskies to make NBA All-Star teams).

He's the first player from a Seattle high school to make an NBA All-Star team, and one of only three players who went to high school in Washington to do so (Schrempf, John Stockton). All this according to Basketball-Reference.com. Note for the completely basketball-obsessed: Charles Williams (Stadium High) and Byron Beck (Kittitas High) both made ABA All-Star teams.

The Cavs decided to lose a game on purpose rest LeBron James, and the Sonics beat them, 101-95. Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic also were in street clothes--hardly a "signature win." Still, when you're the Sonics...
Sonics are 11-35, 16.5 GB of 8th playoff slot. Next game: Friday vs. Knicks.

Brook Lopez housed the Huskies, scoring a career-high 31 in a 65-51 Cardinal win. Romar tried a bunch of different lineups to get the offense going, nothing really worked.
Huskies 3-5 in Pac-10, 12-9 overall. Next game: Saturday vs. Cal.

Ryan Anderson housed the Cougars, scoring 27 points in a 69-64 Bears win. Derrick Low missed all nine threes he took, including two in the final ten seconds that would've tied it. Cougs have lost three of six and will surely drop from the top 10.
Cougars 5-3 in the Pac-10, 17-3 overall. Next game: Saturday vs. Stanford.

Having suffered through last night's UW/Stanford game, I'm not sure how to respond to this quote by Quincy Pondexter: "I felt sorry for our fans that had to watch that." Um...thanks?

TNT's Don Ruiz on Todd Turner, whose last day as AD was yesterday: "He didn’t leave with the athletic department where he wanted to take it. But he left the program better – and more purple – than he found it."

New Husky DC Ed Donatell speaks: "We’re going to bring a style of defense you’re really going to like. It’s based on speed and explosion, high energy, enthusiasm, attacking style. We’re ball hawkers. Most of all, it’s going to be something that the kids can do: It’s going to be multiple, but simple."

Donatell coached Jim Mora at UW, then worked under him in Atlanta. Here's what Mora tells Bob Condotta about him: "He is very innovative, and those players will take to him immediately. They will trust him, and you will see an aggressive, passionate, flying-around defense. I'm excited about it." If Donatell actually gets the players to fly, I think he'll deserve a renegotiation of his $334,000 salary.

The Huskies are last in the league in blocks, but help may be on the way, writes Bob Condotta. Tyrone Breshers, a class of '08 recruit, blocked 14 shots in three quarters in a game Husky assistant Jim Shaw attended. Says Shaw of Breshers: "He's 6-6, but he's got arms that hang until tomorrow."

The Times' Geoff Baker reports on the M's signing Brad Wilkerson, and he has the latest on the Bedard deal and why Peter Angelos is a few peanuts short of a full bag.

Oh Christ. Listen to how John McLaren describes Wilkerson: "He's such a gamer. He plays the game the way it's supposed to be played." So...the way the game is supposed to be played is hitting .234?

Robert Swift might play Saturday, according to the Times. A friend emailed me about Swift: "You know, I wish the Sonics had paid me a couple of million dollars to hang around the team after high school."

The Storm can only protect six players in the upcoming expansion draft, so a familiar name will likely leave, writes Darren Fessenden of the P-I.

Jim Moore on misconduct in Cougland.

Art Thiel, writing about the 2000 Huskies, reminds us that misdeeds in college football programs are hardly new. In a column I highly recommend, Thiel recalls a conversation he had with Don James about it:

In 1986, when James was UW head coach and I was the P-I's Huskies football reporter, I wrote a story detailing a spate of criminal misdeeds among football players at the UW and Washington State that included felony charges at both schools.

James and his WSU counterpart, Jim Walden, defended their programs and procedures, yet lamented the difficulty of managing an enterprise that then included about 150 man-children per team.

"We just haven't done a great job as a team," James said, "coaches and players."

James and I talked of the bigger picture. I suggested the system was designed to fail numerous players because, entering college, they were not equipped to manage academic and personal obligations as well as a 40-hours-plus job that was the primary, if not only, reason they were at a university. James politely disagreed. We went back and forth.

Finally, he said, "If I believed everything you said, I couldn't keep coaching football."

James was dead-on.

He, and all of his peers as well as fans, have to hold tight to the belief that more good than harm comes from the industry. Fortunately for them, it's usually true. Lots of players make it through without bad headlines and with an education, friends, contacts and great memories. A handful get to live an NFL dream for a few years.