Looking to the Future

This is a great time of year to be a sports fan. Baseball's in full swing, NBA and NHL playoffs are going on, there's the NFL draft, Kentucky Derby, etc. Hell, there's even a good boxing match on Cinco de Mayo (Mayweather vs De La Hoya).

Alas, my Lakers laid down like dogs the other night against Phoenix. It's clear that they've made no progress since last year when they lost to Phoenix (after having a 3-1 lead) in the playoffs. Lamar Odom is just not aggressive enough to play with Kobe, Kwame Brown just isn't ever going to be good enough and Andrew Bynum is just too young. What it comes down to is that another year of Kobe in his prime has been wasted (btw-Shaq's Heat got swept by Chicago over the weekend) and unless they pull a miracle trade, next year's not going to be much better. Sigh...at least the Celtics still suck.

Going into the draft I felt that Raiders really needed some better offensive lineman (see the league high sacks allowed). Unfortunately, there just weren't any really good ones available in the draft. So, they picked up a running back, Dominic Rhodes of Indy (hm...the last time the Raiders signed a guy who had a great game in the Super Bowl it didn't work out so well). In the draft they picked first and chose JaMarcus Russell (how did my wife and I miss that name for the HB?) as the overall first pick. Maybe he was the best guy out there, but quarterbacks taken with the number 1 pick generally don't work out. Of course, their best move was getting SOMETHING for Randy Moss (a #4 pick from New England) and clearing a good chunk of his salary. They made a good tight end pick in Zach Miller and a great pickup in Michael Bush. Yeah, he had a broken leg, but if he heals he'll be amazing and he only cost them a fourth round pick. Of course, they picked up the obligatory unknown wide receiver speedster in Jonathon Holland.

I've talked to my fellow Raider buddies about the draft. They all feel pretty good about it. I just have this sinking feeling that they put up new blinds without taking care of the cold draft coming through the window.