Totally Absurd

To Dennis Rodman and Charles Smith, I ask?

With human rights violations and abuses beyond any sane person's wildest and worst imagination, you can sit there and say, "we're just here to play some basketball?"

C'mon man.

And, outgoing NBA Commissioner David Stern provides some perspective on the power of sports diplomacy and appropriate timing:

Nov. 7, 1991 - A sad but "Magical" day we all remember

See:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/sports/2011/11/03/vault-magic-johnson-retires.cnn

The Dream Team of Election Night Reporters ...

POTUS w Family

"My Dream Team"

Coach: Charles Osgood (CBS)

My personal Dream Team ...

Network: 

Center- Bob Schieffer (CBS)

Point Guard - Brian Williams (NBC)

SG - Norah O'Donnell (CBS)

SF - George Stephanopolous

PF- Scott Pelley (CBS) - Newcomer to the list ...

Sixth Man - David Gregory - (NBC Meet the Press)

Courtside reporters: Cokie Roberts (ABC), Andrea Mitchell (NBC)

MVP: Jon Stewart - Comedy Channel

Cable - The good, but also rans because on Cable...

PG - John King (CNN)

SG - James Carville (CNN)

SF - Donna Brazile (CNN)

PFs - David Gergen, Candy Crowley

*** DIVE for the REMOTE and switch to local (NECN) coverage when the following network anchors or reporters appear 

1. Diane Sawyer (ABC)

2. Sean Hannity (FOX)

3. Tucker Carlson (Fox News Channel)

4. Bill O'Reilly (Fox)

5. Glenn Beck (?)

6. Savannah Guthrie

Used to be good, but fading:

1. Wolf Blitzer

2. Jim Lehrer

Anticipation of a Great Debate ...

The first debate of the 2012 USA Presidential campaign is upon us.  Oh, my goodness, the time has come, like a Carly Simon song for a ketchup commercial.  The an-an-an-tic-ipation, it's making me wait!

Will it be as good as Ali vs. Frazier? Army vs. Navy? Lakers vs the Celtics? 

Maybe not.

Like a hit song stuck in the cortex... a.k.a. an ear worm ..  the only vision I have in mind when I think of President Obama debating against Mitt Romney is this:

DigitalSportsDesk.com on the (Near) Perfect NBA Playoff Game

NBA Refs and Rajon Rondo Redeemed Themselves

BOSTON - MAY 6, 2012 -  A funny thing happened at an NBA Playoff game this weekend and it wasn't even noticed.  No, it wasn't Oklahoma City's impressive sweep over the defending champion Dallas Mavericks or the San Antonio Spurs handling of the formidable Utah Jazz in four straight games. It wasn't accounting firm Ernst & Young screwing up the ballot count for the NBA's Most Improved Player award nor the impressive play of David West for the Indiana Pacers. What happened this weekend went unreported, un-posted, un-blogged, un-tweeted.  One of the greatest feats in NBA Playoff history and the story never even made the ESPN highlight reel.

So what the hell happened?

On Friday night at the TD Boston Garden in front of a sellout crowd of 18,624 which included a heavy dose of NBA brass, the officiating crew of #10 Ron Garretson, #13 Monty McCutchen and #33 Zach Zarba called a (near) perfect game.  

Every referee worth his whistle swears the perfect game in an unattainable goal.  At the highest level of basketball, an official doesn't stand a chance of getting them all right because the players are just too big, too quick, too strong.  They are so talented and athletic, they're just too everything.  They play so far above the rim and they can contort their bodies in midair to avoid contact or collision that the naked eyes can't compute the optical illusion occurring before them.  The NBA game cannot be compared to hoops at any other level.  It's even more impossible to compare officiating.  To the novice fans, comparing NBA ball to college basketball or, even Euroleague Basketball, is worse than trying to compare apples and oranges or The Rolling Stones to The Who to The Beatles.  It just can't be done. 

As the red carpet was rolled out on Friday, plush with NBA Commissioner David Stern seated near his trusty deputy, Adam Silver, they both witnessed the feat alongside a bonafide CNN anchorman, John King, who could've broke into programming to report the news.  However, not a single news bulletin, nor a word of congratulations was spoken to the men ultimately responsible for how their game is called.  In the post-game press conferences, nobody brought up the subject of officiating. There were no kind words. No headlines written.  World Series perfectionist Don Larson's name never came up when the Celtics defeated the Atlanta Hawks, 90-84, in overtime, and the NBA registered the best officiated game of the year.  It might've been the best officiated game of the the century.

An unofficial review of the game brought about four or five "possible" missed calls or miscues, none of them even close to being significant.  The only blip on the screen was a moment when Boston Coach Doc Rivers sauntered way out onto the court but he wasn't arguing a call and the referring crew let it go, as they should. Rivers was trying to get the attention of his point guard Rajon Rondo who was not on the same page as his coach's playbook required when he returned to play in Game 3 after being suspended for a single playoff date for bumping NBA ref Marc Davis in Game 1 of the series.  After that contest, there was quite a bit of focus on the officiating and, after the game, there was a constant banter on the steps the NBA would take to discipline Rondo for his obvious disregard of the sacred personal space around an official.

Rightfully so, the NBA suspended Rondo a single game for his indiscretion but Avery Bradley, Sasha Pavlovic, Keyon Dooling and Marquis Daniels all stepped up quite nicely for the Celtics as they tied the series 1-1 with an 87-80 win over the Hawks at Atlanta. The Celtics' win brought the series to Boston for the "so-called" pivotal Game 3 where the stakes were raised so high, the people of Kentucky would start singing "My Old Kentucky Home." The game was important and the players delivered a hard-fought, entertaining, defensive chess match that saw Boston hold Atlanta to 38-percent shooting from the field and 20-percent from three-point land. Much of that defensive intensity is credited to the amazing play of Kevin Garnett who has played with the youthful exuberance of the high schooler who entered the league in 1995. While Garnett, switched to center after teammate Jermaine O'Neal went down to injury and had season-ending surgery on his left wrist in March.

Out on Daniels the perimeter where real defense happens in game of basketball, Bradley has become the stopper.  Complemented by the speedy Rondo, the consistent Paul Pierce, the hard-working and the deep bench of, Dooling, Mickael Pietrus and important minutes being played by Ray Allen, now as a reserve the past two games, Bradley has become the difference maker for the Boston Celtics as they plot their way through the 2012 NBA Playoffs with the window of opportunity showing a shade pulled three-quarters of the way down.  This might be it for this era of Celtics basketball and the NBA's cut-down season provides an opportunity to hang banner No. 18 in the rafters of TD Boston Garden.

In this year when NCAA officiating was a downright disgrace to the game and when NBA bad boy Metta World Peace earned a seven-game suspension for nearly decapitating Oklahoma's James Harden, the whistle blowers are always the visiting team. It was once said that officiating is the only profession in the world where the ultimate compliment is silence. That is certainly true. No news is good news when the refs are escorted off the court by a security detail that rivals the US Secret Service presence in a Colombian strip joint. The attention brought upon NBA referees in the past five or six years largely revolved around the criminal activities of one Tim Donoghy and the sniping by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and his "couldn't run a Dairy Queen viewpoint of the dedicated group of professional refs who call the game at the very highest level.  They run, they pivot, they get screened by giants on the court, they peek around bodies, scramble for better position, work their rotations all in an attempt to "just get it right."  Then, they have their judgements reviewed by partisan television commentators who make their references from observing 12 high-definition television cameras situated so far away from the court, they create bad angles and optical illusions which often prompt erroneous reporting or legions of fans scowling when the replays are shown on jumbo in-arena screens.

On Friday night, the crew of Garretson, McCutcheon and Zarba, a young rising superstar official, got it right.  No one noticed, but that's alright.  They reviewed the game themselves and probably second-guessed a judgement call or two.  They showered, dressed, then left the building without so much as a pat on the back or a single cheer from the fans.

Only the funeral directors, morticians and undertakers could relate.

Terry Lyons does The Blog at TerryLyons.com and is editor in chief of DigitalSportsDesk.com (@DigSportsDesk).  His work is also featured in the Huffington Post collection of sports columns.

Memo to US Media... yes you Wolfie boy.

I do not care whether bin Laden was armed or not and who was alongside him, aiding and harboring the criminal. I don't care where he lived/hid and I leave it up to the Dept. of State to deal with Pakistan. I did not celebrate bin Laden's death because I still mourn the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of lives lost and/or forever changed. I am still angry about the events of Sept. 11, 2001 - and other terrorists acts both before and after that terrible day. I believe bin Laden and his associates are responsible for many of those gutless acts. I do not care where he was shot or how he was buried and I don't need to see any pictures or further proof. Lastly, dear media, within your 24/7 ratings driven bin Laden coverage, it might be more productive to do a telethon so people can donate money to the USA's wounded warriors, or to victims of the natural disasters in Japan and US southern states. We've had enough bin Laden. Thank you. Over and out....

Oh, okay... It's a "new" recession, not the old one.

Say what?

Am I on Candid Camera?

The U.S. recession ended in June 2009, according to reports filed by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Oh, that's good.  It makes me feel much better and more confident in the American economy which, to me, still seems to be stuck in very low gear.

If you want to ponder socio-psychopathic economics, please read this news flash:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The recession ended in June 2009, making it the longest downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the National Bureau of Economic Research said on Monday.

The NBER, considered the arbiter of U.S. recessions, said it chose that month based on examination of data including gross domestic product, employment and personal income.

The group's business cycle dating committee, composed of academic economists, is notorious for taking its time in declaring the start and end of recessions.

The committee said it waited to make its decision this time because it wanted to review revised data on national income, released August 27, to get a clearer reading on the path of economic output in 2009.

In April, the NBER declined to call the end of the recession, and some of its members said at the time they were concerned the economy could dip back into negative territory. In Monday's announcement, the NBER said any fresh downturn would mark a new recession, not a continuation of the one that began in December 2007.

Here is the WSJ take on the item... Click here:  WSJ

Now, the same day the research was published, stocks rallied to a four-month high, finishing +145 for the day (Sept. 20, 2010), despite the fact that any downturn would just be labeled a 'new recession' which could easily be deeper and darker than the 'old' recession.

While that was happening, CNN Money posted this story on a group of 18 economy gurus and their predictions:

But even if the nation avoids another recession, economists are in broad agreement that the current economic pain -- high unemployment, weak growth, little improvement in home values -- isn't going away anytime soon.

The survey of 31 economists, compiled this month, shows that the chance of another downturn in the next year is around 25%, according to a median consensus. That's up significantly from about a 15% risk six months ago.

Nearly two thirds of those surveyed agree the chance of a double-dip recession has risen since the start of the year. Only three believe there is less risk than there was in the spring. Nine of the economists surveyed left their forecasts unchanged.

"We have been talking about ongoing fundamental weakness and the possibility of a double-dip for at least nine months," said Bill Watkins, executive director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting, who puts the risk at 25%, as he did six months ago.

Got it?

Now, if you are more confused or more uncertain about the economy, housing market and/or stock market because of all of these mixed messages, raise your hand and say:  "Go figure."

Covert ... The paperback... Coming Soon.

Back on the COVERT TRAIL... get ready for the old "Covert" PR Machine to kick in once again...Some major announcements and a special event at the Basketball Hall of Fame on June 19th will tip-off the publicity efforts for the release of the paperback edition of Covert, My Years Infiltrating the Mob - the memoir of Bob Delaney's life as an undercover New Jersey State trooper.

Longtime readers of The Blog @ TerryLyons.com wlll remember the original PR barrage that launched the hardcover book back in February of 2008. Features on CNN, ESPN, the CBS Early Show and hundreds of other media interviews and mentions contributed to the fact Covert quickly became the #1 best-selling title for Sterling Publishing's Union Square Press.

If you enjoy true crime with a mix of thriller, sports and "mob" related psyachology and humor - not unlike the great HBO "Sopranos" - Get ready for some Covert. See this:

Take One, Take Two ... the Camera (and Satellite) is always Watching

PR Experts Everywhere-- Remind your clients that the camera is always 'hot' and the tape machines are always running on the other end of the other end. Big brother is always watching.

Click on headline above.

Covert on CNN Headline News and CNN.com

Click on the headline above to see the latest feature on the Bob Delaney story, Covert - My Years Infiltrating the Mob.

Can you say Sierra Leone?

Sometimes, the comedy writers have a great day. The VP shoots his buddy in the face with a shotgun. Check... O.J. Simpson high-jacks a bunch of memorabilia from a would-be thief and claims it to be his own in a botched-up Vegas heist? Check... And now, the presidential speech writers pass along a speech for the United Nations general assembly with (PHO-NET-TIC) spellings throughout the document and a White House staff speech writer's cell phone number attached.

C'mon, now?

What can be next?

Tell me that TV will become mindless dancing and reality show biz, rather than true drama, comedy or news documentary? Tell me the dumbing down of America is not based on whether Mark Cuban can dance a little better than Wayne Newton and Scary Spice? Please?

Anderson Cooper and his 360 can tell us how important a news story is tonight (FDA not knowing the safety of drugs on market) but they have to tease it to note that it will air on CNN tomorrow? Now, that's breaking news. That's journalism at its best.