Hughes and Lebron Take The Playoffs Seriously

Not only are the Cavaliers coming to DC with intentions of wiping the floor with the heavily injured and underdogged Wizards...but they're planning a party in Washington DC IN BETWEEN GAMES 3 AND 4 of the series! This apparently is just to try and show that they can beat the Wizards with their two superstars hungover as hell, thereby leveling the playing field. That is some gall right there. But its not the best thing about this playoff weekend...Larry Hughes actually has TWO parties that weekend!


Thats right...Larry Hughes is co-hosting two parties in one weekend. The first one, with our boy Agent Zero (and Fabolous) right after game 3 on Saturday and the next on Sunday, their one off day in between games 3 and 4. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who is happy to be back in DC...and a cocky man who thinks he can help beat a team decimated by injuries after 2 straight nights of partying. Ya gotta give it to Agent Zero though, you know he had to be the one who got Fabolous to perform at his party...TAKE THAT "KING" JAMES!

Anyway, all you gamblers out there...i think its safe to say take the UNDER on Larry Hughes points for game 4 and the UNDER on the game 4 score. We'll see if they'll be celebrating a sweep on Monday...

White RB's: Most Endangered Species in NFL

Special Guest Blog Post By The Newest Crocodile Hunter, Bindi Irwin...

Crikey! What have we here?? Its about time for the American Football draft and it appears as if we've found a resurgence of the rarest of rare male homo sapiens! Crikey, its a bloody Caucasian running back! A species of mammal not seen in its native habitat since a few years ago with a man by the name of Brock Forsey! This chap goes by Brian Leonard! Oooooh what a specimen! This is about as rare as finding a lesser bilby!!

This bastard hails from a strange and polluted Atlantic coastal region known as New Jersey, specifically, the state university of New Jersey, Rutgers. CRIKEY, it appears as if this bloke is actually quite athletic! The bloke is built like a brick shit house! BLIMEY, it looks as if this chap might actually be drafted into this American Football league! This would have a MAJOR impact on the species! The last time an evolutionary event such as this occurred Brent Barry won the bloody slam dunk contest! No doubt this league will attempt to pigeonhole this man into another genus of homo sapien, such as homo sapien fullback as opposed to homo sapien halfback or homo sapien running back, but hopefully his true self will shine through, like the beautiful cassowary!

CRIKEY, many people in the scientific world are ASTOUNDED by a creature of this significance appearing in this day in age! Read this article for one man's dissertation about the plight of the endangered and near extinct North American Football White Running Back!!

I'm off now to find what other endangered species are out there in the world of sports creatures, perhaps the sad sad story of the North American African American Baseball Player might be next in my sights! CRIKEY!!!

THE Definitive Article on Dwarf Tossing

This is one brilliant piece of work the people of TwistedEdge came up with. It is one of the most in depth articles on the lost sport of midget throwing/dwarf tossing. Some excerpts:

The Roots:The first of these twisted little events to get any real recognition was The Dwarf Throwing World Championship (I kid you not) which took place some time in 1986 - further proof as to what a messed up decade that was. That particular toss-fest was won by Team England - Danny Blue, Roy Merrin and Lenny The Giant the heroes of the hour.

and

The current world record for the longest throw is held by some white trash nutcase called Cuddles. Bless. I bet he loves his mommy and everything. The throw was an impressive 12 feet 9 inches. Cuddles belongs to a team of circus escapees calling themselves Oddballs. The Oddballs are mainly famous for their rather racy (and un-nervingly homo-erotic) 'balloon dance,' which basically involves them prancing about naked with balloons covering their pinkened, shrunken manhoods. They have a website and everything - click here to check it out (although doing so will officially make you a freak.)

You talk about quality investigative blogging! Very impressive work. Call me curious but, I'd love to see what the Japanese are doing now in the world of tossing. They've got to be competitive now, especially with strange, demeaning shows like this.

Read this article and remember the first rule of dwarf tossing is you don't talk about dwarf tossing. The second rule of dwarf tossing is...

Link: Midget Throwing: A Lost Art - TwistedEdge

Wayne Rooney's Cougar

It's been a while since we've had a soccer roundup. Trapper John apologized for the three of us so you can go fuck yourself if you're looking for anything apology related. Snake venom gathering is not an easy job. It requires complete concentration and an easily disposable Dalit for testing purposes. Hmm perhaps I've said too much....How about that local sporting team?

Pikeys Don't Just Like Caravans


They also like cars. BMWs. David "Goldenballs" Beckham's BMW to be exact. His X5 was stolen over a year ago in Madrid by a gang that targeted luxury cars as if there's a gang targeting Gremlins, Trablants and Yugos. They're from Basque country and really shouldn't be trusted like ETA.

The car was tracked to Macedonia and it's being driven by Interior Minister Gordana Jankulovska. Gordana isn't about to give the car up without a fight. She says if it's his, she'll give it back but Police Spokesman Ivo Kotevski said,

“Before it reached Macedonia, the vehicle had changed hands 20 times in Spain, so we have no proof that it belonged to Beckham.”

The only way to settle this is a bareknuckle boxing match. 50 quid on anyone named Gordana. The Deuce looks forward to Goldenballs being sold to some Albanians as a sex slave after he loses the match. They'll love him in Greek Macedonia or Turkey.

Anything Goes When It Comes To Hoes

Good old Wazza. He'll take 'em 8 to 80, dumb, crippled and crazy. Can't leave them cougars alone and now they're coming back on their Rascals to bite him in the ass.

A book detailing Rooney's rough sex with prostitutes is about to come out and he's a bit freaked out as you might imagine. The Sun says the book will be titled Roo Unzipped.

It's a well known fact that Rooney likes them old and dusty like the Auld Slapper but he's also not afraid to rob the uterus by sleeping with hookers in their mid to late 30s.

"I pretended I was getting turned on. Making the noises and going through the motions.

“But really I was thinking of Pot Noodles and which one to have after he’'d finished – chicken and mushroom or the beef one?

“Wayne didn’'t turn me on at all.– He was ugly."

Tip top, Roo!!

Just Win, Baby


Al Davis could learn something from Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. You'd never catch the Special One drafting Robert Gallery or Napoleon Kaufman. You'll also never see him let something like a bullshit suspension or ban keep him from bringing the truth to the starting 11.

The Times has shed light on how Jose beat the suspension placed on him two years ago during the Champions League quarterfinals when Chelsea played Bayern Munich. He was banned from the bench for making allegations against referee Anders Frisk in the previous round which turned out to be true. The racism-accepting, corrupt hypocrites otherwise known as UEFA buried a report showing the allegations to be true.

Here's an excerpt from the article. It's long but well worth the read.

For the first leg at Stamford Bridge, Mourinho arrived early enough to get in position. He watched the game on a television in the dressing-room and, during the first half, communicated to his staff in the dugout by radio or telephone. “You can get mobile reception in the dressing-room,” the source said. “It depends what network and in what room.”

At the time, television commentators spotted and commented on the fact that Rui Faria, the fitness coach, had a strange kink in his bobble hat and repeatedly scratched his ear. It was the sort of kink that could be caused by a wire and earpiece. “It was so obvious, to keep playing with your ear like that,” the source said.

Suspicious of skulduggery going on under their noses, Uefa officials went down to the tunnel, but by then the players were back in the dressing-room and listening to a team talk from their manager.

One source claims that knowing that the listening device had been rumbled, Chelsea simply used more rudimentary communication in the second half. It was noted at the time that Silvinho Louro, the goalkeeping coach, made several trips back to the dressing-room. “He’s a nervous spectator,” a source close to Mourinho joked at the time, but Louro kept coming back with bits of paper that were passed to the other coaches. Whatever the pieces of paper contained, they tended to coincide with substitutions.

Mourinho was not waiting for the players at the end of the match, which Chelsea won 4-2, because he had already allegedly clambered into one of the kit skips. He was wheeled out of the dressing-room by members of the backroom staff and, it is believed, back into the leisure club in the Chelsea Village hotel at the ground, where it had been reported that he spent the entire evening.

In a passable impression of Inspector Clouseau, Uefa’s hapless officials left none the wiser. Insiders claim Mourinho was so thrilled that he joked openly about his trip in the skip in front of his players at training the next morning.

In the second leg, at the Olympic Stadium in Munich, there was a greater risk of detection if he tried to enter the dressing-room. The sources allege that Mourinho went into the stands to watch but, apparently flustered by the close attention of a camera crew, he quickly departed for the team hotel.

The privacy might have been useful. The Timeshas been told that a speaker had been set up in the dressing-room so that he could talk to the players over the telephone at half-time. “There was a massive speaker,” a source said. “José was at the hotel.” Uefa’s representatives had surpassed themselves yet again by approaching Faria to check if there was anything under his hat. There wasn’t.

In a recent biography to which Mourinho contributed, he boasted about how he overcame a touchline ban during his days at FC Porto by sending messages to his assistants from his seat in the stands via “a small, sophisticated telecommunications device”. He even listed the precise instructions, which included: “Tell Deco [the Porto midfield player] I’m p****d off, I want more!” and, “Pressure on linesman, everybody.”

Art Shell, Norv Turner or Bill Callahan don't know shit about Commitment to Excellence.

When he's not busy beating evil Germans or the Scousers, he's steppin' to wrestlers. Watch around 5:35.

Jose Mourinho on Raw
Uploaded by cramchur

The Cool Guy Always Beats the Baxter

Kiwi mauled by rampant Lankan tiger

Well, we did tell you that the Lankan attack was brilliant and lethal. And we told you that the Lankans would win, because their class would differentiate them from a rather plain, if very talented and consistent, New Zealand side. But we had no idea just how dominant the victory would be, as Sri Lanka won by 81 runs. After losing two wickets -- Jayasuriya and Sangakkara! -- relatively early, Mahela Jayawardene built a remarkable innings, scoring 115 off 109 balls, and powering his side to an imposing 5/289. The Kiwis never had a chance chasing that kind of target -- not when Murali, Malinga, and Vaas were in such fine form.

And that's really what this match came down to -- the fact that Sri Lanka is a truly special, brilliant side. We've said for some time that they're really the only team that can hope to beat Australia, because only they have the creativity, talent and class do so. New Zealand is a perfectly good team, and should be able to beat just about everyone other than SL and Australia. But they don't have the spark of genius about them. Not in their batting, not in their fielding, and -- with the exception of the exceptional Mr. Bond -- not in their bowling. Sri Lanka does. That doesn't mean SL can't lose to lesser teams -- they should have lost to England in the Super 8s. But it does mean that, on their day, SL can stand toe to toe with the Aussies. And even though I'm an Australia fan, I do want a great final. I think that SL will give us the game we all want.

Redskins' Draft Hype: Dont get too excited...

At 4pm today the Redskins will host their annual draft week media briefing. This will surely begin a very miserable week for Redskins fans and will be an ominous precursor for the season to come. What are they gonna tell us this year? Do they want Landry or Okoye? Do they want to have even less picks so they can trade up for Calvin Johnson, a wide receiver, who would fit well on a team that already has at least 4 signed for the next 4 years? Who knows. Yes, this is a week of misery, not because we know what they will do but because the history of this franchise's draft picks for the last 5 years tells us whatever they do, it will usually not work out.

From the drafts 2000-2005 the Redskins have just 9 players they drafted, by my count, still on their roster...out of the 34 players selected, the fewest amount of total players drafted in the NFL in that period. One of those 9 just resigned with the team through free agency this off season (Fred Smoot). That is, 26% of the players that they can get relatively cheap and that they can teach their own system for several years, actually stay with the team.

The Redskins' #1 draft pick success might be considered a bit better. They've had seven #1 draft picks in that period...Chris Samuels ('00), Sean Taylor ('04), Carlos Rogers ('05), and Jason Campbell ('05) are still on the team. 4 out of 7, that's not too bad? That's great until you realize in the decade prior to 2000 the Redskins have zero #1 draft picks on their team...most of them failing spectacularly. #1 picks are supposed to be franchise players, ones that can last for several years and be impact players for a sustained period of time...the Redskins have one in the last 15 years that could be talked about in that respect, Chris Samuels, and he is by no means a Hall of Famer.

The biggest indication of the Redskins scouting failures and lack of draft success is their mid to low round selections. These are the players the scouting staff needs to hit on so that the team can get talent to fill out the roster, at a cheap price for several years in contract length, occasionally hitting a "home run" with a player that was undervalued at the draft. Denver, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New England, all good teams who repeatedly make excellent late round, 2nd day, draft picks. The Redskins again, fall short.

Since 2000-2005, the Redskins 2nd day picks have numbered 21...the number of players still on their roster is numbered 2. Rock Cartwright ('02) and Nehemiah Broughton ('05)...both 7th round picks. That number, again, is way too low.

No wonder they feel they can do better in free agency and trades, their draft history is horrible!

At first glance that argument makes a bit of sense, until you realize that the reason the Redskins go nuts in free agency is because the scouting staff is not capable enough to determine the skill level or value of a player that plays 3 or 4 years in college and needs to see how a player does with 3 or 4 years in the pros to determine if the player is good or not.

They admit their shortcomings! Sadly, even with this extra body of history they have on players, they still make monumental mistakes in selecting their roster (a blog for another time, but Brandon Lloyd and Adam Archuleta immediately come to mind in that discussion).

So with all that being said, enjoy the pre-draft media hype. Enjoy hearing Saint Joe talk about what he feels would be prudent for the team. You could even go out to FedEX and watch this draft debacle. Me, I'm gonna be at a baby party because I'm old...but I'll still be checking my cell phone for what we're doing. Why? Because as much as I hate the Redskins, I still love em.

Draft history from redskins.com

Where'd That Week Go?

The Deuce staff apologizes for its weeklong absence. Suffice it to say that we simply didn't have time to blog, given that we were spread across the planet on critical missions. One of us was called in to work on a top-secret investigation in the Caribbean -- and Mustafa's remarkable knowledge of snake venoms has never been of such practical use. The Code Monkey was meditating with Agent Zero and Caron Butler in Cleveland, in a futile attempt to hypnotize them into playing shape. And I was in Dehli, seeking to thwart the most brazen attack on the people of the Indian Subcontinent since the Sino-Indian War.

So the World Cup semifinals start in about two minutes, and I'm sure you're waiting for the Deuce's official predictions before you head over to Bet 365. Well, here you go:

Tuesday: Sri Lanka v. New Zealand at Sabina, Jamaica

Prior to the tournament, I predicted that Sri Lanka would join Sethaffrika and Australia in the semis. I didn't see New Zealand making it -- though their attack was undeniably strong, I couldn't imagine that the batting would be consistent enough to make it through the Super 8s. Of course, I didn't imagine that India would shit the bed in such spectacular fashion.

But the Kiwis have been consistently excellent, with Scott Styris the anchor of the batting, and Shane Bond leading an attack that has performed even better that one could have expected at the beginning of the tourney. And as many have noted, the fast, hard pitch of Sabina -- denuded of the grass that so flummoxed Pakistan against Ireland -- will be fun for Bond. But it's going to take more than Bond to beat Sri Lanka, because Sri Lanka aren't just consistent. They're brilliant. The varied attack -- with the conventional pace of Vaas, the freakish deliveries of Malinga, and the genius of Murali -- complements a strong batting order. In the end, while NZ is a very good team, SL is a special team. They just have the extra intangibles necessary to win a match between two talented sides. SL by 45 runs.

Wednesday: Australia v. South Africa at Gros Inlet, St. Lucia

When de Villiers and Smith were at something like 0/130 (and batting ahead of the required run rate) against Australia in late March, they really had a chance to beat the champs. Then they lost a cheap wicket, and collapsed in a mire of Jacques Kallis cautiousness. They won't come nearly as close this time, as the Aussies have just kept improving, and as the Saffers attack lacks the variety to really trouble the Aussie bats. As obnoxiously arrogant as they may be, Ponting and his boys will cruise to a fascinating matchup with Sri Lanka on Saturday. Australia by 5 wickets/75 runs.