Panic at the disco

Go to hell.

Uh oh. Looks like the World Champs could cost the Blazers some serious coin. The Boston Globe reports that the Celtics have taken their chances and signed Darius Miles and his achy right knee to a non-guaranteed contract and that he’ll have the opportunity to compete for a roster spot during training camp. If he plays more than 10 games this year or next, the remaining $18 million on his six-year, $48-million contract would go back on the Blazers’ books. Shit. There goes Portland’s salary cap space (not that we were going to land Chris Paul anyway).

The good news is that the dude hasn’t played in TWO YEARS and reportedly was 260 pounds. Considering that he entered the league at around 215 back in 2000-01, that’s just fat—and sad. Watching him lumber around the C’s training camp would be hilarious, but be forewarned, some unfortunate memories of the Shawn Kemp era might creep up. Speaking of which, hey Shawn, how’s Italy? What’s worse than being a has-been trying to make it the NBA? Try a has-been trying to make it in the Euroleague…

Smoke on more for Greg Oden

Welcome to the return of the Beer Garden. This is, seriously, my last attempt at putting out a blog and post with any consistency. But fuck that, I’m excited right now. Preseason football is here, which means that college football is almost here, which means the Blazers are about to open training camp and then begin their campaign of destruction across the Western Conference. I’m sure you’ve all seen Greg Oden’s workout video, but if you haven’t, check it out. He is about three feet thick of nasty, and that last dunk damn near tore the rim down. It’s just insane what this dude is going to do in his career, but right now, I’ll take a 14-10 year and take some of the pressure off of LMA, who got pretty tired down the stretch. As long as Brandon comes back okay, I think we’re set for a run.

In other news, the Oregonian reports that Quizz Rodgers is coming to Corvallis, joining his older brother James. That Beavers backfield is starting to look a bit crowded, and short. Quizz is a listed at a generous 5-foot-6. Paul Buker has all the details from Corvallis.

I don’t need to mention anything about the Olympics, because I’m sure everybody is getting their daily dose of NBC’s non-stop coverage. One thing does bother me, though. UHD is showing nothing but Olympic boxing, women’s basketball and rowing. Boxing is a joke to begin with, and Olympic boxing has found a way to score the sport so that the entertainment value it was still clinging to has finally been clobbered away.

Rowing is just lame. Single person rowing. Doubles. Three, four, six, eight-person boats. There is exactly nothing exciting about people paddling boats in a straight line. It’s worse than NASCAR, and that’s saying something. At least NASCAR has turning. If you’ve even watched more than five minutes of women’s basketball total in the last year, well, we probably wouldn’t get along very well.

Couple of sad sacks have been showing up in the latest news cycle. Carl Pavano—hey, remember me, I won 18 games once—may make a start for the pitching-starved Yankees. Wow, is that team desperate or what? Homey hasn’t pitched in over a year and he’s cashing a fat $11 million paycheck this year. Nice job, Carl. Joining CP45 is former Blazers dud Shawn Kemp. He signed a deal with some Italian team. I’m not even going to bother linking to an article. Kemp needs to hang it up and deal with the fact that he’s fat, unemployed and has about 20 different baby mamas all knocking his door down for some child support. Actually, escaping to Italy doesn’t seem like a bad idea after all. Good luck with that, Shawn!