So, the Laker empire is no more. The king is dead, long live the king! Of course, if the king is Chauncey Billups, stop the ride, I wanna get off. The fact that the finals mvp award went to a man named after a butler is not going to be forgotten too soon. He has to be one of the worst MVPs I can remember; the guy has been on 5 teams because of his inability to pass...this is usually a problem when you're a point guard. You know, since your job is to PASS THE BALL! It really shouldn't come as a surprise, because he did get to play the Lakers who have been making superstars out of mediocre point guards for the past couple of years. Do you really think Mike Bibby is that good? Of course, when either Gary "if the glove don't fit, you better quit" Payton and Derek Fisher are the defensive specialists covering you...well, that must be like Christmas for any decent player with a first step. I'm having a hard time seeing the Pistons doing this again, but we'll see. They work really well as a team, but they don't have a bonafide superstar who can take over when they need it. If anything, their superstar is their defense, but I'm sure with a summer off teams will figure out how to deal.

Now that basketball is done with, I get to concentrate on my baseball team the Angels. It turns out, the Angels pitching just plain stinks. I had a feeling this was going to happen, but I was hoping for them to just be able to score enough runs until their bullpen takes over. Unfortunately, they're dropping like flies from injuries which means their offense can't quite make up for their poor ass pitching...well, I'll just have to wait. It is a long season, after all.

This week so far has been fairly uneventful; Newjen and some other folks came over yesterday and we grilled up some chicken and burgers. I was doing my best to ruin my eating habits what with the hotdogs as well. Luckily, I can still fit into my pants this morning, so all is well. Newjen is quite the cook when a grill is involved; in fact, I'd rather have him in charge than Chris, the expensively schooled chef friend of mine.

I'd like to make mention of a sad event that occurred this week. Ralph Wiley, a sports writer for Sports Illustrated passed away from a sudden heart attack. I hate SI, but he was also one of the founding writers of the columns on Page 2 on ESPN.com. This is one of the more fun sections of the website as it has columnists who write opinion pieces on various events, not always sports related. Since about a year ago, however, there have only been 2 regular contributors which were actually worth reading and he was one of them. He had just started to write point-counterpoint pieces with the other good writer on the site, Bill Simmons or the Sports Guy, and had breathed new life into the genre. He was very opinionated and had years of knowledge and expertise in almost all sports; those two combinations made his pieces readable. His sense of humor and personality made it a must read. I, and many other sports fans, will miss his columns.