The Dog Days of Summer

On April 19, 2008 the Cleveland Cavs defeated the Washington Wizards 93-86 in the opening game of the 2008 NBA playoffs. On June 17th, the Boston Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 131-92 to win the NBA title and end the 2008 playoffs. You can do the math, but basically the NBA playoffs lasted two months. Two freaking months.
Needless to say, that the playoffs took two months is ridiculous. I could say a lot about how frustrating I find this but for purposes of brevity I will simply stop my rant here and move to the main point of the story, which is maybe, just maybe, this isn't such a bad thing...?
Seriously, consider the possibility that rather than being a massive tool of the television networks (who dictate how the playoff games are scheduled), David Stern is actually something like a sports charity worker who scheduled the games with the interests of the average sports fan in mind....Ok so it's not likely, but bare with me for a second while I try and explain why the absurd length of NBA's post-season might not be such a bad thing after all.
You see, every year the end of the NBA finals marks the coming of the dog days of summer, where all the media has to talk about is baseball (which is my favorite sport) and training camp football. That's it. Because of this, every big time sports radio or television personality goes on vacation and ESPN starts showing a massive amount of what can only be referred to as low cost, time filling garbage.
Take ESPN. Not that you listen to ESPN radio (you instead listen to 1560 the Game) but if you did, you would know that Mike and Mike have gone on vacation leaving listeners the less than envious task of listening to Eric Kuselias and Osi Umenyiora talk about how Osi feels disrespected by the Giants being a candidate for the "biggest upset" ESPY because as he sees it "we weren't an underdog....Plexico said we were going to win." This provides a perfect segway into "the ESPY's" and "My Wish." Sportscenter will be devoting a totally absurd amount of time to debates about their meaningless totally made up ESPY awards. Just be thankful Samuel L. Jackson won't be hosting them this year (we've got Justin Timberlake instead) so that viewers will be spared him barking at you during commercial breaks.
As bad as the ESPY's are, "My Wish" is infinitely worse. Because they don't have enough sports to talk about, ESPN takes the liberty of "granting young sick children their dreams." While this is good, ESPN is essentially using the kids for cheap programming that they can use to fill time. What exactly are the athletes supposed to say when ESPN comes to them and tells them that they have a dying child who's one and only dream is to meet them. If ESPN were setting these kids up with their favorite athletes because they wanted to grant a dream to a child, that would be great, but they are doing it so that they can film it and turn it into a very crappy human interest story. ESPN: stop with the crappy programming, do your job and talk about sports. Grant dreams off camera, but viewers don't watch sports center to see this crap. I am not anti-charity, I am however against using very sick kids and turning them into human interest stories to fill time. Stop it.
Next time you tune in to sportcenter and see a round table debate being moderated by some guy from ESPN News, or you turn on PTI to see that Jay Mariatti and whoever else they could find is hosting, or are trying to see the highlights from last nights Astros game before you head off to work and instead find a "My Wish" story, you might consider writing David Stern and asking him to make the playoffs even longer.
In other news, various sources are reporting the Harold Reynolds will be making his triumphant return to the broadcasting industry on TBS' "All Star Selection Show." Thank God. I knew that Harold could overcome whatever "sexual misconduct" got him booted from Baseball Tonight. Harold was great on Baseball Tonight and the show has gotten significantly worse since his departure. I will happily watch any baseball broadcast (sans Little League World Series...a little much) that features his commentary.