LeBron James gives “edge” to the Cavs

This summer will be full speculation and anticipation as we will witness some of the NBA’s best players becoming free agents and might possibly see a sudden power shift in the league.

There are plenty of game changing players that will be available come July 1^st, but the two big-name free agents that everyone will be paying attention and watching their every move is the Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade and LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

At this point in time, it seems like D-Wade will most likely stay in Miami if Pat Riley can convince either Amare Stoudemire or Chris Bosh to play alongside him with the Heat, but if he can’t then the New York Knicks or the Chicago Bulls have the best shot at signing him.

LeBron James on the other hand, has given no indication on what his intentions are for this summer, but he may have dropped a hint recently after being interviewed on Larry King Live.

Obviously, anyone who can get any information out of LeBron James about his future right now might have big paycheck headed their way and one guy that is good at doing just that is Larry King. Even though LeBron didn’t say that he was going here or there in his interview with Larry King, he did say that the Cleveland Cavaliers have the “edge” over all the other teams pursuing him this summer.

Personally, I believe LeBron James is done in Cleveland. After two straight seasons of failing to live up to expectations in the playoffs, I really can’t see LeBron being motivated to come back once again, but you never know.

In my opinion, the New York Knicks will be too tempting for King James to pass up as it is the biggest market in the league and he already has said his favorite place to play is New York. The Chicago Bulls are also an intriguing place for LeBron as they already have some talented players to surround him with, but he will be in the shadow of Michael Jordan the entire time.

Thierry Henry signs with New York Red Bulls

Soccer or football, as it is called almost everywhere else other than the United States, is the most popular sport in the world hands down. No matter what Americans may think about MLB baseball or NFL football, International football tops them all by far!

Even though soccer is the most popular sport in the world with the most passionate fans, the sport just hasn’t been able to take off in the United States. Many people in the US believe that it is just a boring sport that many people in this country cannot identify with because they didn’t play it growing up like they did with American football or America’s past time (baseball). Despite the consensus that soccer is “boring”, it would be hard to argue that football in this country or baseball is not just as “boring” if not even more so due to all the downtime between plays, pitches and or innings.

No matter what this country does to make this sport more popular, soccer will almost certainly never reach the level of NBA basketball, NFL football or MLB baseball, but the sport has definitely made an impression on this country over the past couple of years with superstars like David Beckham coming to the states and the success of US soccer on the international level.

This summer the United States will see more interest in soccer than ever before as the US national team looks to actually be a force to be reckoned with in World Cup in South Africa. They still are a longshot to win the World Cup as they will be competing with the likes of England, Brazil and Spain, but with the team’s recent success, people will be watching to see what happens this June.

With this sudden interest in soccer coming to the US, a few big name players on the international stage have actually considered making the move to the MLS for some big bucks. David Beckham was the most recent addition to the MLS, but hasn’t really been able to turn around the sport in this country single handedly. The next soccer superstar inline will be Thierry Henry from Barcelona.

Over the years, Henry has been arguably one of the best and brightest players in Europe with some impressive campaigns with the Arsenal Gunners in English Premier League and most recently with Barcelona playing alongside football great Lionel Messi.

Even though Henry is just 32 years old, he is considered to be on the downside of his career and with one year left on his contract with Spanish heavyweight Barcelona, Henry has decided to sign with the New York Red Bulls.

Before Henry suits up for the Red Bulls, he will be trying to lead France to World Cup glory this summer in South Africa. During his time with the French national team, Henry has become the all-time leading goal scorer with 51 goals to his credit.

Phil Jackson says retirement chances looking “pretty good”

Last season the Los Angeles Lakers were able to dominate the competition in the Western Conference for the second straight year and make it all the way to the NBA Finals. Even though the Orlando Magic had knocked off the Eastern Conference favorites in the Cleveland Cavaliers during the Eastern Conference finals, the Lakers were by far the better team in the NBA Finals and finished off Dwight Howard and company with relative ease.

Once head coach Phil Jackson had won his tenth NBA title last season, six with the Chicago Bulls and fourth with the Los Angeles Lakers, he had officially past legendary head coach Red Auerbauch for most NBA titles by a head coach in NBA history. Needless to say, the Zen Master had done it again and has finally surpassed the Boston Celtics legend as arguably the best head coach of all-time.

Not only had Phil Jackson become the most successful head coach in NBA history with his tenth NBA title, but he also had a great opportunity to add to his grand total as he had relatively the same championship team intact and ready to compete for a few more.

Coming into this season, the defending NBA champion had finally started to show signs of the wear and tear they have sustained over the last two years as they were bitten by the injury bug. Although no stranger to injuries to Andrew Bynum over the past two seasons, this time around it was Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol that would miss time and the team would truly be tested without their two best players.

Fortunately, even though the Lakers did struggle at times during the regular season, the defending champs hav

e been able to get back to form in the playoffs and seem poised to make another run at a second straight NBA title.

Despite the future looking bright for the Los Angeles Lakers, head coach Phil Jackson seems to be ready to finally call it quits as he was quoted as saying that retirement after this season, win or lose, is looking “pretty good”.

Even though the Zen Master has said things like this in the past, somewhat in Brett Favre-like fashion constantly changing his mind, this time around I actually believe he feels his career needs to come to an end.

Obviously, this is something that the Los Angeles Lakers do not want to think about right now, but it will definitely be something on every Lakers fan’s mind this summer as it will be extremely difficult to replace the Zen Master.

LeBron James asks to guard Rondo

Every single NBA playoff series in the second round has been a one sided affair as the Phoenix Suns swept the San Antonio Spurs, the Orlando Magic are on the verge of taking out the Atlanta Hawks and the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers seem to have the Utah Jazz’s number, but the Cleveland Cavaliers are struggling to live up to the hype and compete with the Boston Celtics.

During the regular season, LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers were the cream of the crop in the NBA and were able to clinch the number one overall seed in the NBA playoffs with the league’s best record.

Heading into the playoffs, the Cavs were the odds on favorites to win the NBA title. The Los Angeles Lakers were considered their biggest hurdle, but it looks like the Boston Celtics are now as this Semifinal matchup will head back to Cleveland tied up at 2-2.

As usual, LeBron James has been the one player on the Cleveland Cavaliers that has been damn near unguardable, but the key to this series has arguably been the Celtics young point guard Rajon Rondo.

In game one of this series, Rondo was the X-factor fo the Celtics as he put up 27 points to go along with his 12 assists and six rebounds. Unfortunately, LeBron came out firing on all cylinders and finished with a game high 35 points, seven rebounds, three steals and two blocks to lead the Cavs to the game one victory.

Game two, Rondo had another dominant performance with 13 points, 19 assists and two steals. The Boston Celtics ultimately went on to win in convincing fashion104-86. It was becoming more and more obvious that the Cavs simply didn’t have an answer for the lightening quick Celtics point guard.

During game three, LeBron James had his best game of the playoffs so far by putting up a game high 38 points, with 28 of those points coming in the first half, as the Cavs just cruised to a blowout victory124-95.

Heading into game four it was basically a must win situation for the Boston Celtics, but despite many people believing that the Cleveland Cavaliers had retaken control of this series in game three, Rajon Rondo and company showed they aren’t done yet by beating the Cavs 97-87 win.

Rondo had his best game of the series in game four with a triple-double which included 29 points, 18 rebounds and 13 assists. Those are monster numbers to say the least, but all that has done is anger the two-time MVP LeBron James who says that he will take on the challenge of guarding Rajon Rondo from here on out!

NFC East Battle for the Division Title

It would be hard to argue that the NFC East division isn’t the toughest division in the NFL today.

Every single season there are three teams in the NFC East division that could easily be Super Bowl title contenders and at the start of this season, that was exactly the case as the Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants were getting hyped up as teams to beat in the NFC.

Coming into week 17, the New York Giants have fallen off after recent losses, but both the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles have clinched playoff berths and will face off in yet another head to head battle at the end of the regular season for the NFC East division title.

As of right now, online betting sites have the Dallas Cowboys favored with -3 point spread. This game will be an absolute battle in my opinion as the Cowboys will be looking to finally top the Eagles in a big game. Not only will Dallas be trying to prove they can play with anyone in the playoffs with a win over Philly, but this game will be huge for quarterback Tony Romo more than anyone as he has consistently played terrible in big games like this.

Obviously, both of these teams are moving to the playoffs regardless of the outcome of this game, but the momentum shift with a victory for the Dallas Cowboys or the Philadelphia Eagles as they try and make their way towards a Super Bowl appearance.

Personally, I believe this is the Dallas Cowboys time to shine and the result of this game could have huge implications and what is to come for Tony Romo and company.