10 things Carmelo should have done before going to New York

After watching the Melodrama come to an end on Monday, we can finally stop jabbering about where Carmelo Anthony might end up. With 'Melo landing in his home state New York, we can talk about what that means for the city, and franchise.

This whole thing got me thinking, what should Carmelo have done through this ordeal?

10- Wait until the end of the year, and let the Knicks pick him up without giving up so much, giving him a better surrounding cast.

9- Meet with 6 other teams, just to screw with people.

8- Tweet something vague everyday about a different team to make people speculate- "Are the Summers nice in New Jersey?"

7- Tell the Cavs he would sign with them for really cheap, then when they aren't looking go to the Knicks.

6- Make a "What should I do?" commercial.

5- Pull a Carson Palmer and threaten to retire if not traded. 

4- Ask Tim Tebow for advice.

3- Leak photo shoots of himself wearing a Lakers uniform, just to screw with people.

2- Take his talents to south beach.

1- Hold a 1-hour prime time press conference called "The Choice", have about 30 elementary kids sit in the background and crush their hearts as you tell them and the world you wont be coming back to the team that threw 30 games just to get you in the draft, meanwhile effectively wasting 59 minutes and 48 seconds of our time.

But now none of this matters, instead of wasting an hour of our time, he wasted a solid 3 weeks. Did he handle this whole thing right? No. Did he do it wrong? No. But it's nice to have the Knickerbockers relevant again...

One Cavs fan's sign responsible for win against Lakers

The Cleveland Cavaliers avenged a 55-point loss to the Lakers earlier this season by beating the defending champs at home 104-99. It wasn't the Cavs hard work, dedication, and hustle that pushed them to the win, but one die hard fan's sign.
Sara Campbell knew when she wrote the sign, she could help her favorite team out, but she didn't know it would be responsible for the big win.

"I just thought it was a nice thing to do," said Sara after the Wednesday upset "but I didn't think that it would help them that much, it's just nice to see them get 10 wins this season."

Cavs back up Raymond Sessions scored 32 points off the bench, was a big factor in the win, but not as big as Sara's sign.

"I looked up in the second quarter and saw the sign, and it really inspired me personally." Sessions said grinning ear to ear. "My killer instinct just took over, and I dropped a season high 32"

The sign not only inspired the Cavs to play better, but it intimidated the Lakers as well.

"When I saw the sign, I knew we weren't going to win." Said Lakers forward Ron Artest. "Anytime the fans hold up big time signs like that, it's hard to compete with, I was just distracted all night." Artest was held to 1 point on the night.

Even Lakers star Kobe Bryant was baffled by the power of the sign "I just couldn't handle it, so I started hucking up bad shots left and right." Bryant made 8 of his 24 shots on the night, for a below average 17 points. "I just wish our fans would make signs like that."

The Cavs will spend the entire All-Star weekend partying, since no one on their roster will be participating in the All-Star festivities.

The win gave the Cavs 10 wins, 1 more than the all-time worst 1972-73 76ers, who finished 9-73.

5 ways to make the NBA good again

As football season wrapped up, we had a great NFL and College football season. So whats next? The NBA and College basketball season can officially start. The problem is their season's started back in November. So after thinking about how basketball takes a back seat (like third row of your dad's station wagon, back seat) to football during fall and winter, I figure that I could figure a few ways to make the NBA more fan-friendly.

Well what are you talking about? The NBA is so fun, and games are so fun to go to. Thats right, they are, but they still don't matter until after the All-Star Weekend. So lets see how we can make the NBA fan-friendly for the ENTIRE season.

1. Get rid of 82 games- There is no reason on God's green earth why we would need 82 NBA regular season games. We know these guys don't want to play until February anyway. So why play those games? Cut the NBA to 52 games, this way, each win means more, and losses matter A LOT more. Too many games are irrelevant, therefore teams can take a night off which is no fun for anybody.
(The one problem with this is it changes records and how they are set, but the NBA did that with 3-seconds, the shot clock, and the 3-point line, so it's been done before.)

2. Stop playing every team twice- No one wants to see the Timberwolves and Bobcats twice a year, not only would this cut out games between awful teams from the Eastern and Western conferences, but it brings relevance to Division games- Quick! Name the Teams in the Pacific Division... uh.... Suns... Lakers... Uh... Clippers? With only 52 games, and these teams battling it out in more meaningful games every season, division games bring rivalries back to life. (Of course you keep Lakers-Celtics, things like that are sacred in sports.)

3. Use a ranking system like college basketball- If you had a 3 or a 13 or a 16 next to your teams name in the regular season, it gives you pride. Cavs and Wizards fans wouldn't know anything about this but it's something they can look forward to. Rank the top 16 teams, those teams make the playoffs. No more of the above .500 teams in the West missing the playoffs when they would be the 5th seed in the East.

4. Get rid of 4 NBA teams- Sorry Cleveland, Sorry Memphis, Charlotte, and Minnesota, you don't get a team any more... with 4 less teams the talent pool shrinks, and guys like Jared Dudley are 9th on the bench, bringing a much better product to the table. Half the teams aren't making money, so in 5-10 years I wont be surprised if those teams aren't around any more.

5. Change the playoffs- 16 wins to win a title? the NFL has 16 games. We don't need to watch 4 best-of-seven series for almost two months, it takes way too long, and half the teams don't belong any way. I know it makes everyone money to play more games, but there is no reason to start the playoffs mid-April, and end them mid-June. 40 games in 40 nights? get rid of that too, as a passionate fan of basketball, I don't even want to see that. have a best of 5 for the first two rounds, best of 7 for the conference finals and finals. Problem solved.

These are just a few ways we could make the NBA a better place, will it be? Probably not, oh well. In the mean time basketball is the yearly break we get from Joe Buck's football commentary and...well Joe Buck's baseball commentary. So lets enjoy the rest of this season before we have to worry about another lock-out.