The biggest criticisms of Tim Tebow’s transition to the NFL are his slow delivery and lack of experience taking snaps under center. His greatest attribute is being a winner. Experts and regular folks use these points to predict whether Tebow will be a bust or a Hall of Famer. As if the question can be answered without knowing who he’s playing for, how good the players around him are and if he has a competent coaching staff.

One person on the pro-Tebow wagon is former NFL head coach Sam Wyche. Let him tell it, you can reserve Tim’s spot in Honolulu (or wherever the Pro Bowl) is for years to come.

“(Tebow) will probably spend one year as a backup, be included in the offense on a limited basis. I predict in year two, he’ll be somebody’s starting quarterback on a winning team.

“Ten years from now we’ll be talking about, ‘How many years now has Tebow been in the Pro Bowl?’”

For Wyche to be right I’d say Tebow has to make at least five Pro Bowls in the next 10 years. I respect the guy and he’s one of the greatest college football players of all-time but I don’t see Tebow as a perennial Pro Bowler. He’ll be a great leader, give his all on the field and never embarrass the franchise. He might even make a couple of Pro Bowls. What he’s not going to do is dominate the NFL like he has college football for the last three years.

NFL: Tebow talk of the town at Earl Morrall/NFL Alumni golf tournament [Naples News]

Since March Madness is here it’s time for everyone to roll out some form of brackets. Esquire is going with a Sexiest Woman Alive contest that boasts “sixty-four women, seven rounds, one readers’-choice champion, and not a single Kardashian.” Esquire claims 64 women.. This confirms what Tennessee fans have been saying since Jan. 12.

Spencer Hall at Everyday Should be Saturday points out an interesting first round match-up. Golf hottie Natalie Gulbis is a one-seed matched up against 16th-seeded Lane Kiffin. Why? Who cares? Just hurry and vote him to the championship. You know there’s not much time before Kiffin’s disqualified from the contest and fired from USC for having recruits stuff the Esquire ballot box.

VOTE LANE KIFFIN FOR SEXIEST WOMAN ALIVE [EDSBS]
Vote for the Sexiest Woman Alive! [Esquire]

Even for a season that quickly spiraled into familiar misery, the pitiful moments continue to pile up for the Los Angeles Clippers. The 118-88 Saturday loss to the San Antonio Spurs marked the seventh straight loss for LA, and the 30 point margin was also the seventh time this season that they lost by more than 25 points. That, by the way, is the worst such mark in the NBA.

Surprise, surprise.

I’ve had a hard time finding the motivation to keep following the team sometimes, so I’m sure there are some guys in the Clippers locker room who might feel the same, especially with the embarrassing numbers they’re putting up on a regular basis. Just because I might understand that doesn’t mean I sympathize with them too much though, since you know, they are being paid a lot more than the rest of us.

The huge salaries, fame, pride and immense talent on the roster alone should be more than enough for the Clippers to contend, and if not, at least compete. Look I know the owner is a disgrace, that the former coach (Mike Dunleavy) stuck around four seasons longer than he should have and that the drastic changes made by (and in) the front office are a distraction, but come on guys, you’re professional freakin’ athletes.

Take a look at the point differentials for the last seven games, all of which LA has lost.

26, 17, 22, 26, 11, 8 and 30.

That works out to being outscored by 140 points, an average losing margin of 20 points per game. The turning point this year was the January 12 game against the Memphis Grizzlies, which the Clippers entered with a four-game winning streak and a chance to hit the .500 mark. The game infamously involved a broken water main, a 20-minute postponement and a blown double digit lead for LA, who was 17-18 at the time. Since then, they’ve changed a handful of players, fired their coach/GM and won only eight of the last 32 games.

Jeez. Coming into the year we fans wanted consistency, just not in that form.

The rallying cry around the Clippers organization and some foolish hopeful fans is one that speaks of a ton of salary cap space for next year and points out the positives in new GM Neil Olshey , but I think I speak for a majority of Clips fans when we say that we can’t always just be sold a better tomorrow, we want to see some on-the-court results now.

A win tonight against the New Orleans Hornets would be a good start, and at press time the Clippers are still in it, trailing 32-27 midway through the second quarter. That sounds good, let’s just hope there’s no patented second half collapse in store. Heck, while we’re asking for miracles, we might as well put in a word or two for world peace.

-Will.

“Diary of a Clippers Fan” will be published Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season.

The guys at “South Park” don’t like cheaters. They roasted Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots after the Spygate scandal, and now the premiere for the show’s 14th season goes after Tiger Woods.

“South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker aren’t afraid to push the boundaries with religion or abortion so sex addiction should be a cake-walk for them. Plus Woods’ scandal provided endless amounts of material with the swirling rumors, skank parade and mechanical press conference. Check out the “Tiger Woods on South Park” commercial and thoughts from Matt Stone below.

Matt Stone on the Tiger Woods episode:

“It’s such an important issue in America right now – the sex addiction outbreak,” Matt Stone, who makes the series with partner Trey Parker, said on Friday. “We’re all really concerned about him and hope he gets better.”

Off to a good start..

An anonymous NBA player says guys around the league are pissed at Stephen A. Smith because of his column about Allen Iverson’s problems with gambling and alcohol. Smith’s article is titled “Iverson needs more than a prayer” because according to his numerous NBA sources AI is headed for self-destruction.

The combination of alcohol and gambling – and a once-promising career in tatters because of the first two – won’t culminate in anything short of disaster if help does not arrive in short order.

Iverson will either drink himself into oblivion or gamble his life away.

His statements aren’t going over well in the Philadelphia 76ers locker room.

From ESPN Insider:

Guys around the league are pissed at Stephen A. Smith right now for his most recent column on Allen Iverson, the one in which he claimed Allen is going to drink and/or gamble his life away. One of my NBA friends in Philly says a bunch of Sixers can’t wait for Stephen A. to show up in their locker room so they can have words with him.

I thought Stephen A.’s article said more about how far AI has fallen than anything else. Nobody takes Stephen A. Smith seriously anymore, but the minute he says something about Iverson it’s treated as the gospel. In April 2009 spokespeople for two Detroit casinos said Allen Iverson was never banned from their establishments. Maybe Stephen A. has some new information. As for the drinking… Look, that’s not the point right now. This is about the Sixers following through with the Code Red on Smith.

NBA Player X: Lay off Iverson [ESPN Insider]

Thanks to the Texas Open Records Act video of former Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach cussing at his team and labeling players as “God squad guys” has hit the Internet. The fellas at Orange Bloods were thinking on their toes by using the act and have now blessed the world with Mike Leach in NSFW form.

Most college football coaches have given similar speeches. They probably don’t dive into the holy water like Leach did with the “God squad guys” but the cussing is the rule rather than the exception. Just ask Mark Mangino or Leach’s best friend Adam James.

There are three different reports going on when the world’s greatest golfer will return to the golf course. Tiger Woods will return for the Tavistock Cup, Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, or The Masters. In other words nobody is sure when he’ll be back. Tiger has dominated the sports news since Thanksgiving, and now TI is making sure Woods’ infamy spreads to the dance floor. The Atlanta-based rapper spit’s on Usher’s new song “Guilty” and name drops Woods.

“If she sayin’ she’s the victim in this case then what am I/ She got proof, well I got alibis too/ I never been on bullshit … she ain’t caught me on no Tiger Woods shit/ Do what I expected when she met me/ Ballin’ against the law/ Shawty arrest me then.”

There will be more Tiger Woods references in rap over the next year than there used to be “kickin’ like Pele” lines. Somebody needs to sample this:

T.I. Name-Checks Tiger Woods On Leaked Usher Song [MTV.com]

Shaquille O’Neal has reached a divorce settlement with soon to be ex-wife Shaunie that includes property, custody and support arrangements. TMZ reports the divorce proceedings will take place in a Florida court, not in California where Shaunie originally filed for separation.

It sucks to see marriages fail and even more so when there are children in the family. However, there is a silver-lining in this situation. Shaq won’t be around his kids as much anymore but his time around other NBA player’s babies (mamas) is about to increase tenfold.

Shaq and Wife Reach Divorce Settlement [TMZ Sports]

The twists and turns just don’t stop. On March 09, 2010 the Los Angeles Clippers announced that they had “severed ties” with General Manager and former head coach Mike Dunleavy Sr and named assistant GM Neil Olshey to take his place.

I have to be honest with you all when I say this, I didn’t see this announcement coming, not this soon. Sure, I know it must sound like B.S. since Dunleavy was removed as coach earlier this season, but I’m being sincere.

You see, the Clippers are owned by a man named Donald Sterling, who is infamous around the world for housing discrimination lawsuits being a “thrifty” owner with very little interest in building a winner, making sound basketball management decisions, caring about anything else but his bottom line … well you get the picture.

It’s been a common sentiment around the NBA (and within Clipper Nation) that Sterling doesn’t care about the fans of his franchise or his team’s success. He’s never been a favorite of Clips fans or most NBA followers and it’s for good reasons. The Clippers are notorious for being one of the most maligned, long-suffering teams in professional sports. We’re the butt of every joke, the regularly criticized and almost universally degraded “little brothers” of the NBA in Los Angeles. Earning that type of reputation is not easy and it involves systematic failures over long periods of time with little to no room for a brighter tomorrow.

And under Sterling’s watch, that’s exactly what’s happened. Coach after coach has failed, drafts have been thrown away with awful selections, NBA legends have left on bad terms, made claims of racial discrimination and countless other mishaps. A column by Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski published today has a harshly-worded summary of just some of Sterling’s errors.

For those of us who foolishly felt optimism for the future during the short Lamar Odom, Darius Miles, Elton Brand and Quentin Richardson “era”, the public face of every Clipper misstep since then was a man chosen by Sterling himself – Mike Dunleavy.

Just a few of the many Dunleavy faces that tormented Clippers fans the past 7 years.
(Diary of a Clippers Fan/YouBeenBlinded Illustration)

Knocking Dunleavy has practically been a rite of passage for Clipper fans and if we’re being honest, most of it was well-deserved. His coaching decisions, rotations and substitution patterns literally doomed away our best shot at ever winning anything back in 2006.

Legend has it that Raja Bell still sends Dunleavy and Daniel Ewing flowers out of gratitude for allowing him to end the Clippers most successful year with his 3-pointer over Ewing in the playoffs, who was a rookie at the time.

He had a coaching record with the team (215-325 in 6 1/2 seasons) that would have earned any other coach a pink slip years ago. Ask Byron Scott and Avery Johnson, who had far better records, about how fast a coaching change usually happens. Aside from just wins and losses, Dunleavy also chose a guy like Yaroslav Korolev with the 12th pick in the 2005 draft, ahead of no-name stiffs like Danny Granger, Nate Robinson and David Lee.

I’ve bashed Dunleavy just as much as most others, whether by yelling at the TV or looking down at the team bench from the stands and muttering curse words to myself mixed in with shots at “The Dunce” or “Dumbleavy.”

Heck, I even called it “a glorious days in Clipper history” when his firing was announced back in February. I say all that because although I felt happy to know he was finally gone, it was a bittersweet moment, precisely because of how long it took to fire him.

And the blame for that gross mismanagement falls directly onto Sterling. He always seemed to be the last one to notice that Dunleavy deserved to be fired, giving him chance after chance to keep falling on his face. To add insult to injury, when the time finally did come to fire him, he didn’t even know how to do that the right way. According to an article by Ramona Shelbourne of ESPNLosAngeles.com, “Dunleavy still doesn’t know exactly what happened.”

“I come back to my locker around 7 p.m. and there’s a million messages on my phone,” Dunleavy told her. “This guy comes up to me and said, ‘What’s going on? They just said on TV that the Clippers severed ties with you?’ I had no idea what they were talking about. I’m like, ‘Wow. I haven’t even talked to the Clippers.’”

Surprised? Baron Davis wasn’t. Just another day of business for Sterling. Yeah Dunleavy’s gone, but the boogeyman still lurks over the Clippers. Kelly Dwyer over at Ball Dont Lie sums up how I feel with these few sentences below, taken from his article on the firing.

“The Clippers? They’re a bunch of (curse word)s. They kicked this guy to the curb just as he leaves them what will be a little under $17 million in cap room once the team’s cap holds and draft picks are sussed out. Did Dunleavy deserve to be sent home, in both positions, long ago? Sure. But only a team like the Clippers could turn this guy into anything somewhat slightly resembling a sympathetic figure.”

He’s right. So just like all the other times being a Clips fan has ruined some dream of mine, here I sit just a day after seeing Dunleavy disappear from Los Angeles feeling unfullfilled and cheated. Like a sucker who had tickets to a show they were waiting years to see only to arrive and find out it was all a scam. I thought I’d be happier today, thought that I’d be excited about next season and the opportunity for a new coach, a new GM and a big name free agent.

While some look at the firing as a possible “mission statement” to usher in a new era, I’m not buying it.

Instead, I’m sitting here stuck with the unwanted knowledge that Donald Sterling remains as the owner of my favorite team. Yup, even without Dunleavy, they’re still the Clippers after all.

-Will.

“Diary of a Clippers Fan” will be published Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season.

You Been Blinded has teamed up with BetUs.com for the duration of March Madness. Videos featuring picks from the BetUs experts will be posted every Wednesday and Friday. First up is Gary Payton. The Glove gives his pick for the SEC tournament although he’s not really going out on a limb.

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