Happy Hour 04/05: Non Sequitur Shots!

♦ I'm not a Washington Wizards fan, but I was looking forward to seeing what Gilbert Arenas could do in this year's playoffs. Watching him and LeBron-Bron go at it last year was some of the most fun I had watching basketball last year. And now that Agent Zero is out for the rest of the season, the Eastern Conference playoffs just won't be as exciting. I should be more scared of Miami and Chicago as a Pistons fan, but Arenas is the guy I didn't want to face in the earlier rounds.

♦ Here's more on the current misery afflicting Wizards fans from Bullets Forever and DC Sports Bog.

♦ Another thing that might scare me as a Pistons fan is if Rip Hamilton decides to lose his damn mind again, as he did last night against Chicago's Tyrus Thomas. What the hell was that? Maybe Rip just wanted an early shower since the Pistons were getting their butts kicked at home (106-88) by the Bulls.

♦ Here's more from Detroit Bad Boys, including the news that the NBA won't suspend Hamilton for his behavior.

♦ By the way, for all the talk about how many technical fouls Rasheed Wallace draws and how he'll draw suspensions because of them, how surprising is it to read that Hamilton is one tech away from sitting out for a game? I had no idea it was like that.

♦ Following John Beilein's official introduction as Michigan men's basketball coach yesterday, I found this Yahoo! Sports column by Adrian Wojnarowski on a message board that should get Wolverines fans really excited.

The article is from January, long before "Michigan" and "John Beilein" would be in the same sentence, and wonders how Beilein's offensive schemes would work in the NBA, not at another school. In Wojnarowski's eyes, that should've been the next jump for Beilein. Somebody show this column to Manny Harris.

♦ And wouldn't it be some cold shit painful irony if Manny Harris ended up going to Tennessee, which was a rumor making the rounds last night? And after all of the down-on-my-knees pleading I did (in private, anyway) for my homeboy Bruce Pearl to come to Ann Arbor. Apparently, that's what Coach meant when he said he could recruit the state of Michigan.

♦ By the way, I know Beilein's doing this now largely because he just got the job, but it's been nice to hear him make the rounds on local radio over the past couple of days. I hope that's something he keeps doing as he settles into the job, and I was glad to see financial provisions attached to doing radio and TV shows, because after Tommy Amaker's media blackout, Michigan's basketball coach has to be out there so much that you almost get sick of him. And so far, it looks like Beilein is up to that task.

♦ From here on out, I think virtually everything I write about baseball will be at Bless You Boys (and it's been going well over there so far), but I thought I'd link to my 2007 Detroit Tigers, AL Central, and MLB season previews.

There's a distinct aroma of homer to my predictions, but it's not like the Tigers aren't actually good enough to follow through on such expectations. For a quick recap, here's how I see the AL Central:

1. Detroit
2. Cleveland
3. Minnesota
4. Chicago
5. Kansas City

Joining the Tigers as AL division winners will be the Yankees and Angels, with the Red Sox as the Wild Card. In the NL, the Braves, Brewers and Dodgers will win their division, and the Mets will take the Wild Card. The Tigers will make it back to the World Series and beat the Dodgers.

Your Most Valuable Players will be Cleveland's Grady Sizemore and the Mets' Jose Reyes. Cy Young Awards will go to Minnesota's Johan Santana and the Cubs' Carlos Zambrano. And the Rookies of the Year will be Boston's Daisuke Matsuzaka (even though he probably shouldn't be eligible for the award) and Arizona's Chris Young.

♦ Finally, is ESPN really devoting two hours of programming tonight to the NFL schedule? C'mon, man - show a frickin' baseball game. The season just started.