After a kickass 3-day mini-vacation, followed by 3 days of non-stop working, I’m back to share my thoughts…

• If you’re a Nets fan, and you’re not super excited about the Mikhail Prokhorov era, it’s time you began getting excited.  Just read this article, in which Prokhorov says the Nets will make the playoffs next year, and win a title within 5 years.  He says Knicks fans will become Nets fans, and the Nets will be a global brand.  And while he can’t discuss his potential free agency plans until July 1st, he offered up this telling piece of beauty:  “If you play in Miami, you are not a global player.”
  

  Prokhorov's brashness makes the pain of not landing John Wall a little easier for Nets fans to take.




• Sign #1 that football, aka soccer, is becoming bigger & bigger within the United States?  Saturday’s UEFA League Championship is being broadcast by Fox, live, at 2:30 eastern.  That’s real Fox.  Not Fox Soccer Channel, or Fox Soccer Plus.  I don’t have to suffer through watching non HD games on GOL TV, or watching it on MSG.  Or even on ESPN.  Nope, that’s national TV right there, by one of the big 4 broadcasting stations.




• Speaking of soccer, Barcelona paid Valencia a $49 million transfer fee for the rights to David Villa, who they immediately signed to a new 4-year deal.  You know, just in case Barcelona wasn’t loaded already, might as well add one of the ten best (healthy) footballers on the planet.




• I need to pat myself on the back for correctly picking the Suns-Lakers in the West Finals.  And I’ll pat myself for picking the Lakers to win the West, because they will.  But while I do that, I must admit once again I had the Cavs playing them in the finals.  And even though I didn’t post this before the Magic-Celtics series (which stands 2-0 Boston) started, I was 100% backing Orlando to run all over Boston, and make it back to the NBA Finals.  Go me!




• I don’t have an opinion on the Hanley Ramirez situation, mostly because I’m not surprised by anything anymore, and it didn’t affect me.  But I’ll admit this, I was hoping the fall out would be large enough that Ramirez was shipped the hell out of the NL East.  I could’ve gotten down with that.
  

  Ramirez was pulled Monday night for not hustling, then on Tuesday called out his managers lack of understanding, saying "It's ok, he never played in the Major Leagues."




• The NHL Conference Finals have been awful so far.  I knew picking against Montreal was the only way I could have successfully gotten them into the Cup Finals, and yet I picked them to win anyway.  Sometimes I hate myself.  More than that, though, I always hate the Flyers.  Always.




• One last World Cup note, since I have something different planned this Friday as opposed to my normal World Cup Countdown:  Germany, who was in trouble with seemingly everything already, was handed a crushing blow when they lost captain Michael Ballack for the tournament the other day.  Personally, I never want to see anyone get injured, but ever since Ballack scored the goal that knocked the US out of the ’02 World Cup, I’ve held a personal grudge against him, so I wasn’t completely upset by this news.  I have to imagine Australia, Ghana, and Serbia are also not too upset, as they join Germany in a now completely wide-open Group D.