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I know. How can I possibly follow up two BD posts in one day?
I can't. But I have to try.
Firstly, it seems the upsets are starting to come out. After that terrible March Madness tournament (terrible as in there were no upsets-the basketball quality itself wasn't bad), I thought we might get a season where all the favorites won everything. Boring!
But look! The Washington Nationals are 13-4. The Dodgers don't suck! The Astros...wait, nope. The less said about them, the better.
Don't like baseball? Can't blame you. Let's move on to soccer (or football, if you will).
If you asked a diehard fan who the best three club teams in Europe are, you'd almost certainly get Manchester United, FC Barcelona, and Real Madrid as your top three responses, in some order.
Well, in the Champions League, the tournament of the best of the best club teams of Europe, none of those three teams are going to the final. A normal superpower EPL team that was struggling mightily has found new life under a new coach. That would be the EPL's sixth-best team, Chelsea. Their opponents in Munich? The Bundesliga's Second-place Bayern Munich.
Wow, AK. A sixth-place team that is having a "down" year and a perennial power of German soccer. Yeah, a couple of real underdogs.
Rewind to two weeks ago. Ask any fan if Chelsea could beat Barcelona. Even the most optimistic fans would say they would have needed a miracle. Fast-forward one week. Ask those Bayern fans if Real would lose after finally beating Barca in "El Clasico." Again, not much hope.
But it's why we play the games. It's why I'm excited about the playoffs, even without the Rockets. It's why I'm excited for the draft, even without a top 5 pick. It's why I'm still here.
And I'm going to try to stick around throughout the playoffs and even into the summer. You know how it is. Draft previews, player report cards, trade ideas (that don't suck), and general analysis are always out there.
So the Rockets end the 2011-12 season tonight at home against the Hornets. By any metric, it's been a disappointing season for the good guys, made even more bitter by the fact that everything this team strove for and all the mediocrity they attempted to accomplish was within reach.
But hey, as Red Sox fans learned, there's always next year.
Tip-off set for 7pm CST.
Hornets vs Rockets coverage