Folks, we are about to see if a triumvirate of basketball talent can be assembled as opposed to forged or molded together.

LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh will come together in Miami to form what is arguably the best collection of three players on a basketball team since Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar and Worthy or Bird, McHale and Parish.  And I have news for you: it’s not going to work.

ESPN’s John Barry has it right this time – we will no longer see LeBron as the next Michael Jordan, we will see him as the next Magic Johnson.  He can’t perform as the high wire act all the time with these other two athletes around him.  Wade already has the floor in South Beach and he has already defined himself as a perennial All-Star and as one of only a few players in the league that can completely take over a game on his own.

Now he has James to compliment him as two guys that can take over a game – which leaves a problem.

If Michael had his Scottie Pippen and Kobe had his Shaq, and Clyde Drexler had his Robert Porter, where does that leave Chris Bosh in all of this?

The next Robert Horry?  HIGHLY doubt it.

There will come a moment in a lot of games this coming year where someone will have to step up and make a play.  James has done it.  Wade has done it.  Bosh has done it though not nearly the standard of the other two.  That means when the game is on the line, Chris Bosh won’t have the ball.  What it does mean is that somewhere on the floor, Michael Jordan is going to have to make an appearance.

No, not the Chicago Bulls Michael Jordan, the UNC Michael Jordan.

The Michael Jordan that came out of the shadows who Dean Smith specifically instructed on a fateful night in New Orleans that he might be open on the wing and to go ahead and let it go if the ball came to him.

And Chris Bosh is not THAT Michael Jordan.

The problem with this setup is that it is so offensively minded that there won’t be a chance for anyone to step up and play defense.  The Miami Heat will be out to outscore you, not to beat you at both ends of the court.  They will be a fun team to watch, but I am afraid they will not be a team you can count on to win.

You are asking each player in this equation to make a fundamental change in their playing style that will have to accommodate the other two.  That’s not easy.  You are asking two of them to admit “they aren’t the guy” when the play for the last shot is drawn up.  You are asking for the rest of the team to play on a level with three superstars and rise to their level.  That’s almost impossible.

Honestly, if this situation were to work, the odd man out is Bosh – who should not have been there in the first place.  The star that should be the third cog in the machine should be a defensive leader – the Rodman to Jordan and Pippen, the Worthy to Johnson and Abdul-Jabbar.  You put a shut down corner on the other team’s best player and get help from LeBron and Wade – you know you are going to be on the floor with a lot of confidence and both LeBron and Wade can play their own games.

This is a disaster waiting to happen and worse off are the fans in Cleveland.  But it’s not LeBron’s fault.  Ultimately it was his decision, but the mistake lies with Pat Riley.  If he can’t get this team to play together and identify itself as a team bent on winning than a team bent on being good because LeBron is there, then I’ll wave the white flag.

But that is going to be an awfully tough proposition to undertake, manage and pull off.  Even for Pat Riley.

We have it all set, just like we all drew it up right?  Spain vs. The Netherlands for the World Cup.

Of course Spain being the number one ranked team in the world was favored to get to the final, they certainly had their detractors all along the way.  And as we have seen all the way through this World Cup, one little lapse in concentration in 90 minutes can cost you the game.

Though Spain will be a heavy favorite in the final, this is no Princeton-UCLA game.  The Netherlands will present a very good side and having knocked off perennial favorite Brazil and an equally as adept Uruguay side, the Dutch will not be scared off by the team across the pitch.

What may however get to both squads is the fact that they have never been to this point in recent memory.  This is truly a world stage and it will take a lot of willpower and mental stamina to play in the moment and not watch it go by.

History tells us that most World Cup Finals are one of two types of games.  Either the game will be a blowout much like France’s 3-0 drilling of Brazil in 2002 or it will come down to penalty kicks as several finals did in the 1990′s.

This final seems to have a great deal more emotion than those in previous tournaments and I would predict that the team that scores first will come away with the trophy – but not without a tremendous fight from the other side.  I think it will also depend on how each team grasps the moment.

Not too long ago, Donovan McNabb oversold himself emotionally on the Super Bowl he was about to play in and completely lost his legs going down the stretch in the 4th quarter when the Eagles had a chance to win.

It’s going to be very easy for either side to take the same approach.  There is no higher aspiration in soccer than to win a World Cup and Spain and The Netherlands will have to deal with the pressure of the moment first, then the pressure of the match itself.

Whichever side does that better will come away a world champion.

Prediction – The Netherlands wins 2-1 and Amsterdam will never be the same again.

We have officially entered the “we have no clue what we are doing, but we’ll pay you $125 million to do it” phase of the NBA.

Translation: Whoever wins the LeBron James sweepatakes will be the team advertising nosebleed seats for $75 a pop.

Honestly folks, you have to realize here that the team that gets LeBron (a man who by the way still does not have an NBA ring) is no closer to getting a ring themselves just because King James is on the team.

JaMarcus Russell needs more help than Michael Vick but less help than Vince Young.

JaMarcus Russell has been arrested on charges of possession of codeine syrup without a prescription.  This is a drug that 8.2% of all high school students in the state of Texas admit to taking in order to get high.

Given Russell’s college career at nearby LSU and the preceding statistic, is it not unfathomable that he could have been high all the way through college which ultimately led him to be stupid enough to sign a contract with the Raiders?

At least he didn’t go into hiding – that might be just a bit too juvenile for Vince Young.

National Champion South Carolina Gamecocks

In the long, storied history of USC athletics (or as it was put by Steve Spurrier upon arrival in Columbia: “We’ve got a nice Outback Bowl trophy in the trophy case.”) this moment was truly deserving.  USC is a school that has taken the brunt of being called a school too stupid to be in the ACC and not good enough to be in the SEC.

But in a sport that has in recent years been dominated by schools from both conferences (a representative from either conference has been in the championship series every year since 2005), USC deserves to gloat over both leagues in pulling off a possibility no one has thought of in probably…well…ok, it was 2002 when the Gamecocks came up on the short end of a 12-6 loss to Texas.  The last time before that when USC flirted with a baseball national championship was 1977 and then 1975 where they lost to Arizona State and Texas, respectively.

Yes Gamecock fans, you can gloat all you want to.  But in the end, don’t forget to mention to your neighbors to the north that you were able to do something in one shot that the Tar Heels couldn’t do in two chances.

In the world of the media – which I have been in for 22 years – you will always find your detractors and your detractors will always find you. I once criticized my own high school football team for blowing a 3 touchdown lead in a column I wrote – as a high school freshman. You can imagine the results.

Far less hazardous to my groin area was a column printed in last Tuesday’s edition of the Fayetteville Observer which characterized this show as “lost in the mix at times.” The column also praised the only other sports show mentioned for using Observer writers such as Dan Weiderer and Sammy Batten as regular contributors. As we all know, my partner Brett Friedlander was also employed by the Observer until about 2 years ago where he was let go for some reason that I don’t know and feel I have no business knowing.

Yet there was no mention of “former award winning Observer columnist Brett Friedlander” and only a passing reference to yours truly and the original host in this time slot – our good friend Allen Smothers. I was told that I was going to get a call from the Observer to comment for the column. No call ever came. And I bet Allen never got one either. Only Brett commented on this show’s behalf for the column.

Given the way the column was written, I find it difficult to stomach that a newspaper that separated itself from one of its best writers would go out of it’s way to take a shot at him in his other endeavors.

Along the same lines, I find it difficult to stomach that an organization with some of the best sports writers in the region (a sentiment routinely expressed on this show in years past) routinely publishes stories in the hours after our show ends on Mondays on topics we addressed in the show.

I find it difficult to understand how a show gets lost in the mix when it is on a radio station that has 2-3 times the signal strength of any other local sports talk radio station.

I find it difficult to stomach the idea that an institution so central to Fayetteville for the last 180 years would position itself against (listen carefully) a WEEKLY SPORTS TALK RADIO SHOW – unless it was good for business.

If none of those things are true, then my fears can be put to bed. But if they are true, well, I’m afraid that tells you a lot more about the Fayetteville Observer than it does this radio program.

The World Cup is going on minus England and the US which means there isn’t much reason for Americans to watch anymore and ESPN’s gamble is probably going to be considered a loss in this country. We’ve seen some very bad soccer, but we have seen some very good soccer.  We have also seen some very good officiating, but all we are going to talk about is the very bad officiating.

We need instant replay, we have the technology, why can’t we use it in a sport where the time is still kept on the field by one guy with a watch.  We can put cameras in places to make sure that the judgements the officials make are correct.  That’s fine, its all well intentioned and hard to argue with.

FIFA President Sepp Blatt came out with a statement that is also really hard to argue with.  After the England goal versus Germany that was disallowed which was clearly shown to be a goal with any number of cameras, Blatt decided that FIFA wouldn’t do much of anything about it – at least in this World Cup.

ESPN Soccer Analyst Alexi Lallas commented on Blatt’s position by saying that the FIFA President argues that controversy is good for the game.  Translation: it keeps the sport on the front pages of sports sections, on the airwaves and on television.  And he’s got a point.

Consider the alternative.  Let’s use technology to make sure every play is a legal one.  What if every bat had to undergo an x-ray before being used to prevent corked bats?  What if players were drug tested before every game?  What if every car in NASCAR was made to be exactly the same.  What if we used instant replay on everything?  In the end, would we even talk about the game at the water cooler then next day other than, “Well, you can’t argue with the outcome.”

Is that really what we want?

If sports is anything, it is unpredictable and it is human.  But because of its inadequacies, we have things like sports sections, talk radio, blogs and YouTube.  We keep the conversation going not for what happens inside the lines of fair play, but what happens on them and outside of them – where interpretation is the mother of controversy.

Ask yourself who won the 1984 World Series.  Super Bowl 33.  The 2000 Daytona 500.  For the record, that’s the Detroit Tigers over the Padres, the Denver Broncos over the Atlanta Falcons and Dale Jarrett.  But ask you who won the 1986 World Series, Super Bowl 34 and the 2001 Daytona 500 and conversations ensue.

Sepp Blatt is right, controversy is good for soccer.  It even got soccer three more minutes of airtime on this radio station.

Debbie Yow was made the new Athletic Director of N. C. State University today with a command that the status quo will no longer be acceptable.

Bold words.

Pardon me if I’ve heard this song and dance before, but generally speaking, when people come out with those words and try to enact major change within the athletic department of a major university, the results have been less than spectacular.

Steve Spurrier hasn’t delivered at South Carolina.

David Cutcliffe hasn’t delivered at Duke.

Charlie Weis didn’t deliver at Notre Dame.

This is a MUCH harder prospect for Yow than when she was at the University of Maryland.  As my co-host reported several times for several different publications, no matter how you put it, NC State is still the illegitimate stepchild of Duke and North Carolina in an area where contending doesn’t cut it.

Don’t get me wrong, of the three triangle schools NC State is probably the one bandwagon I would jump on first.  However, the culture at the school is what Yow has to change and that is like asking a fish to swim out of water.

Spurrier is at a school that wants to be a champion, but can’t.

Cutcliffe is at a school that is a champion…in another sport.

Weis was at a school that was a champion and has forgotten how to get back there.

Yow is at a school where even the culture is anti-championistic – and it comes with it’s own defined disease: The Cardiac Pack.

I wish her the best and I hope she can pull it off, but if NC State is to survive in any competition to be the best athletic department in the country, she’s going to need the antidote to the Cardiac Pack.

And in my mind, that syndrome is only alleviated with one thing:  Win, and win big.

Isner/Mahut…..nuff said.

Not really.  Not until you realize that in the last set of the match, Mahut had to win his serve to stay in the match 63 straight times – and was successful on all 63.  It would be the 64th time that would do him in.

Thats the equivalent of not losing your serve in 10 straight sets – assuming you broke your opponent’s serve once each set.

And Mahut did that in one set.

Unbelievable.  That’s like playing a college football tie-breaking scenario for 7 straight hours without determining a winner – on top of a three hour game.

Think about the worst gaffes you can in the last year just in North Carolina.  Terry Sanford ends their season because of an ineligible player.  Don King halts MMA card at the crown because he doesn’t approve.

It just goes toshow you in whatever athletic event you are doing make sure you do three things.  1. Check all of your players to make sure they are eligible.  2. Check with Don King to see if he has a problem.  3. Check to see if all your fishing buddies have their licenses before you get into a fishing tournament.

And ensure it won’t be the one that got away.

I know that there are people out there that don’t like watching golf, but the recent playing of the U. S. Open even made me – a big golf fan – wary of the tournament that calls itself the best examination of a golfer’s skills.

There’s nothing like watching a golf tournament where absolutely no one wants to go out and win the thing.  But of course you can’t do that when the course won’t let you be aggressive.  Pins that are tucked on shelves or in corners that make a direct line of flight impossible to hold on rock hard greens is not golf.  It’s taking away a strength of the average golfer – their propensity to gamble.  Yes, there are times when the USGA decided to allow the players the possibility of letting their personalities show, but Pebble was set up in a way to make the average tour player play cautiously.

Usually the winner of this tournament takes home the trophy because they “minimized the damage” when they got in trouble.  Make 5, not 7.  Take your medicine and move on.  There are five rounds of golf that made the USGA go to this setup:

1. Johnny Miller’s 62 at Oakmont that set the final round scoring record for the U. S. Open – Trust me – the USGA never wants to see that again.

2. All four rounds at Olympia Fields in 2003 – Jim Furyk won that Open with a winning score of 67-66-67-72=272.  Granted par was 70, but if the USGA saw a champion shoot four sub-70 rounds, there’s no telling how hard the following year;s track would be.  By the way, no one shot better than 69 on the final day of play and Furyk won by 3 shots.

Last year’s Open at Bethpage Black was also a bit of a snoozer, but Lucas Glover went out and won the thing by birding the 16th hole en route to an easy home stretch.  This year, NONE of the players within 8 shots of the lead at the beginning of the day had a birdie on the back nine.

The once again proves that the best major, no matter the course, year in and year out is the PGA Tournament.  They at least know how to set up a golf course that allows the players the grace to forgive certain mistakes and reward less than perfect shots while also being penal when a player misses the mark.

In the end, we will look back on this U. S. Open and the last one and always ask ourselves: “Who won that year?”

Jackson.  Phil Jackson (for those of you thinking the post was about golf).

After last night’s win over the Celtics in one of the lamer editions of that rivalry, Phil Jackson has 11 rings and the possibility of four three-peats should the Lakers pull of the feat next year.  There is incentive for him to come back.  There is incentive for Kobe to come back (to get 6 rings and tie with Michael Jordan).

But after this conquest, there is no better coach in the NBA than Phil Jackson.  And if he should return and win #12, there would be no one better all-time.