Page 548 of 2957

      Terrence Williams gets demoted to D-League and finds inspiration

      December 11, 2010 /
      April 07, 2010 Milwaukee, WI. Bradley Center..New Jersey Nets Terrence Williams brings the ball up the court, Williams had 6 points coming off the Nets bench..Milwaukee Bucks won over the New Jersey Nets 108-89. Mike McGinnis/CSM.

      Funny story out Springfield, Massachusetts, via ESPN:

      Williams, 23, had just been sent down to the NBA D-League’s Springfield (Mass.) Armor — punishment for being late to Nets practices, shootarounds and meetings — when he encountered Gonzalez, an Armor ballboy.

      “I was nervous,” said Gonzalez, who approached Williams before his first game with the Armor. “But I just wanted to help him. I thought to myself, ‘Wow I’m actually meeting an NBA player, and I wanted to give him a heads up.’

      “I told him, ‘You made a mistake and you shouldn’t feel like you’re down here because you’re not a good ballplayer. You need to learn from it.’ If I was him, I wouldn’t want to be down here. I’d do anything to stay in the NBA.'”

      Williams gave his recollection of the conversation to the Newark Star-Ledger.

      “I was like, ‘Do you watch the NBA?’ ” said Williams, who was called up Tuesday and played 26 minutes against the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday. “He said, ‘Yeah, you’re one of the players I [like to] watch. Why would you blow it?’

      “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ He said, ‘Why would you want to have an attitude, and be late — the simplest things you can control? And you get to be in the NBA? I would die to do that, so don’t blow it.’

      “That’s a [13]-year-old telling me that,” Williams told the Star-Ledger, adding that his mother had called him in tears after his demotion, asking if he had been kicked out of the NBA. “So I think that and my mom crying was what really got to me. So down there, I decided to take everything serious, like I was here, as far as practicing and playing in a game.”

      On one hand, it’s a shame that it took this demotion and these words from a 13-year-old to convince Williams to shape up. Players with his kind of talent often live in a bubble and don’t realize how a bad attitude is perceived by the regular joe, who would die to play in the NBA. The Nets are just asking him to be on time for his job, which is something that every single working person in this country has to do.

      On the other hand, it’s nice that Williams didn’t brush the kid off or give him any attitude. He had a conversation with the ballboy and that conversation opened his eyes. Hopefully, he’s a changed man.

      Williams rejoined the Nets on 12/9 and scored six points in 26 minutes on 3-of-8 shooting.

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA

      UFC 124 Picks & Predictions

      December 11, 2010 /
      NEWARK, NJ - MARCH 27: UFC fighter Georges St-Pierre (R) battles Dan Hardy (L) during their Welterweight title bout at UFC 111 at the Prudential Center on March 27, 2010 in Newark, New Jersey. St-Pierre won by Unanimous Decision at 5:00 of the 5th round. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images)

      UFC 124 takes place tonight from Montreal and the main event features a contest for the UFC Welterweight contest. Here are my picks for this UFC PPV.

      UFC Welterweight Championship Bout – Georges St. Pierre (20-2) vs. Josh Koscheck (17-4): This is a rematch from a bout in 2007 that St. Pierre won by unanimous decision. Koscheck has the skills to beat St. Pierre but lacks the big-fight experience and overall composure that St. Pierre brings to the octagon. Look for GSP to come out wanting to strike and Koscheck looking for takedowns, as each wants to come out showing strength in what is their perceived weakness. Ultimately I think St. Pierre has more skills and will out-class Koscheck an score a fourth round submission by choke.

      UFC Heavyweight Bout – Stefan Struve (23-4) vs. Sean McCorkle (10-0): McCorkle has been making waves for his trash talk, but he still is young to the UFC while Struve has experience in the octagon and has good skills to compare to a grappler like McCorkle. I think Struve will handle a fast start from McCorkle and then find a way to finish him via choke in the third round.

      UFC Lightweight Bout – Jim Miller (18-2) vs. Charles Oliveira (14-0): Oliveira has had a great start to his UFC career, but I think he runs into a bad matchup with Miller, who is a superior wrestler that will be able to get him to the ground and control him while avoiding Oliveira’s slick submissions. I like Miller to dominate the fight on the ground and score a decision win.

      UFC Lightweight Bout – Joe Stevenson (36-11) vs. Mac Danzig (20-8-1): Stevenson has been showing improvement over his last few fights but he needs a win, as he has lost three of his last five bouts. Danzig has lost four of his last five bouts and needs a win to stay in the UFC. His desperation should bring out his best efforts while Stevenson should also be on top of his game. Ultimately, Stevenson is the better wrestler while the two are comparable in striking, so that should be enough to earn him the decision win.

      UFC Welterweight Bout – Thiago Alves (22-6) vs. John Howard (14-5): This fight should be a slugfest as both men are at their strongest working their muay thai striking. Alves has better form while Howard has better power but the key to this fight is that Howard is coming off a fight where he dominated by a lesser opponent than Alves while Alves hasn’t struggled with strikers in his career. Alves should be able to work leg kicks and tire Howard before finishing him with a barrage in the third round.

      External Sports, UFC

      NFL Week 13 ROY power rankings

      December 11, 2010 /

      This race is getting to be as exciting as the Heismann race. Well, maybe.

      1. Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams—Is everyone comparing this kid to Troy Aikman because of how he plays and leads his team calmly? Or because he’s lanky and wears #8? We’ll go with the former, for now.

      2. Ndamukong Suh, Detroit Lions—Leads all DTs with 8 sacks, and is third in total tackles among inside guys with 49.

      3. Devin McCourty, New England Patriots—Leads the NFL with 6 interceptions

      4. Earl Thomas, Seattle Seahawks—Wow, it’s turning out to be a monster DB class, isn’t it?

      5. Joe Haden, Cleveland Browns—Like I said…..

      6. Aaron Hernandez/Rob Gronkowski, New England Patriots—Really, the numbers are astounding from this dynamic TE duo: 65 catches, 835 yards, 10 TDs

      7. Mike Williams, Tampa Bay Bucs—On pace for 68 catches, 1025 yards and 9 scores. Not bad for a rookie.

      8. Colt McCoy, Cleveland Browns—Well, yeah, it’s not like he had to play that great to keep the job from Jake Delhomme, but he went and got injured.

      9. Dez Bryant, Dallas Cowboys—Another bummer of a season-ending injury.

      10. Eric Berry, Kansas City Chiefs—His 69 tackles and 2 picks don’t tell the story about how QBs fear this kid

      External Sports, NFL

      College football bowls: A reason to watch them all

      December 11, 2010 /

      Bowl season is upon us, which is a good and sad thing all at once.

      It’s good because we get football on a lot of days that we normally wouldn’t get football. And it’s unpredictable football, at that, where games that look like complete mismatches could be close just because one team decided not to show up.

      It’s sad because it means college football is about to be over, and we have a very large, nine-month void in our lives that’s about to start. You could create and have a child in the span between the national title game and the next year’s season opener (coincidentally, most non-human mammals can create and have babies in the span between the final regular-season games and the title game. You’re just going to have to trust me on that one).

      I know that you’re looking at some of these games and thinking they’re completely pointless, and you‘re right. You’re probably also thinking that there is no reason to watch some of these games. Well on that one, you’re wrong. There’s at least one reason to watch every one of the 30 non-BCS Bowl games (the BCS games speak for themselves. Yes, even Oklahoma vs. Uconn. Well, maybe not. But we’ll talk about those later.) and I’m here to give you those reasons. Continue reading »

      College Football, External Sports

      NFL Week 13 MVP power rankings

      December 11, 2010 /

      There was a bit of a Peyton Manning sighting last night, as well as a Chris Johnson sighting. But not enough to jump on board here.

      1. Tom Brady, New England Patriots—With all due respect to Michael Vick, the dude with the long hair made a mockery out of one of the league’s top defenses on Monday night and has a 109.5 QB rating through 12 games.

      2. Michael Vick, Philadelphia Eagles—With two games against an improved Dallas team, one against the Giants and one against Minnesota, it will determine both Philly’s season and Vick’s MVP status.

      3. Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons—His numbers don’t rank him near Brady, Rivers or Manning, but he is Matty Ice for a reason, and his team is 10-2 for a reason.

      4. Roddy White, Atlanta Falcons—A mini scoring drought has dropped Mr. White a few spots

      5. Arian Foster, Houston Texans—He’s got MJD, CJ2K, JMC and AP chasing him. What is this, Star Wars? No worries, AF1 will hang on for the rushing title these next few weeks.

      6. Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints—Lately, you get the feeling the Saints can just score at will when they need to. They did it late against the Cowboys and the Bengals, led by this guy.

      7. Philip Rivers, San Diego Chargers—Something’s afoot in San Diego, dude.

      8. Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers—3243 yards, 23 TDs, 9 picks. If the Pack was better than 8-4, Rodgers would be up higher on this list.

      9. Matt Cassel, Kansas City Chiefs—The “other” Matty Ice

      10. Trent Cole, Philadelphia Eagles—Leads all DE’s in solo tackles (46) and has 9 sacks, but for some reason he doesn’t get much love.

      External Sports, NFL

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 The Scores Report – The National Sports Blog

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑