Steve Nash became the GM of Canada basketball Tuesday, which truly has to be the one job in sports (or the universe) with the LEAST amount of daily pressure. Seriously, if the Canadian basketball team comes within 20 points of beating someone, it’s a win in their book. It’s no wonder that Nash can be GM of something while he’s still an active player.
A look at a few other executive hires we’d like to see happen:
Ozzie Guillen as manager of the Cuban National Baseball Team
Why: It’s obvious that all the wounds from last month’s incident have been healed … sort of.
Larry Bird as GM of Swedish basketball
Why: The greatest white basketball player of all-time deserves to run his own ship whenever and wherever he wants. He is blond, but his looks may not warrant Swedish citizenship.
Michael Jordan as owner of the Charlotte Bobcats
Why: He’d be perfect for the job. He is a North Carolina kid. He has a great mind for the game. It’d be great to see Michael Jordan take the Charlotte Bobcats to the top of the NBA. All you have to do is take the job Michael. All you have to do is show up and there will soon be a parade in downtown Charlotte. You are a basketball guru. This couldn’t possibly go wrong.
Charles Barkley as President of Basketball Operations of the Philadelphia 76ers
Why: He has little time for unproven rookies. He has little time for washed up veterans. We would see a team of players all aged 27-29. Once they hit 29, they would be promptly be traded. He, of course, could still maintain his role on TNT’s Inside the NBA. We would just need him to send Shaq to Philly to sit in an office chair all day as assistant GM and pretend to handle phone calls. Or mop the floors. Or eat cheese steaks all day. Just anything to get the Diesel out of Atlanta before he completely murders the once Teflon EJ-Kenny-Chuck dynamic.
David Stern as GM of the Dallas Mavericks
Why: Well, there’s the obvious feud that would boil over between Stern and owner Mark Cuban after Stern’s first hour on the job. But this really would be the perfect retirement job for Stern. It worked, sort of, for former NBA executive Rod Thorn. Why couldn’t it work for the commish?
He’s a brilliant businessman. He’s getting long in the tooth, but still enjoys a daily bickering match. And even if the team went in the tank, there could be glorious conspiracy theories about how he is trying to kill Cuban’s baby from within.
Hamilton haters silenced
A big PTF salute to Texas’ Josh Hamilton, who belted four home runs Tuesday night to become the first MLB player to accomplish the single game feat since 2003.
It makes the holier-than-thou critics in the offseason regarding his relapse with alcohol (seriously, it could have been A LOT worse, cut him some slack), and the two-day media circus that resulted from it, look that much more ridiculous.
Calm down Rajon
Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo is one of the more prickly characters Boston has seen. Fans love his talent and he produces at least five highlight reel, Rondo-specific plays each week.
But he is also inconsistent with his overall play and can, at times, snap at people for no reason whatsoever. First came the one-game suspension after he bumped referee Marc Davis in Game 1 of the C’s-Hawks series. Then came his awkward interview with the local media regarding the suspension. And now comes his lashing out at a TNT cameraman after Boston’s Game 5 loss while dressed like a zebra:
