A Few Sporting Notes

I haven’t said anything about the Stanley Cup finals — since I’ve been prescient about the Kings and completely missed the boat on the Devils throughout the playoffs my position would be clear and only half-credible. And then it looked like it would be a dreary 4- or 5-game affair, but now things are getting interesting. In the meantime, a few other things:

• Whatever you want to say about LeBron James, he certainly does demonstrate the sheer idiocy of trying to put players into “clutch” and “notclutch” categories.
• Vladimir Krutov, R.I.P. It would have been fascinating to see Kurtov in the NHL in his prime, although the 1987 Canada Cup was certainly a good showcase.    As the Soviet stars came over to the NHL, he was probably the most highly regarded forward on the great national/Red Army teams, but of course had by far the least distinguished career.   It was never clear to me that he was a greater player than Makarov (who was an underrated player in the NHL).  And Fetisov (who IIRC correctly was generally regarded as the best player on those teams and  was +37 at age 37 in the NHL) I think was on a different level than either but he was certainly terrific.
• Speaking of great defensemen, Nik Lidstrom is hanging up the skates. (The terrific Katie Baker piece at the link contains bonus material about Fetisov’s longtime defense partner.)  He was so great I can’t really complain about the ridiculous Norris Trophy he won last year, since overall he certainly deserved at least seven.   Hockey maven whose real journalist job prevents him from blogging about it Brad Plumer and I recently tried to figure out where he fits in historically, and both reached the same banal conclusion: near the top.    For me, the only post-expansion  defensemen with higher peaks were Orr (who I’m inclined to think was the most valuable player in history during his too-brief prime), Potvin, and maybe Bourque.   And Lidstrom had substantially more career value that either Orr or Potvin.  For both Lidstrom and Bourque, I’d say Henry Aaron would be the non-hockey analogy — a very high peak of performance repeated with astonishing consistency year after year.   Only a #1 defenseman has more impact on the game than any single rightfielder…
• Blocking an outstanding prospect by giving a bad player a two-year contract off a fluke year that still wasn’t all that good — that’s the kind of thing that makes the Royals so special. Elsewhere in the AL Norris, the problem with the Tigers indeed isn’t the coaching but the fact that they just weren’t as good as most observers thought before the season.   They deserved to be favorites, but only because the rest of the division was so bad — their stars are backed up by a third-rate supporting cast.   A team playing about 5 DHs couldn’t afford to lose its only established plus defender in the infield or outfield, and Valverde’s regression to the mean was eminently predictable.  I would still expect them to finish ahead of the Indians if Fister comes back and Jackson can stay healthy, but with Dunn back, Konerko apparently ageless, and Sale making an amazing transition to starter, the White Sox might actually be not only unexpectedly good but better.