Why choose Milwaukee and Andrew Bogut over Cleveland and LeBron James? $22 million. That’s why.

I don’t blame Michael Redd. There’s the $22 million difference between what Milwaukee can offer and what Cleveland can offer, and on top of that, I’m still not sold on the idea that the Cavaliers front office is a good one. Would you bet your house on the fact that they’ll do a good job surrounding LeBron with talent?

Let’s look at Milwaukee first. They’re looking at a starting line-up of TJ Ford, Michael Redd, Desmond Mason, and Joe Smith. If Ford can get back to his old self during the first half of next season, and Bogut isn’t a complete washout, that should be a playoff team in the East.

Now to Cleveland. They’re looking at a starting line-up of LeBron James and cap room. Their second best player right now is Thirst. Zydrunas Ilgauskus is a free agent, and a big soft, injury-prone defensive liability, even if he does stick around. The point guard situation is pretty brutal. The power forward situation is worse.

The good news is that there’s still a lot of summer left. Larry Hughes is still out there, unrestricted… and if the Cavs were willing to max out Michael Redd, they should be willing to do the same for Larry Hughes. I don’t think Larry Hughes is a max player, but… if Redd is, so is Hughes. The market dictates that he is. Yeah, he runs hot and cold as a shooter, and yeah, his only truly great year was in a contract year, something that always scares me… but still, I trust his overall game more than I do Michael Redd’s.

Joe Johnson is still out there as well, as a restricted free agent. If they’re not comfortable with Hughes, or can’t get him… max out Joe Johnson and see if the Suns can match. What have they got to lose? Johnson’s probably the best player of the big four free agent 2-guards… he’s not quite Ray Allen, but his age makes up for the difference. If the Suns wanted to give him max dollars, they’d have done so by now. At least put them to a decision.

On top of this, the Cavs still have to find a point guard and a big man or two. If Ilgauskas bolts for Atlanta, you’re looking at a frontcourt of Drew Gooden and DeSagana Diop. Ouch. And even if they do find a way to bring in a solid point, and a good 4 and 5… they’re still pretty thin in terms of depth.

I just don’t think it looks all that good in Cleveland right now. Playing with LeBron sounds great on paper, but Cleveland’s learning right now what the Hawks have been learning for a while now… Cap room isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and without a few small miracles, the Cavs could be in trouble. Of missing the playoffs again, and when his rookie deal runs out, of losing LeBron.

A Turkish guy named Yilmaz won the Turkish oil wrestling championship last week, and then called for the sports to be spread all around the world. “No one can defeat Turkey,” he said. “This is our ancestral sport. God willing, oil wrestling will be brought to other countries.”

Here are the basic rules, for those of you considering a career change: Guys wear no shirts, and leather pants. They then cover themselves in olive oil, and wrestle. To win, you have to throw your opponent onto his back, or lift him in the air and take three steps. The oil, of course, makes this difficult. So to gain and advantage, a common technique is to shove your hands into the other guy’s pants and lift him like that.

If Yilmaz had ever spent much time in a San Francisco nightclub, he might not be so confident of Turkey’s ability to dominate. Stuff like that goes on all the time in various portions of America… only it’s not called oil wrestling, it’s called rough gay foreplay.

But still, the Turks remain quite proud. “It’s totally a Turkish thing,” Selim Bilginkaya said. “You can’t see it anywhere else. In Greece and Bulgaria they have things that look like it, but there’s no oil.”

Good to see that the Greeks are drawing the line somewhere. The Turks, however… hey, call it a sport if you want to, but we all know what’s going on there. Anyway, I hope it does catch on. If I was gay, I’d dominate that sport. I hope the sport goes Olympic, and Ray Lewis steps up and answers the bell for his country.

Sean Avery of the Los Angeles Kings knows two things.

1) That the union fucked the players they were supposed to be protected, and

2) That the NHL’s players owe the fans an apology.

He called the LA Times the other day to offer that apology to the fans. “Can you please tell all the fans that we’re sorry?” he said. “We’re really, really sorry.” Sean Avery just become my new favorite hockey player. Jeremy Roenick remains my least favorite.

It’s a pretty cool thing that he called up a newspaper and asked them to print an apology to hockey fans. Even cooler that he talks about how he feels so wronged by Bob Goodenow and the players union, who completely misread the entire situation and are about to agree to anything and everything that the owners ever wanted. At this point, if the owners asked for games to be decided by shootouts or by Turkish oil wrestling matches, the union would have to agree. Flyers owner Ed Snider is said to be a huge proponent of the oil wrestling.

Anyway… good move, Sean Avery. Even if you didn’t mean it, you had me believing it. A slightly more tactful approach than the “kiss my ass and we don’t want you back” approach taken by Jeremy Roenick.

Sorry, Frenchy. You just get your little American-run bike race. The Olympics are going to be in London, which means… well, I don’t know what the hell it means. I guess it means the Olympics have to stop twice a day for tea.

Everyone thought Paris was a slam dunk, but it didn’t happen. I didn’t really care either way. I mean, if they’re not going to actually be in my hometown, it doesn’t make much difference to me. All I know about Paris and London, I learned in Eurotrip. Me scusi.

New York was eliminated in the 2nd round of voting, outlasting only Moscow. I’m surprised they made it that far, considering how much the rest of the world hates America, and how badly we botched our attempt. Moscow must’ve really sucked. They must’ve threatened to go back to a Communist economic system right before the games.

When I first heard about this, I thought it was a little bit… creepy. I mean, I’m all for livening up funerals, because I hate them, but it just seemed a little bit icky. Like those people who get married at sporting events. I’m not a big fan of traditional weddings, either, but there’s no way two people are getting married at an Astros game without one of them thinking to themselves, “Fine, I’ll let the motherfucker get married at a damn Astros game.”

But, reading the quotes from the people who loved this guy, it makes it sound cool.

“I saw it and I couldn’t even cry,” said a longtime friend. “People will see him just the way he was. This is such a celebration.”

“I couldn’t stop crying after looking at the Steeler blanket in his lap,” said his sister. “He loved football and nobody did [anything] until the game went off. It was just like he was at home.”

I’m convinced. Why not? I’m all for it, and I’ve started planning for my funeral, where I’ll be laid out in a coffin, no shirt and leather pants, covered in oil… with another dead oily guy on top of me, our hands in each others pants, recreating a Turkish oil wrestling match.