It’s a five year deal, with between $65 and $70 million. I think Larry Hughes at $13 million per is a better deal than Michael Redd for max dollars… so the Cavs may have actually done themselves a favor by not being able to sway Michael Redd.

That’s a pretty curious decision for Washington. Reportedly, they started contract talks with Hughes at about $8 million per. They lowballed him, which either means that they don’t believe he had a lot to do with their success last year, or it’s just terrible mismanagement. The Wizards finally put a decent product on the court, and now they’re going to let it fall apart? Like I said, a curious decision. Or maybe just a horrible one. They better look into throwing some money in the direction of Bobby Simmons.

It makes the Cavs interesting. They’ll now have guys at the 2 and the 3 who are capable of a multitude of different things. They should get 10+ rebounds per game from those two positions, which is no small thing. But as we detailed yesterday, there are still major holes for the Cavs to fill.

The surprising thing about it to me is that the Wizards were so quick to let him go. They either know something about him that I don’t, or they just screwed the pooch. Given the history of the Wizards, option B sounds about right.

Also mentioned in the article is that Joe Johnson is near signing a max-contract offer with the Atlanta Hawks. He’s restricted, so of course, the Suns would have a chance to match it. Atlanta should just go ahead and change their name to the Atlanta Contract Leverage, because that’s how they’re being used. It’s a risk for Joe, as the Suns may opt to not match it, which means he’d actually have to play in Atlanta. But I’m guessing he really doesn’t want to, and that the Suns have no intention of letting that happen.

And now a blog item that you won’t have to care about for 7 years…

I’m not going to miss them… and I really don’t think it’s because of my blatant anti-baseball bias, because I’ll watch anything during the Olympics. I watched a little softball last year. But I don’t recall ever watching an Olympic baseball game. The last time I cared about Olympic baseball was when Topps was putting out those guys.

Among the replacements being considered are golf, rubgy, squash, karate, and roller sports.

What the fuck are roller sports? Like roller hockey? Roller derby, perhaps? Skateboarding? I’m saying no to all of the above… with the potential exception of roller derby, which you’d have to expect the Americans to dominate. As for skateboarding… well… there should be a rule that if it’s in the X Games, it can’t be an Olympic sport. The two should be mutually exclusive. The X Games already surpasses the amount of what should be considered an acceptable amount of skateboarding on television. If judges consitently fuck up rating a maneuver on the pommel horse, imagine the confusion of a French judge trying to score some little flippy twisty skateboard manuever.

I think golf has to be a choice, and there should be no argument about it. It’s got worldwide appeal, you don’t have to worry about shutting down a season to send professionals (which is probably what killed baseball), and the interest would be huge. Tell me you wouldn’t watch every second of Tiger Woods going toe to toe with Retief Goosen, 18 holes of match play, for a gold medal for their respective countries. That would be entertainment gold.

I guess the Twins suffered a pretty bad loss, and the clubhouse was a bit grim. Dudes were sitting around moping, not saying a word, feeling sorry for themselves.

And that’s when Torii Hunter sprung into action. Wearing only socks and a helmet, Torii grabbed a baseball bat and walked into the shower and started swinging. Teammates scrambled. Still flapping freely in the wind, Torii barged into the managers office and asked for more batting practice.

And it worked. Guys livened up a bit, turned the TV on, and started chattering. This is something I’m going try next time the office seems a little down.

Excellent work, Torii Hunter. I’d post a picture of the nudity, but I think we’re all still reeling from the Turkish oil wrestling gayity of a a few days ago. Just observe the picture that is there, and how much funnier it would be if he was indeed naked.

Despite two early bogeys, Michelle Wie came back and posted a round of 1-under-par on Thursday. As of right now, the cut is projected at -2. The final round of the women’s US Open doesn’t seem to indicate that Michelle Wie responds well to serious pressure. So we’ll see what happens.

And I am getting tired of people saying she doesn’t belong in these tournaments. It’s the fucking John Deere Classic. Give me one reason I would care about the John Deere Classic if it were not for Michelle Wie. Mike Tirico was crying about how Larry Mize was not in the tournament field as of early this week, but Wie was.

I’ve got nothing against Larry Mize… he’s probably a fine individual. But what’s he done for anyone lately? He deserves a spot ahead of Wie, because he won the Masters a few presidents ago? Why? Should they let Charles Coody play, too, just because he feels like it?

I know she has to learn to consistently win against her own competition. But there’s no reason why she can’t do that, and do some things on the men’s tour, too. She brings attention. She brings ratings. She brings excitement. On top of that, she’s a better golfer than half the scrubs in the prestigious John Deere Classic, too. And Mike Tirico or anyone else wouldn’t have a word to say about it if it was Michael Wie, a 15-year-old boy.