MORE ABOUT LONDON OLYMPICS // BRIEF TAKES, CURRENT ISSUES 

For more analysis, go to Mile High Sports Radio AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team, milehighsports.com

“SPORTS NOTEBOOK” posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of every week---Ed. & Publ., Marvin Leibstone. 

OLYMPICS--- OF the more than 30 sports categories that will be at the London Olympiad July 27 through August 12, seven will probably be watched more than others by millions of TV viewers around the world. These seven being---

• Basketball--- Starts July 28. Semi-finals and final, August 11-12, for 2 Gold medals awarded.
• Boxing--- Starts July 28, continues until August 9, 11 & 12 for finals, 13 Gold awarded.
• Gymnastics--- Starts July 28, finishes August12, w/18 Gold given along the way.
• Soccer--- Began July 25, will finish August 11, w/2 Gold awarded.
• Swimming:--- Starts July 28, goes through August 4---32 Gold.
• Tennis:--- July 28 through August 5---5 Gold.
• Track & Field (includes Marathon)--- August 3-12---47 Gold. 

BRIEF TAKES:

            NBA --- Seems like the NBA has become numerous shifting energies that could become season-long perfect storms, or just a few now-and-then appearances of such, like summer rain. That’s what the recent big trades within America’s professional basketball league seem to be promising: Jeremy Lin from the Knicks to the Rockets; Steve Nash from the Suns to the Lakers; Ray Allen from the Celtics to the Heat; Jason Kidd from the Mavericks to the Knicks.

Also, Dwight Howard wants to leave the Magic as though something bad and fast were gaining on him.

Moreover, Pau Gasol may have left the Lakers if Kobe Bryant hadn’t protested the idea, maybe Bryant floating that he’d re-think that multi-million dollar deal that a European team offered him two years ago.

What are the common threads in all of this? Except for Lin, the traded players listed are big names and super ticket-sellers. If nothing grand comes from the trades, teams will be making mucho dinero from them.

And, most of these traded heroes are known for a special skill---Nash for his unique passing ability, Ray Allen as one of the best shooters in basketball, Kidd being a quick playmaker and leader when improvisation on the floor is essential, and Howard would be leaving the Magic as one of the game’s best rebounders/blockers ever.

Too, these traded players have been around, they have that game savvy that comes from being in a sport across many seasons; they have that special edge from having overcome mistakes when up against other top athletes. At the same time, their departure leaves room for youth, for future prospects within the teams left behind.

An upshot from this will be the revised starter/bench mixes and playbooks within each team absorbing the significant addition, or “loss,” which always adds curiosity and intensity to a sport, as happened from the drop to a 66 game season throughout the 2011/2012 NBA year, the tension from it making for one of the more exciting seasons of the decade.

Anyway, a lesson in this from the NBA, and from most other sports associations, is that things never stay the same, which could be a constant that we can rely upon.          

            NFL ---  In August, NFL teams will be in pre-season mode, with observers asking questions that probably can’t be answered truthfully until late December, which is appropriate in that the asking can lead us to what matters most among the many outcomes that a 16 week NFL season can deliver, for instance, will what quarterbacks do, or not do, dominate professional football because (a) their skills far outperform that which the remaining offense and a defense squad can do, or (b) because expectations of quarterbacks are so many and so demanding that their mere presence within football takes the spotlight away from all others on the field?

In other words, the first wave of questions within football universe today are about QB’s Peyton manning (Denver Broncos), Eli Manning (New York Giants), Tim Tebow (N.Y. Jets), Mark Sanchez (Jets), Drew Brees (New Orleans Saints), as if QB’s always isolate and win or lose games “solo,” which is rarely the case. A cornerback exceptionally good at tackling opposing running backs, or a defensive lineman always adept at seizing the fumble and running for a TD, these are better candidates for “solo dominance” than the QB.

Fact: a QB is the player afield who gets more support and has to rely on that support more than any teammate does---without superb pass protectors, running backs, wide receivers and canny tight ends, the QB is nada, nyet, nein, the big NO! Yet the questions persist: will Peyton Manning deliver for the Broncos the way that he had for the Indianapolis Colts? Will Eli Manning signal that he could surpass the greatness of his more experienced, possibly more talented brother, Peyton? Will Tebow shine brighter than Sanchez for the Jets and cause position-reversal, as happened within the Denver franchise when Tebow replaced a starting QB? Can Brees demonstrate power of restoration and top the list of QB’s before mid-season? Don’t change channels, stay tuned! Watch and listen closely---those pass protectors, running backs and wide receivers will be helping to make the difference. In several cases, these supporters “will be the difference.”    

SPORTS & “SHOOTING” --- Long a category of sport at the Olympics has been “Shooting,” limited to skeet, trap, and combined skeet/trap, plus rifle-firing as part of the Olympics Pentathlon competition. Anyone who has taken to skeet, trap or rifle shooting surely knows that controlled shooting is a legitimate sport and that the ease by which targets can be struck using an automatic weapon such as that employed by a gunman who last week killed 12 and wounded more at a Colorado movie theater could never qualify as a legitimate sport in any country where rational persons live.

Yet not long ago a weapons aficionado called for the legitimacy of automatic assault weapons-firing within the hunting and sport shooting realms, and some current U.S. laws allow such weapons to be obtained legally by almost anyone, an idea shunned by sportsmen and shooting-athletes everywhere.

Something to reflect upon: one cannot find many athletes or sports management individuals among advocates of sales of automatic assault-weaponry to other than the military and to special police teams. Here’s a bet that can be won: no person like the Colorado killer captured last week, or upon the roster of serial killers of any history of the macabre, has ever been a serious athlete or been among serious sports fans.

Not that American sports have ever been squeaky-clean. In 2012 alone, there’s been the Sandusky affair, athletes arrested for possession of firearms, others for illegal drug possession, still others for abusing spouses, and others for DUI’s. But another good bet is that, for the most part, participation in sports can condition the more edgy persons far from tending toward horrific violence.

Another good bet is this: at the recurring Olympiads, you cannot find exceptional athletes from nations that condone and actually conduct acts of terrorism---hail, all sports! A motto for the ages is the Olympic Latin phrase, “Citius, Altius, Fortius!” the modern English translation, “Swifter, Higher, Stronger!” each word capable of underscoring morals and integrity as much as each pertains to athletic grace.

END/ml