The numbers do lie sometimes, but they never fail to fascinate

SCOTT JACOBS

This week was a crazy and exciting week to be a sports fan. To cap it all off, Juiced Sports introduces a new weekly segment, JUICED NUMBERS. Because like Quiznos copying Subway’s five dollar foot longs, we too can copy. Thanks Sports Illustrated for the idea. We’re just 20 years late to join the party.

-24- Millions it took to buy Mike D’Antoni from the dessert to the Big Apple. According to an Arizona newspaper, D’Antoni refused to comply with GM Steve Kerr on two things: he refused to dedicate 15-20 minutes extra on the defensive side of the ball in practice, and he had no interest in giving more minutes to youngsters D.J. Strawberry and Alando Tucker. And just like that, he was gone in Seven Seconds or less from the declining Suns to the atrocious Knicks.

-5- Number of NBA teams who have hired new off-season coaches. Phoenix and Chicago are still looking for a new leader, after D’Antoni and Scott Skiles (who was fired in midseason) reached deals to coach the Knicks and Bucks respectively. Eric Spoelstra is the only one amongst the bunch who has no previous head coaching experience.

-70- Hanley Ramirez’s new contract with the Marlins which pays him $70 million over six years. Not only was it a shocking move made by the notoriously “cry poor” Marlins, but it is the largest contract EVER handed out to a player with less than three complete years in the Bigs. Maybe things are changing for the Marlins who have won seven straight and now own the BEST record in the National League and all of baseball, not to mention a three game lead in their division.

-1- Games below .500 the Nationals would be if they didn’t have the Marlins on their schedule. The Nats dropped to 0-6 at home versus the flying Fish on Sunday, after they blew a 4-1 lead en route to a 5-4 loss. Washington’s only win against the Marlins in nine games this season: April 18th.

-15- Points in overtime scored by the usually sluggish Utah Jazz in their overtime thriller against the Lakers. The win evened up their series with Los Angeles, and added yet another win for home teams in the second round. With San Antonio’s game four win over the Hornets late Sunday night, the road team is an astonishing 1-14 with Detroit’s win on Saturday over Orlando the only victory for the team wearing a darker jersey.

-2- Number of people who I hope will never be on Baseball Tonight again: Chris Berman and Juan Marichal. The two put together one of the worst sports programs I have seen in recent memory. Why ESPN wanted the slow, choppy English speaking Hall of Famer on a sports highlight show is beyond me. As for Berman, I love the guy when it comes to football, but simply put baseball is not his thing. About the Marlins, Berman said, “How about those Marlins. They are a team swimming impressively,” or something like that. Berman may have been talking about Florida, but he was the one who looked like a fish out of water.

-10- Games below .500 and 14 wins total for the offensively challenged San Diego Padres. Ever since the Pads blew that epic NL playoff tiebreaker last year to the Rockies, they have been on the decline. Just how bad has it been? Before their series win against those same Rockies this weekend, San Diego had lost eight straight series. Their two consecutive wins match their longest winning streaks all season. And they still have the worst record in the Majors. With Jake Peavy and Chris Young how the heck is that possible?

-1- Years in college it took for NBA prospect O.J. Mayo to bolt from USC to the NBA. But it’s also taken just a year for the latest scandal involving a Trojan to take place. Following in the footsteps of former USC great Reggie Bush, Mayo is the latest Southern Cal star to find himself in a big time scandal, following an Outside the Lines report that he received cash and other things dating back all the way to high school. One however, does not represent the number of players who never seem to learn, or the schools that turn a blind eye towards these problems.

-0- Mentions of the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, or Cubs in this article until now.

-7- Days till we get to do this again.

It was fun. Hope you enjoyed the first ever installment of JUICED NUMBERS. Inflated sports statistics offering high quality information for the sports’ masses. We’ll see you next week. In the meantime enjoy SportsCenter’s never ending coverage of Joba Chamberlain.

Goodnight everybody.

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