Morning Jolt: Wall not a lock at No. 1
Friday, April 9
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John Wall has been considered the odds-on favorite to go first in the NBA draft since well before he even declared, but DeMarcus Cousins' agent believes there are teams willing to take his client No. 1 overall. "There are teams that have done their homework on DeMarcus, and if the lottery ball bounces right, he could be the No. 1 pick in the draft," agent John Greig told Yahoo! Sports on Thursday. It's clear that Greig's first job is to try and sway public and league opinion that Cousins, a first-team All-America as a freshman, brings no serious character or attitude problems into the NBA. "When teams, the media and fans wait and hear the real story about DeMarcus, they'll all understand," Greig said. "He's a great kid. Sure, he needs to mature, but NBA teams who do their proper homework are teams seeing this kid as an equal for the No. 1 pick with Wall or [Ohio State's Evan] Turner." (Yahoo! Sports)Comment
Rollins: Phillies could afford Lee
Jimmy Rollins, for one, thought that when Philadelphia acquired Roy Halladay, the team would be looking at a rotation that also included Cliff Lee, and he said as much to Dan Patrick. Here's what Rollins said when asked why the Phillies didn't keep the two aces to highlight the top of their rotation: "I have no idea. I'm sure we could afford him. We turned nearly 4 million people through the turnstiles last year. I don't know. You should have [Phillies GM] Ruben [Amaro] on here. ... When the trade happened, I actually got a text from Jayson Werth and he was like, "What are we doing?' And I was like, "Didn't we get Halladay?' And he was like, "Yeah, but we traded Lee.' And my mouth dropped like, "That wasn't part of the deal.' I really don't know. I thought we had enough to keep him. I thought we could have done enough to keep him. I guess that's just a move the Yankees do. ... That's just the truth. The Yankees would have been like, "Hey, we got a chance to keep both of them. We'll pay them both for a year or two and we got a chance to win a championship.'" (Yahoo! Sports)Comment
Jeff Ireland may not have said so specifically, but his regime understands the importance of the upcoming draft. Where the Dolphins are since football czar Bill Parcells brought in Ireland and head coach Tony Sparano is obviously ahead of where they were in 2007, 1-15, but certainly not parked as a premier team. "We're in our third year of this regime, our third draft of this regime," Ireland said. "[This draft] is extremely important. We need to make a big jump. We need to get more good players on this team. We know that. There's a little bit of urgency to do that. Is there more urgency to do that than in the last draft? Probably not." (Miami Herald)Comment
Must-See Photo
The 2010 Masters began Thursday with honorary drives from 70-year-old Jack Nicklaus (left) and 80-year-old Arnold Palmer.
Must-See Video
U.S. Open champion Kim Clijsters lost to 258th-ranked Beatriz Garcia Vidagany of Spain in Thursday's second round of the Andalucia Open.
Game To Watch
Flyers at Rangers, 7 p.m. ET, RDS/TCN
- Philadelphia Flyers
- New York Rangers
SI Vault: More Ben Crenshaw
This Day in Sports
- 1913 -- Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, opens doors.
- 1965 -- The first indoor baseball game between major league teams is played when the Yankees face the Houston Astros in an exhibition at the Astrodome.
- 1995 -- Ben Crenshaw, whose mentor Harvey Penick died one week earlier, captures an emotional Masters championship.
