Water Cooler – January 31st, 2011
Here we go with today’s sports water cooler talk. Here, you won’t just find the straight news; you’ll find the stuff everyone is talking about – the ice breakers, the Twitter Sports Picks and topics…well, basically all the stuff you discuss at the water cooler.
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Today’s Sports News – NBA news: Pacers fire Jim O’Brien; Knicks hire former Nuggets GM; Kevin Durant calls out Chris Bosh 
Jim O’Brien’s tenure as the Indiana Pacers’ head coach is no more. After the team lost seven of eight games, president Larry Bird had enough. He fired O’Brien yesterday. Reportedly, Indiana’s four-game western swing against the Clippers, Warriors, Blazers and Nuggets was O’Brien’s final test. The Pacers lost all four games.
Indiana went 121-169 in three and a half seasons under O’Brien and was 17-27 before the firing this season. Fittingly, O’Brien was ejected in his final game, a 110-89 loss to the Bulls on Saturday.
The New York Knicks have upped the ante in their quest to land Carmelo Anthony. They’ve hired Mark Warkentien, the Denver Nuggets’ former general manager, as a special consultant. He has a strong relationship with Melo and could be instrumental in orchestrating a trade.
After talking trash with him, Kevin Durant thinks Chris Bosh is a “fake tough guy.” Though he said he believes CB4 is a “cool dude” off the court, Durant said after the Thunder’s game against Miami yesterday that Bosh is “on a good team now, so he thinks he can talk a little bit. There’s a lot of fake tough guys in this league and he’s one of them.”
NFL news: Green Bay Packers feud over I.R. players; Eagles entertaining offers for Kolb; Cam Newton’s workout “a publicity stunt”?
The Green Bay Packers can’t seem to escape drama as they prepare for Super Bowl XLV. There was the rift over injured reserve players not being included for team photos last week; now, Aaron Rodgers has ruffled the I.R. guys’ feathers even more.
In an interview on Saturday, Rodgers explained;
“I’ll say this, I was on I.R. back in 2006 and I chose to stick around and finish out the season with my guys and be here every game. Some of those guys didn’t [this season]. We love them, we care about them, we don’t wish injury on anybody, but this is a group of guys that’s really come together and it’s been great to work with the guys we’ve brought in midseason, some of them, and the young guys.”
Rodgers’ comments angered injured teammate Nick Barnett to the point that Barnett vowed to delete his Twitter account.
Quick Super Bowl injury update: it now appears that Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey won’t play on Sunday due to his ankle injury.
The Philadelphia Eagles may in fact entertain offers for Kevin Kolb. The 49ers, Vikings, Titans, Cardinals, Panthers and Browns are all rumored to be potential suitors.
Heisman Trophy winner and NFL draft prospect Cameron Newton may be ruffling feathers with his decision to hold a pre-Combine workout. One irritated NFL scout said “The Newtons would be best to realize they aren’t in college anymore…They could wind up turning more people against them than for them with this.”
NHL news: Cam Ward picked first, Phil Kessel picked last in All-Star fantasy draft
We could discuss the actual NHL All-Star game (won 11-10 by Team Lidstrom on Sunday) but no one really cared about that, right? The fantasy draft on Friday night was the All-Star Weekend’s most anticipated moment.
Team Staal chose goaltender Cam Ward with the first overall pick. It was a strategic move by Eric Staal to pick his Carolina teammate; with the game happening in Carolina, fans would have an easy team to cheer for with Staal and Ward on one side.
The final pick: Toronto’s Phil Kessel. He got $20,000 to donate to a charity of his choice plus a car as consolation prizes for the humiliation.
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