Byline: Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News
Musings for a Monday morning on overkill and other amusements of the rich and famous . . .
* David Stern's insistence on a minimum age of 20 to play in the NBA, for example.
* There's only one legitimate argument for this idea, but it's a pretty good one: The NBA has no place to put teenagers who are not ready for prime time, so they end up wasting away at the end of the bench or on the injured list.
* Detroit's Darko Milicic, Minnesota's Ndudi Ebi, Miami's Dorell Wright, Seattle's Robert Swift and Golden State's Nikoloz Tskitishvili, just to name a few.
* Baseball doesn't require a minimum age because kids who aren't ready get ready in the minor leagues.
* Not coincidentally, Stern is proposing this solution, too. He wants the players' association to recognize the National Basketball Developmental League as an official minor league to which NBA teams can assign players.
* If the union agrees - and indications are it will - the minimum age becomes unnecessary, not to mention offensive, as Jermaine O'Neal pointed out.
* What, 18 is old enough to die for your country but not old enough to play pro basketball? Huh?
* Speaking of overkill, George Steinbrenner is very upset with the Yankees' 4-8 start. Naturally, he considers it Joe Torre's fault.
* After all, if you can't buy a championship for $205 million, the Yankees' payroll this season, exactly how much does it cost?
* Just wondering: Is it time to trade Byung-Hyun Kim yet?
* Granted, he hasn't reached Allan Simpson's earned-run average of 67.50, but he does have two losses in six appearances and 10 walks in 81/3 innings.
* Boulder's Tyler Hamilton could find out today whether his cycling career, which produced a gold medal in Athens, is over.
* Hamilton, who finished fourth in last summer's Tour de France, allegedly tested positive for blood doping at the Tour of Spain later in the season. If an arbitration panel sustains that finding, Hamilton, 34, faces a two-year ban from the sport.
* Speaking of cyclists, Lance Armstrong has half the Euro sporting press in Macon, Ga., today for a promised announcement on his future.
* He might announce he'll retire after the Tour de France.
* On the other hand, he might announce he'll sing a duet with Sheryl Crow on her next record. Lance is funny that way.
* The Rockets might have been guilty of a little overkill of their own in Saturday's 28-point thrashing of the Nuggets, but you can hardly blame them when the prize was playing Seattle in the first round of the playoffs.
* Yes, the Rockets were wearing throwback jerseys. No, the Nuggets were not required to cooperate by recalling the Dick Motta era.
* Now, everybody's seen their Achilles' heel. The Nuggets dominate by getting gimmes at the basket - throw-downs on the break, throw-downs on the alley-oop, even a throw-down or two on the offensive boards.
* But not when you put a legit shot blocker back there.
* Against Yao Ming and Dikembe Mutombo, the gimmes were gone. That left the Nuggets struggling to make contested perimeter shots, just like the bad old days. Does Carmelo Anthony shooting 4-for-17 ring a bell?
* Unfortunately, their other shooters, DerMarr Johnson and Wesley Person, can't stay on the floor if they have to check top scorers themselves.
* And yes, Virginia, Tim Duncan is a pretty fair shot blocker.
* Sad but true: The Rockies' team ERA, an astonishing 7.84, is more than two runs higher than the next worst in baseball, the Giants and Royals at 5.40.
* The Rocks put an average of almost two men on base every inning - 93 innings pitched, 116 hits, a league-high 64 walks and three hit batsmen.
* They've caught one of 12 basestealers. They even lead the league in balks.
* Other than that, the young pitching is coming along.
* Still, all this whining about the local nine is premature. There's no whining in baseball until you're long-suffering, and you can't be long-suffering in Year 13. Now, if you're a Cubs fan, feel free.
* Everybody seems very impressed with Mark Buehrle's 99-minute complete game for the White Sox on Saturday, but consider this: If he pitched for the Rocks, 99 minutes would put him somewhere in the fourth inning.
