By Tim McManus
A few thoughts on a very active local sports scene heading into the weekend...
There's no reason to get bent out of shape over the signing of Bethel Johnson.
The timing's off, I admit: With Donte' Stallworth about to put on an enemy jersey, this is hardly a power counter-move. But that's really the wrong way of looking at it.
The Eagles know that Johnson's 13 catches over the last two seasons in no way fills the void at wide receiver. A look at his kick return numbers, however, shows that they bought an immediate upgrade over Reno Mahe in the special teams department.
He's been a key special teams factor on two Super Bowl Championship teams and is an occasional changeup at wideout. Give your home team a little credit...
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Speaking of which, the notion that the Eagles intentionally leaked Stallworth's drug rehab involvement to lower his market value is over the top.
That implies that there are some maniacal forces at work within the NovaCare complex, hatching wicked schemes against their own in order to get a bargain.
Journalists develop sources within the organizations they work with to obtain inside information on occasion. This is nothing new. Maybe this was a writer doing his job, not an elaborate plan by the Eagles to sabotage someone they went to battle with all last season.
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All the stories you'll hear about John Vukovich in the coming days will be of a man who was revered and respected.
Here's my contribution: Vukovich apparently wanted to keep his battle with a brain tumor private, so he asked his media buddies to keep it out of the limelight.
It wasn't until yesterday, a day before his death was announced, that word broke publicly of the longtime Phillies coach being seriously ill.
In an industry based on beating your competitor to the punch, that says something. Rest in peace, Vuk.
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I've been salivating over Kevin Durant and Greg Oden just like you, and have become a bit aggravated with all this winning going on at the Wachovia Center recently.
There's a bright side to this, however:
Andre Iguodala has absolutely thrived as the alpha male on the court, budding almost the second that Allen Iverson was sent to Denver.
With a natural scorer like Durant on the court, he may regress. But if the Sixers brought in a defensive-minded scrapper to take care of business down low -- like Joakim Noah, for instance -- Iguodala could keep his role as the talent around him improved.
Throw in a free agent or two with the newfound cap flexibility, and the Sixers could actually be pretty damn good within the next year or two.
Tim appears on this page every Thursday. You can contact him at tmcmanus@phanaticmag.com
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