SI.com – Writers – Justin Gimelstob: Happily retired Sampras still has game to topple Federer – Friday December 22, 2006 10:41AM

I am a Federer fan.  Well if you heard me talk about tennis, you’d think I was a Federer hater.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  He is a classy, humble man who is the very best his sport has to offer… CURRENTLY.  I just am annoyed by his being crowned the best ever.  Say he ends up winning a career grand slam.  Say he surpasses Sampras’s total number of slams, I still think he has to be downgraded because he didn’t have the competition.

Sampras dominated in a glory era of men’s tennis.  The argument made is of course the men’s tour is deeper.  So while Federer might not have his great rivals during quarters, semis, finals (save the emergence of Nadal), he has to play better in the earlier rounds, so the argument goes.  And that Sampras had cakewalks til the quarters, semis, finals.  While I think it’s true to a small degree, is there ever really ANY doubt that Federer is going to cakewalk the first few rounds?  Maybe he is slightly more challenged, but his skill level is so much more than his competitors that it’s not like it is a real challenge to him.  So if Sampras and Federer both cakewalked early, and then Sampras had higher level competition and won, shouldn’t we not discount the former “greatest ever” for the newest “greatest ever”?

Okay, Blogger sucks I can’t figure out how to link to single posts in Blogger blogs. So here is a cut and paste from Dan Shanoff’s Blog re: last night’s basketball.

What could displace Allen Iverson’s Denver debut out of the top story? Gilbert Arenas, who has emerged this season as a sensational, must-see scorer to rival Kobe Bryant.

Agent Zero had 54 in Phoenix*, leading the Wizards past the Suns and — more notably — snapping the Suns’ 15-game winning streak. The Wiz have emerged as one of the hottest teams in the East (not hard), with Arenas making a case for Eastern Conference MVP (if such an award existed).

In a phenomenal sub-plot, Arenas exacted revenge on Mike D’Antoni, one of the USA Basketball coaches who cut him last summer. After the snub, Arenas vowed to rack up 100 points against D’Antoni and Nate McMillan, the other USA Oops assistant. He’s more than halfway there.

Meanwhile, Iverson had 22 points and 10 assists in his Nuggets debut. Based on the “Arenas Standard,” wake me when AI breaks 50.

First, recreating the comment I couldn’t post to his blog since I don’t want to create a Blogger account and the whole use your Google login option didn’t quite work.

The bigger issue for the Wiz is their inability to play in the 4th quarter. They routinely get beat late in games. Last Sunday versus the Lakers. Last night versus the Suns. Even versus the Kings the Kings made a late run. The Wizards aren’t a defensive team. And they aren’t a team that runs a nice half-court set (Eddie Jordan where is the Princeton offense? I can’t remember the last time I saw someone on the Wiz do a backdoor cut.). So they aren’t a closer team. Gil popping off in OT is great, but it can’t last for ever. (By the way, maybe the Wiz should ALWAYS wear the hideous gold alt unis. As superstitious as Gil is, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had spare gold jerseys sewn onto the underside of his white and blue standard jerseys. Of course that would increase his out of pocket jersey costs from tossing them into the stands two fold.)

And second, due respect to Shanoff (and I understand a DC loyalty as I’m a metro resident), AI is a bigger story. 22 and 10 with a shell of a team due to suspensions and injuries! He battled the snowy fury. Postponed his debut (thankfully, hopefully some network will pick up the Nuggets/Suns game when it’s rescheduled). 10 assists. That’s 3 or so (off the top of my head, since I’m not a sports blogger I’m not going to go check specific numbers) more than his average this season. Clearly 22 is down from his normal 30+, but still.