Team USA Turns Down Iverson

NBA TalkLeave a comment

I did not realize that Iverson not receiving an invite to Team USA was such a big story; after all most of the analysts covering NBA games really just joke around more than anything else. Now that I have read some of the media stories though, I come down on the side of Iverson on this one. How can Team USA not give an invite to the most dominating small player in the league and then hold an open invite for Shaq? That is just plain insulting! I agree that if Team USA is going to go with a Pass First guard like Billups, then yes, that’s fine don’t invite Iverson, I can see that, but to announce that they would still make an exception for Shaq is not right.

I love Iverson. He has something that many atheletes don’t have, which is heart. He is what he is and he has never claimed to be anything more. Philadelphia may want to trade him, but they will regret it if they make such a move. Without Iverson, the Sixers would be like the Bulls, a young team who has no swagger. Like it or not the NBA game needs swagger, Detroit may play like a team, but they got personality and that is the second reason why I watch them. Iverson is the heart of the Sixers and without him, there would be no reason to watch a Sixers game.

If Iverson could go somewhere, I think New York would work for him possibly. He’s played for Brown before and the Knicks need a player they can respect. Stephan is not that player, but Iverson is. If they traded him to the west, I would like him to play for the Rockets. The Rockets have the best center in the game now and T-Mac does not have the personality to push the Rockets where they need to go. Iverson is tough as nails, and he will toughen up the Rockets instantly. But I just don’t see Iverson in Texas, and lets face it Denver is not the place for a bad boy like Iverson. Just look at the great treatment that K-mart is getting in Denver.

If the Sixers do keep Iverson, they should hire Dennis Rodman to come in there and teach them how to rebound and defend the paint, because when it comes to defense the Sixers need a lot of work.

Last but not least, Iverson deserves more than what he’s gotten this year. He’s matured and he’s one of the greatest players of all time. Unlike the Jordan posers of today’s league, Iverson is exactly what he is, an original. There will never be another Iverson.

The Hairport Barbershop

Iowa CityLeave a comment

If you are in Iowa City, my friend John Fowler recently renamed his barbershop to The Hairport Barbershop. John and his fellow barber Bob are great barbers. His biggest customers also happen to be my two sons. We have tried taking our youngest to hair salons and they all ruined his hair. Our five year-old has incredibly straight and thin hair, that he really needs an experienced professional to cut his hair. He’s had so many bad hair cuts that his mom stopped taking him to the salon and took him to John instead. Since then his mom stopped complaining to me about his hair. Our eight year-old won’t shutup about his cool haircut. He’s even asking me to gel his hair up in the morning and to style it like John did for him. He’s only eight!

The Downfall of Dell

Tech TalkLeave a comment

In the same week that Apple was spotlighted for one billion songs sold on iTunes, BusinessWeek publishes It’s Dell vs. the Dell Way, which spotlights Dell as out of touch and out of favor with the stock market. The big problem of course is that Dell really had one idea and that idea has run its course.

For the past 22 years, Dell has laid waste to mighty rivals with one of the most groundbreaking business innovations of the past half-century: selling technology products directly to customers via the telephone, and later the Internet, instead of going through retail stores or resellers. But now the remaining competitors, such as Hewlett-Packard, have narrowed the gap in productivity and price. That leaves Dell in a tight spot. Rollins and Michael S. Dell, founder and now chairman, must either come up with another breakthrough innovation or face a future of slugging it out on near-equal footing with rivals.

HP and to a lesser extent Gateway have caught up to Dell and consumers are changing their minds now about buying products sight unseen. Apple has been pushing the Apple Stores for years now and giving customers the chance to experience technology is all the fashion these days. Even Sony has their own stores now to sell everything from laptops to wide screen televisions. But I think more than any other technology, the cell phone and the iPod have given consumers this idea that all technology needs to be catered to their individual persona.

Consumers’ buying habits are a reflection of a broader shift in the technology world. People are mesmerized by new digital gear with unique features and style. Commodity technologies, such as plain-vanilla PCs, are passe. That’s a difficult development for Dell. It spends less on research and development ($463 million) than Apple Computer ($534 million), despite being four times Apple’s size.

Somehow Dell changing their biege PC desktops to grey and silver is not enough. If consumers wanted these colors I’m sure Apple would have sold an iMac in these colors already. Clearly that has not happened, and Dell really has no clue what makes for a cool home PC, because if they did their gamer machines would at least have an AMD cpu in them by now.

But the real danger for Dell isn’t Apple’s iMac, it is going to be Levono. I hate to root for a non-US company, but the simple truth is that Levono is going to take the US market by storm and seriously drive some needed competition. HP and Dell will find themselves competing against a new company with enough product lines to match them in multiple segments. The Thinkpad has been a high end laptop for years, but recent announcements show that Levono wants to corner the laptop market on the lower end as well. This will spell big trouble for Dell and HP.