In case you missed it, LeBron James won the NBA Championship last night. No? Well, made it to the finals? Won the MVP? Clinched a playoff spot? Beat the Knicks in a regular season game in early March? Oh, that’s it.

While we clean up the, ehem, mess that is spilling over from ESPN after LeBron put up fifty points and 11 assists, allow me to be a voice of reason as I usually am. MARCH! KNICKS! ISIAH THOMAS! LEBRON! Put that together and you get this: LeBron James should have good games against the Isiah Thomas coached Knicks in March. The Knicks are putrid. Putrid doesn’t even work for the Knicks. If I had to pick two players from the Knicks to start an NBA franchise, I’d take David Lee and shoot myself in the eye. LeBron got a hand job, er, standing ovation from the MSG crowd and called the game “a dream come true.” Hey, Bron Bron, is an NBA title a dream of yours? Or are you just worried about looking good on March 5 against a team whose only shot at the playoffs will come when they buy some tickets in Orlando, Boston, Detroit, and Cleveland. Are we done cleaning up the mess?

The Phoenix Suns and the Dallas Mavericks are slipping off the surface of the Western Conference playoffs. I watched the Suns fourth quarter against the Nuggets last night and they looked, well, slow, like everyone has been saying. Shaq is less a help than he is an albatross around Steve Nash’s neck. And the Suns are drowning. They do not look good. And then there’s the Mavericks who have resorted to moving Dirk Nowitzki from forward to ultimate fighter. I’m not saying that they’re both going to miss the playoffs, but keep an eye on the situation.

Warren Sapp retired. It’s the only thing that he’s ever done quietly since being born. Kudos Warren.

On to the 3 winners and losers of the NFL Free Agency period. I’m much more excited about tomorrow when I will give you my top 5 running back (and quarterback if one person comments on this post. 5 comments would be great, but I’ll I’m asking for is 1. I don’t care what you write. You could write the letter “C.” Just something). On to this segment that, frankly, bores me a little bit:

Trying to find 3 winners is pretty difficult. Not a lot of teams made a splash, never mind a good splash.

WINNERS

3. John Clayton- Because we got to see your skeletal image. Don’t worry Matt, you don’t look like John Clayton. I would say you more closely resemble a combination of Todd McShay and Mark Schlereth.

2. Cleveland Browns- Cleveland is everyone’s number one team on these lists, except mine. Re-Signing Derek Anderson didn’t make my heart explode with joy like it did everyone else. Jamal Lewis is coming back? Wow. How old is he? Donte’ Stallworth? Eh. I like him, no one else does. That’s not exactly a good argument in an athlete’s defense. I do like the Corey Williams signing which is why they find themselves here. Shaun Rogers is a whale.

1. Jacksonville Jaguars- Contrary to popular belief, this team actually exists and quietly did well to rebuild and restock areas of need. The number one area of need was wideout. They signed Jerry Porter who has a ton of speed and a lot of untapped potential after years playing in the black hole (I don’t mean that lovingly). They also picked up an underused young DT in Jimmy Kennedy, resigned OT Maurice Williams, grabbed a good complementary CB in Drayton Florence. None of these guys will make the analysts do what they did for LeBron last night, but I like these signings. Good under the radar signings in a very week class.

(Real Number 3 is the Patriots for getting Moss back. Otherwise, they’d be number 1 below. Still, sign a LB, maybe?)

LOSERS

3. Us.

2. Atlanta- A team that could have used Derek Anderson instead decided to release Byron Leftwich and Joey Harrington, and just have a go at it with Chris Redman. Good planning there. He’s been great. At running back they alienated Warrick Dunn by signing Michael Turner to a huge contract, and subsequently released Dunn, because Jerrious Norwood is a great back up, apparently. Maybe Michael Vick can play running back when he comes out of jail. My favorite Falcons move, however, was releasing Alge Crumpler and replacing him with a man named Ben Hartstock, who couldn’t make an impact with the Titans terrible offense. Good.

1. Oakland- The Raiders were very active. First the good, they franchised Nnamdi Asomugha, a quietly great corner. The bad? Giving insane dollars to Gibril Wilson, a middle of the road safety and then making Tommy Kelly (yea, you know, him) the highest paid DT in NFL history. More money than Vince Wilfork. More money than Jamaal Williams. More money than Warren Sapp ever got paid. Etc. Etc. They’re well set up now to not be able to sign their first round draft pick. That’s not a joke. There are questions whether they’ll be able to sign the unfortunate fool who falls to them. Oh, they also lost Josh McCown, a capable backup quarterback. So it’s JaMarcus Russel or bust. I’m voting bust.

(We are still losers in the NFL Free Agency Period. But really, so are the Patriots, who lost Asante Samuel, but signed the immortal Sam Aiken and Jason Webster. Perhaps the recently resigned Larry Izzo can start at linebacker).

Game O’ The Day: HUGE GAME ALERT!!! HUGE GAME ALERT!!! Stanford @ UCLA. It’s one of those games that I shouldn’t need to hype. Number 7 at Number 2. The best conference’s two best teams. I think UCLA is great and Stanford is slightly overhyped. However, Brook Lopez and his floppy haired brother Robin (their parents really wanted girls apparently) have been great offensively and defensively respectively and I’m exploding with excitement to see Kevin Love up against Brook Lopez. The game is on your locals FSN or CSN channel at (sigh) 11 P.M. You won’t, but you should stay up.