This week's special Fourth of July top 11:

Draft analysts need more adjectives

-11. Get a thesaurus. So I was watching the NBA Draft on Tuesday, and within the first 10 minutes I lost count of how many times analyst Jay Bilas used the word "long" to describe a pick. I don't think there was a single athlete in the draft who wasn't "long."

I remember when "long" was a description reserved for guys like Ron Jeremy and John Holmes, not some 6-foot-11 Euro no one but NBA front office-types has heard of with a wingspan of 7-3.

-10. Coward of the county. Kenny Rogers was a bad boy last week, getting into a scuffle with two cameramen before a game in Texas. Commissioner Bud Selig handed down a 20-game suspension, which depending on who you listened to or read was either too much, not enough or just right.

This is one of those things where fans probably don't really care that it happened, and most non-Rangers fans don't care that he was suspended.

Nevertheless, Rogers deserved a longer suspension. Players can't go around preventing those in the media from doing their jobs, which is what Rogers was trying to do. What if a cameraman (or reporter) went out to the mound in the middle of a game and knocked the ball away from Rogers? You can bet his reaction (or any other player who was interfered with during a game) would not be as restrained and civil as the cameraman's.

-9. More from the Draft. Dick Vitale and Stephen A. Smith went to considerable lengths to trash all the foreign players being picked ahead of college and high school kids.

Vitale went off on a rant about how he didn't understand why teams were passing on "our boys" in favor of unproven (in his mind) foreigners. He even went so far to suggest that the only general managers who knew what they were doing were the ones drafting college kids, and the others should start looking for another profession, forgetting for a moment that this year's NBA champion San Antonio Spurs have won two out of the last three Finals with a roster featuring several non-Americans.

(Incidentally, if you take a trip in the way back machine to the 1950s and substitute whites and blacks for "our boys" and foreign players, you pretty much get the same argument against integration.)

At any rate, I hadn't heard that much xenophobia since the last time I listened to Michael Savage on the radio.

-8. This isn't sports, but … So I'm all geared up yesterday for the Pink Floyd reunion during the Live 8 concert - my Syd Barrett memorial bong locked and loaded, the lava lamp pulled out of mothballs, some incense burning and a giant bag of Doritos at the ready - and MTV/VH1 don't even air the performance in its entirety.

Instead, I came into the office and watched a streaming feed courtesy of AOL.

David Bauder wrote for The Associated Press that "(t)elevision seemed shockingly old-fashioned … AOL's coverage was so superior, it may one day be seen as a historical marker in drawing people to computers instead of TV screens for big events."

In the era of 200-plus channels, how hard would it have been for MTV (and its corporate parent Viacom) to use one of their stations to show us how great the concerts were instead of having vapid veejays telling us how great the shows were?

-7. Lord of the ring. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was in Moscow last week. A man proud of his team's accomplishments, Kraft showed Russian President Vladimir Putin his latest Super Bowl ring, and Putin promptly put in his pocket and walked away.

When the story started to make headlines over here, Kraft quickly issued a statement saying he gave the ring to (Lootin') Putin, displaying either a remarkable bit of generosity considering the bauble is worth tens of thousands of dollars, or savvy diplomacy.

-6. Lord of the idiots. Terrell Owens wanted to play for the Sacramento Kings' summer league team - I guess to keep him occupied while he holds out from the Eagles.

Understandably, the Eagles said no (the Kings were only going to allow it if Philly gave the OK).

In just over a year, Owens has gone from a greedy, whiny SOB who forced his way out of San Francisco - but voided a trade to Baltimore - to an amazing gladiator with the heart of a champion willing to play hurt in the Super Bowl back to a greedy, whiny SOB.

-5. Another perspective. Just to let you know I'm not the only one ripping the parents on Bravo's "Sports Kids Moms & Dads," here's this gem from Frank Deford in the June 27 issue of Sports Illustrated:

"It's an absolutely compelling series, all the more so because we are so repelled by the parents and touched by the children, these surrogates for their parents' delusions."

And delusional they are. Craig, who is pushing his son to an NFL career, wrote a letter on Trenton's behalf to Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, to let the Wolverine's know Trenton is interested in joining the maze and blue.

Remember, the kid is eight years old.

It's now obvious the outrage directed at magazines and Internet sites that rank the best sixth grade prospects and such is misplaced. There is clearly a demand for such things and it's created by the parents.

-4. And stepping to the mic to remind us that overbearing parents are not a recent phenomenon, Richard Williams. Venus and Serena's dad, conspicuously silent while his daughters were not winning much the last few years, claimed last week that the reason they struggled was because of the criticism from fans and media while they were dominating.

"When it was Steffi Graf or Chris Evert that won, or Monica Seles - but when those two black girls came and beat up everyone, tennis was 'not exciting,'" he told The Associated Press on Thursday after watching Venus beat Maria Sharapova in the Wimbledon semifinals.

"I bet you they wouldn't say that if Sharapova won all the time, or Lindsay (Davenport) won all the time. So who would want to play under those conditions?"

Sorry Richard, but it wasn't boring when your daughters dominated. Watching the two of them tear through the competition was compelling.

It was (and is) the matches between Venus and Serena that were boring. They had all the interest and aesthetic appeal of a House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings & Energy Management hearing.

-3. The NHL PR machine gets to work. Philadelphia Flyers loudmouth Jeremy Roenick stuck his skate in his mouth last week when he said that if people don't realize how much the players will have sacrificed to get the game back on the ice (and they have given up a lot), "don't come. We don't want you at the rink, we don't want you in the stadium, we don't want you to watch hockey."

Yeah, that's just the kind of thing you want to be saying, regardless of the context, when you have already alienated every single fan by losing the 2004-05 season. Good work, boys.

-2. Long live the king. Lance Armstrong dumped a big bucket of water on the idea that he is finished yesterday. Armstrong came in just two seconds behind the winner of the Tour de France's first stage and opened up big leads on the riders thought to be his main competition.

It's only one day into the grueling Tour, but a seventh straight for Armstrong win looks pretty good right now.

-1. New career option? New Montana athletic director Jim O'Day was at one time a sports hack here at the Inter Lake.

So I guess you can look forward to me running the Griz (or Bobcats) in about 20 years.

Enjoy the rest of your long weekend with that lingering happy thought.

Andrew Hinkelman is a sports writer for The Daily Inter Lake. He can be reached at hink@dailyinterlake.com