SPORTSDAY

To those who commented on the microfracture surgery:

When I first heard about McGrady having surgery this morning on the "Around the Horn'' conference call, it was thought the surgery wouldn't be that serious. It was a couple hours later I heard it was going to be microfracture.

Still a little troubled with McGrady saying he wanted to have it now so he could be healthy in 2010 when he becomes a free agent.

Oklahoma City lost to New Orleans Tuesday night but not because of Kevin Durant. The UT-ex put in a career high 47 points against the Hornets.

Do you realize just how good Durant has become this early in his career?

Here are the top five scorers in the NBA.

1. LeBron James, 28.5; 2. Dwyane Wade, 28.3; 3. Kobe Bryant, 27.3; Durant, 25.9; Dirk Nowitzki, 25.9.

That's a pretty big five to be a part of.

At his news conference Tuesday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones gave one reason for his optimism for the Cowboys in 2009.

"I make comparisons, I look at other teams,'' Jones said. "There's really only one team that should be satisfied today and that's the Pittsburgh Steelers. The team after that that should feel pretty good was 9-7 and had a tough time in its last five (regular season) games. And yet they were almost the world champions.''

That may explain why it looks like he's keeping Terrell Owens. He's going to turn him into Larry Fitzgerald.

Or maybe not.

The NBA's trade deadline is in about 27 hours. The Mavericks need to make a move to get better now.

Some good things happened for the Mavericks Tuesday, even when they weren't playing. One, New Orleans center Tyson Chandler was dealt to Oklahoma City in a salary dump. Remember those Chris Paul alley-oops to Chandler for dunks over Dampier in last year's playoffs?

Won't be happening this time.

Two, Tracy McGrady called it quits. Again. Says he needs surgery that will put him out for the season. Never mind the fact that some players come back in six to eight weeks after this surgery. McGrady's done and that reduces Houston as any kind of scary threat in the playoffs.

There are plenty of people out there who can't stand anything about Alex Rodriguez and they're not necessarily Yankee haters. They just don't like anything about the guy.

I thought A-Rod did about as good as he could have hoped for in his news conference with New York and national baseball media in Tampa Tuesday. He revealed the substance that he took, which he did not do for Peter Gammons last week, and didn't hide much from the public.

I was particularly impressed when he was asked if he had ever tried HGH or amphetamines. He said no to HGH but said he took a substance when he was in Seattle that his since been banned by baseball and by GNC.

Amphetamines and a lot of other GNC products were not against baseball's rules at the time.so Rodriguez probably didn't need to admit to anything, but he did, anyway.

The loss of center Brad Richards to what appears to be a broken wrist is a significant one for the Stars. They need to replace him by dealing with Tampa Bay for Jeff Halpern.

I had a chance to talk to Halpern in Tampa during Super Bowl week. He loved Dallas and would welcome a chance to play for a playoff team instead of the going-nowhere Lightning.

He wouldn't provide for the scoring that Richards brings but he's better defensively and a right-handed faceoff man that the team could use.

The Stars are enough under the cap that they can afford him. It's just up to Tom Hicks to spend the money.

A Texas team that was ranked in the top 10 early in the season may struggle to reach the 65-team NCAA tournament.

I suspect the Longhorns will still find a way in, but they are making it hard on themselves. The Aggies punished them Monday night with an 81-66 win that left Texas 6-5 in the Big 12 and 17-8 overall. Given that their next game is a home game against No. 2 ranked Oklahoma, Texas easily could be 6-6 by late Saturday night.

The Aggies are just another team that defended A.J. Abrams really well and forced him to take a bunch of bad shots. Abrams went 3 for 12 and is 24 for 74 in his career against A&M.; That's right, he has made less than a third of his shots against the Aggies.

Texas has the most votes of the unranked teams in the AP poll, which means they would be No. 26 if they did the rankings that way. So they're still getting respect. But it's fading with each defeat.

NASCAR's Sprint Cup season got off to a rough start Sunday. That's a shame because the Daytona 500 usually produces one of the best finishes of the year.

But rain called the whole thing off after 152 laps, giving Matt Kenseth his first victory since 2007.

I was there in 2003 when Michael Waltrip won a race that went only 109 of the scheduled 200 laps.

People ask why they don't finish the race on Monday but the feeling is that the 200,000-plus fans have spent a lot of money and often have traveled a long way and they deserve to see the winner, even if it means shortening the event.

The Suns fired coach Terry Porter, and that could be a good thing for Dallas.

With Alvin Gentry now coaching Phoenix, the Suns are going to try to get back to being something like the running team they were under Mike D'Antoni. That should mean keeping Amare Stoudemire and trying to trade Shaquille O'Neal, the big piece that keeps them from running.

And with the owner of the Suns having financial troubles and having to pay off Porter now, they may be even more inclined to take what they can get just to get rid of Shaq's contract.

One of the intriguing storylines going into the All-Star Game was Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal playing on the same team for the first time of June 2004.

Apparently the entire NBA decided it was the only storyline and made sure to let them carry the show.

Co-MVPs?

Did anyone on the Eastern Conference team think about playing defense after the first quarter? If they did, they were sitting on the bench.

If this was the '60s and boxing ranked right up there with baseball in terms of its national appeal, we could be arguing (on a '60s version of "Around the Horn'' perhaps) whether Alex Rodriguez or Antonio Margarito had done his sport a greater injustice.

But it's 40 years later and boxing has vanished to an interest level somewhere around professional bowling. That's too bad because there are any number of great fights (and terrific fight previews) on HBO all the time.

By now, you know A-Rod flunked a drug test in 2003.

You may not know that Margarito, who lost a big welterweight fight to Shane Mosley a couple of weeks ago, has been suspended for one year.

Without further ado and with Brett Favre's retirement in mind, my top 10 quarterbacks of the Super Bowl era:

1. Joe Montana, 49ers -- I think the four Super Bowls speak for themselves and unlike Terry Bradshaw, his was not a team that was all about defense. Don't get on him for having the luxury of throwing to Jerry Rice. Montana won two Super Bowls before the 49ers drafted Rice.

2. Peyton Manning, Colts -- Have to move him up a spot this year. He's still capable of playing at an MVP level as he showed this season. Will break all the records Favre holds before he retires and stands a chance of more Super Bowl trips.

3. Brett Favre, Packers -- It's not just the records that make me rank him this high. The 269 consecutive starts for Green Bay and the Jets mean a lot in my book. A lot of quarterbacks get hurt. Favre did, too, but he played through it. Won more games for Green Bay than Troy Aikman played for Dallas. For most of his career, he was not playing with Hall of Fame receivers on his wing.

Quarterback Brett Favre's agent said his client is not returning to the Jets and retiring for real this time. We will see about that.

In the meantime, we are dropping him to the No. 3 spot on all-time quarterbacks of the Super Bowl era. Writing a column about this in all likelihood tomorrow so don't want to give you the whole list.

Would rather hear yours.

I'm only ranking quarterbacks of the Super Bowl era and though John Unitas and Bart Starr played in Super Bowls, most of their careers came before so I am not including them on this list. Only quarterbacks who spent most of their careers after 1966 make the list.

Let's see where you rank Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana, Dan Marino and Dan Fouts,Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach and don't forget the top two of the current crop, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.

Appreciate the comment from Bobby Maverick (I appreciate all comments, trust me), but there never was an asterisk towards Roger Maris' 61-home run season.

Commissioner Ford Frick suggested that if Maris or Mantle broke Ruth's record and it took more than 154 games (expansion changed the schedule to 162 in 1961) perhaps some mark should be placed next to the record.

No doubt some New York sportswriters who worshiped Ruth and didn't care for the painfully shy Maris suggested an asterisk would be appropriate. At the time, though, MLB didn't even have an official record book.

When Total Baseball became the official record book years later, there was no asterisk next to Roger's mark which, of course, has been trumped twice by Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds.

The majority of those of you who commented on what to do about baseball's Hall of Fame want the steroids users left out.

Quick aside: To "The Ghost of Evan Grant,'' no I didn't get his Hall vote, he still has one. And to "David,'' there is no asterisk for Roger Maris' 61-home run season and there never was in the record book. It was talked about but there was no asterisk before McGwire broke his record 37 years later.

Here's one comment I want to throw out there. Marvin Miller, the 91-year-old former baseball union leader, of course blames it all on the owners and the media and very little on the union other than their willingness to ever agree to testing in the first place.

But Miller is correct when he says there's no evidence that taking steroids helps players. They think it does and they were worried 10 years ago that everyone else was doing it so they had to.

Given that, is there more reason to consider these guys Hall of Famers since most or all of them would have made it without banned substances?

I'm just askin'.

I can't imagine that there are too many things that Texas Rep. Joe Barton and I agree upon to begin with. So I guess it's no surprise that he thinks Congress should be spending time (and your tax dollars) on getting rid of the BCS and forcing a playoff system.

I'm guessing this is also one of the few things that Barton, a Republican, and President Obama are likely to share the same views.

Although I have long recognized and written about some of the problems with the current system, I find it immensely better than a 16-team playoff that will cheapen the regular season and do more harm than good to the smaller schools from the non-BCS conferences.

The funny thing to me is that Barton is an Aggie. What does he care?

Remind me. Does Texas A&M; still have a football team?

Although I am keeping "Man on Wire"' at No. 9 on my list for the year after finishing it Monday night, I will admit that seeing him smile as he gained a certain comfort while walking on the cable between the World Trade Center towers was rather amazing.

The whole thing is amazing really. I have no idea how one acquires the talent to walk a tightrope. I have a rather tremendous fear of heights so some of the film was close to difficult to watch but it's an incredible tale.

In case you missed it yesterday, my highly acclaimed top 10 for the year is: 1. Slumdog Millionaire; 2. Curious Case of Benjamin Button; 3. Doubt; 4. The Wrestler; 5. Milk; 6. Gran Torino; 7. Burn After Reading; 8. Rachel Getting Married; 9. Man On Wire; 10. The Reader.

I didn't become a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame until December. Part of it's fun. A big part of it now isn't.

I don't have to make this decision for years, but right now, here's how I would vote on the three best players of the last 30 years.

Barry Bonds -- No. I used to think I would vote for him anyway because he was close to Hall of Fame numbers before he started using. But the enormous gains in strength and even head size along with his defiance make it hard to vote for him.

Roger Clemens -- No. Like Bonds, he probably had Hall credentials or close to them before he reportedly started using banned substances. But it's growing increasinly clear that Clemens used them for a really long time to prolong his career.

We touched on the Grammys and with the Academy Awards less than two weeks away, we need to get to our all-important film ranking. In this case, it's the Basic Cowlishaw System rankings but if someone can come up with a more clever film title, I will gIadly switch to it.

1. Slumdog Millionaire -- It has been winning everything in sight. It should. Go see it.

2. Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- I have to go see this a second time next time I have three hours to spare. I love it.

3. Doubt -- The best acting performances of the year, far better than anything I have ranked ahead of it. And while you are supposed to come out of the film (like the play) not knowing if he is guilty....he is guilty. Trust me.
g
4. The Wrestler -- Sort of a pro wrestling version of "Rocky'' but too much good stuff from Mickey Rourke and the New Jersey setting to ignore.

5. Milk -- Sean Penn deserves best actor. Probably won't win but he deserve it.

6. Gran Torino -- You see the previews and you think you know what it is. Doesn't exactly turn out that way.

7. Burn After Reading -- Whenever the Coen Brothers really nail a film (No Country for Old Men), their next one is ignored or criticized too heavily. This was far better than advertised.

8. Rachel Getting Married -- OK, i watched this on the road, thinking it was a comedy. Wow, did I miss the boat on that one. But in case you think Anne Hathaway is just someone who can do chick flicks watch this. And I love Rosemary DeWitte from the best show on television "Mad Men.''

9. Man On Wire -- True confession: I haven't seen the last 40 minutes. I will before the awards. Good but not great.

10. The Reader -- OK, just saw this and have heard reports it might be gaining ground as an Oscar winner. That is troubling.
Yes, there are great actors and actresses in this film. My only real problem is that Kate Winslet's character feels more guilt (don't read next line if you want to see this movie and have no idea what it is about) that she can't read than the fact that as an SS guard she was responsible for the death of a number of Jews in World War II. And the character, ultimately played by Ralph Fiennes, finds this out after only a brief affair with her and seems to spend the rest of his adult life sending to prisons tapes of books he's reading to her.
Are we just supposed to accept that this is the way all Germans were?
I hope the hell not.

Back to sports shortly.
thanks for reading.

Here's to Tivo and DVRs because if I had to sit through 3 hours of Grammy Awards Sunday night, I wouldn't be here blogging today.

And if Coldplay had just swept everything while true geniuses, Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, sat uncomfortably in the second row, I might have taken a flier off my fourth floor balcony downtown.

Anyway, "15-Step'' isn't even one of the better songs on "In Rainbows'' in my humble opinion (top five in some order would be House of Cards, Reckoner, All I Need, Bodysnatchers and Videotape), but it was great to see Thom and Jonny up there with the USC band about halfway through the show.

The rest of it was garbage. Like it usually is.