LeBron James only action in the fourth quarter Monday night came on the bench during timeouts, when he played to the crowd and danced alongside his teammates. If the New York Knicks were hoping to impress the Cavaliers superstar in their final meeting before he can become a free agent this summer, they flopped badly in Cleveland’s 124-93 victory. The Knicks have gutted their roster over the last couple of years in hopes of being far enough under the salary cap to offer a pair of max contracts this summer, when James can lead an All-Star cast of free agents. Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni was asked if all the losing, and the embarrassing beatings like the one sustained Monday, is worth it.
“I’ll tell you next year,” he said. “Right now it’s pretty frustrating for everybody, but it’s what we’re doing.”

The FIFA World Cup 2010 has no doubt spread the frenzy among the football fans but the fact that it is a contest between the national teams of different nation makes it a real tough task to predict the winners of the tournament. Obviously every football lover will have his favorite team or player and want a respective team to clinch the cup.

And before predicting or make assumption about which team would qualify to the finals let us look in to the booty that each team will make in course of the event.

Every team was awarded $ 1 million towards preparations, the team that get expelled in the group stage will receive $ 8 million, for the team that qualify to the Round 16 will receive $ 9 million, quarter finalists will get $18 million, semi-finalists will receive $20 million, runners-up will get $ 24 million and the winners of the World Cup 2010 will get bag a staggering $ 30 million.

The seeded teams are most likely to cross the hurdle of the group stage of course unless and until we do not have surprise performances from the weaker teams.

Group A has France (7th rank) and Mexico (15th rank) that look like strong contenders. Argentina with 8th rank and Nigeria holding 12th rank will move ahead strongly from Group B.

From Group C it could be England (9th rank) and the USA (14th rank), Serbia and Germany with 20th and 6th rank respectively will march ahead.

In Group E Netherlands (3rd rank) and Cameroon (11th rank) seem most likely to make it. Italy with 4th rank and Paraguay with 30th rank are strong teams from Group F.

In Group G Brazil with 5th rank and Cote d’Ivoire with 16th rank have a great chance and from Group H No.1 ranked team Spain and Honduras might take a leap.

The International Hockey Federation or FIH governs 127 hockey associations in five continents. The World ranking is based on the point’s calculation that is obtained from the seeded entries in the International hockey tournament, which also includes the qualification process and the international results for the past four years.

The tournaments considered for calculating the points are: Olympic games, Hockey World Cup, Champions trophy, Champions Challenge and Continental federations Championships.

The qualification tournament for any of aforementioned events will also be taken into consideration in calculating the points.

First place finisher from Asia, Europe and Oceania receive 500 points upfront, as the standard of competition is far superior in these continents. Whereas, first place finishing teams form Pan America and Africa get only 375 points.

Top Ten Ranking Teams (Men’s):

1) Germany - 2088 points
2) Australia - 1993 points
3) Spain - 1790 points
4) Netherlands - 1778 points
5) Korea - 1730 points
6) England - 1535 points
7) Pakistan - 1498 points
New Zealand -1373 points
9) Belgium - 1135 points and
10) China - 1078 points.

The above rankings were as of 14th December 2009.

Top Ten Ranking Teams (women’s)

1) Netherlands - 2190
2) Argentina – 1980
3) China - 1860
4) Germany – 1780
5) Australia – 1728
6) Spain – 1408
7) England – 1405
Japan – 1403
9) New Zealand – 1333
10) USA – 1213

The above rankings were quite recent; as of December 15, 2009.