Showing posts with label fun. Show all posts

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Duane Michael Wagner Vero Beach Palm Beach Gardens Chief Marketing Strategist

Dan Le Batard: Not very much — only a little luck — separated Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs - Dan Le Batard - MiamiHerald.com

Dan Le Batard: Not very much — only a little luck — separated Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs - Dan Le Batard - MiamiHerald.com

Duane Michael Wagner Vero Beach Fl and Palm Beach Gardens Fl Chief Marketing Strategist

"Michael Wagner"

Friday, June 21, 2013

Duane Michael Wagner Vero Beach and Palm Beach Gardens

Duane Michael Wagner
Vero Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, and Jupiter
Chefe Marketing Officer

Duane Michael Wagner Vero Beach Fl, Palm Beach Gardens Fl

NBA FINALS GAME 7 | HEAT 95, SPURS 88

Miami Heat defeats San Antonio Spurs in Game 7 to win second consecutive NBA title

Led by Finals MVP LeBron James, the Heat clinched back-to-back titles to etch a place in South Florida sports history.

Miami Heat fans celebrate the team's championship outside of AmericanAirlines Arena on June 20, 2013.

EMILY MICHOT / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

Related Content

BY JOSEPH GOODMAN

JGOODMAN@MIAMIHERALD.COM

That’s three titles for a town and two crowns for its king.

With a season, a playoffs, an NBA Finals and a Game 7 that will echo for years to come, the Miami Heat defeated the San Antonio Spurs 95-88 on Thursday night at AmericanAirlines Arena to win its second NBA championship in a row and cap the most exciting two weeks in South Florida sports history.

LeBron James played stunning, brilliant basketball to earn the NBA Finals MVP for the second straight year and Dwyane Wade, who played throughout the playoffs despite knee problems, saved his best for the final game of a grueling postseason. James finished with 37 points, 12 rebounds and four assists, going 12 of 23 from the field, 5 of 10 from three-point range and 8 of 8 from the free-throw line. Wade had 23 points, 10 rebounds and an assist and made 11 of his 21 attempts.

“This team is amazing, and the vision that I had when I decided to come here is all coming true,” James said. “Through adversity, through everything we’ve been through, we’ve been able to persevere and to win back-to-back championships. It’s an unbelievable feeling. I’m happy to be part of such a first-class organization.”

FINALLY, BACK TO BACK WINS

To repeat as champion, the Heat had to win back-to-back games for the first time since Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. Miami won Game 7s in back-to-back series, providing South Florida with one of the most exhilarating rides professional sports can offer.

It was the Heat’s first Finals Game 7 in the 25-year history of the franchise and it was a classic. The teams seemed to swap the lead on nearly every possession throughout the third quarter, and the final period provided nail-biting drama until the final minute. Game 7 was tied 11 times and the lead changed hands seven times.

“This was a tremendous game,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “It wouldn’t end any other way.”

James, who scored 22 points in the second half, nailed a 19-foot jumper with 27.9 seconds left to give the Heat a 92-88 lead and then, to seal the championship, stole a pass from Manu Ginobili after a timeout. He then made a pair of free throws to kick-start the celebration.

James scored 69 points in the final two games of the Finals and here’s a jaw-dropping statistic: Throughout his career, James has averaged 34.4 points in five career Game 7s.

“He made enough shots to make us change our defense over and over again,” Heat center Tim Duncan said. “We just couldn’t find a way to stop him.”

CHALMERS HITS KEY THREE

Mario Chalmers banked in a long three-pointer at the end of the third quarter to give the Heat a 72-71 lead. From there, the madness began. Consider this for a measure of how crazy Game 7 truly was: Only five players scored for the Heat, yet James, Wade, Chalmers and Shane Battier outscored the Spurs 92-88.

“Shane ain’t hit a shot since I don’t know when and tonight he was unconscious,” Wade said.

Battier, who redeemed himself 1,000 times over for his performance in the Eastern Conference finals, scored 18 points, going 6 of 8 from three-point range. Chalmers had 14 points, and Chris Andersen had three points to round out the uneven scoring. Ray Allen, Mike Miller and Chris Bosh shot 0 of 14 combined.

“It’s better to be timely than good,” Battier said. “I believe in basketball gods and I felt like they owed me big-time.”

For Duncan, the Spurs’ four-time NBA champion and future Hall of Famer, it was his first loss in a Finals. He finished with 24 points, going 8 of 18 from the field, but went 2 of 6 in the fourth quarter. As a team, the Spurs shot 30 percent (6 of 20) from the field in the final period.

San Antonio led by three with 46.4 seconds left in the third quarter before Battier tied the score with his fourth three-pointer of the game.

“Game 7 is always going to haunt me,” Duncan said.

A STORYBOOK SEASON

Alongside the 1972 undefeated Dolphins, the 2013 Heat will go down as one of the greatest professional sports teams in South Florida history. The unforgettable run began with a franchise-best 66-win regular season, which included a 27-game winning streak, and ended on a makeshift stage in the middle of AmericanAirlines Arena with Heat owner Micky Arison raising his franchise’s third Larry O’Brien Trophy.

“Go party,” someone screamed into the stage’s microphone to the 19,900 fans in attendance and an entire city watching from homes and parties and bars throughout South Florida.

Thursday night marked the seven-year anniversary of the Heat’s first championship. In that time, Miami has celebrated more NBA titles than any other city. But this party was different. It was ecstasy borne from endurance and wonderment crafted by willpower.

For Heat players, coaches and fans, the back-and-forth nature of the final month of the postseason was a gut-wrenching exercise. Beginning May 22 and not ending until the final game on the last possible day of the postseason, the Heat swapped wins for losses and kept an entire city wrapped in dueling emotional states of despair and joy.

Last year, when the Heat won its first title of the Big 3

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/21/v-fullstory/3462544/miami-heat-defeats-san-antonio.html#storylink=cpy

Miami Heat defeats San Antonio Spurs in Game 7 to win second consecutive NBA title - Miami Heat - MiamiHerald.com

Michael Wagner Vero Beach Fl, Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens Chief Marketing Officer

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Michael Wagner Vero Beach, Fl, Federal Foreclosure Prevention Program Extended

Michael Wagner Vero Beach, Fl Marketing Strategist

Homeowners risk losing tax break to pursue loan modification

Updated: 10:38 a.m. Tuesday, June 11, 2013 | Posted: 7:20 p.m. Monday, June 10, 2013

BY KIMBERLY MILLER - PALM BEACH POST STAFF WRITER

Homeowner advocates celebrated last month when a key federal foreclosure prevention program was extended, but the time gain has turned borrowers into unwitting gamblers, forced to chance a loan modification at the risk of losing out on a short sale tax break.

The Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program is now open through 2015, meaning homeowners rushing to negotiate a deal by year’s end have more time. What hasn’t been extended is a law that allows homeowners who short sell their home to exclude the forgiven debt _ usually tens of thousands of dollars _ from their income.

That ends Jan. 1, 2014, and means if borrowers pursue a loan modification and fail, they could face a short sale of their home next year without the benefit of the tax break.

“It’s putting people in a crazy situation,” said attorney Paul Krasker, whose West Palm Beach law firm does foreclosure defense and helps homeowners with loan modifications. “Some people wanting to save their home are actually being forced to do a short sale so they won’t owe the IRS.”

Since 2007, homeowners whose banks have forgiven unpaid mortgage debt after a short sale, principal reduction or foreclosure have not had to count that money as income on their tax returns. Originally set to end in December, the Mortgage Debt Relief Act was extended in a last-minute vote on legislation that averted the worst of the fiscal cliff earlier this year.

With some short sales taking months to complete, Realtors say the decision on whether to put a home on the market needs to be made soon so it can close before the Jan. 1, 2014, tax relief cutoff.

Sherry Lee, broker/owner of Lee Property Sales in West Palm Beach, suggests getting a contract on a short sale by the end of September to meet the deadline. But she has one client who would prefer to keep his home with a loan modification instead of put it on the market as a short sale.

“I told him straight up that he has to do the loan mod right now and get an answer because the only other alternative at that point is short sale and it’s already June,” Lee said. “I can’t tell my clients not to roll the dice, but I have to walk a fine line as far as advice.”

The debt relief act has been particularly helpful to South Florida borrowers who saw their home values plummet 51 percent from the peak of the market in December 2006 to a low point in November 2011, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index. Values have rebounded in recent months and were 43 percent below the peak in March, according to the index.

Under normal circumstances, if a home sells for $150,000 less than what is owed on the mortgage, the borrower would be on the hook for up to $58,500 in taxes, depending on the tax bracket. The debt relief act waives that charge.

“Prices are up so people are closer to getting even and this will be less of an issue,” said Jason Altman, a Boynton Beach accountant who has helped people avoid paying taxes on canceled debt and suggests insolvency as an option to defer phantom income. “This is a problem, but also an opportunity. It’s not the end of the world.”

Not everyone can benefit from the debt relief act. It covers only forgiven debt on principal residences and amounts up to $2 million, or $1 million if married but filing separately.

Krasker said his employees were ecstatic when the Home Affordable Modification Program to reduce monthly loan payments was extended through December 2015 because they were getting nervous about completing clients’ files before the end of the year.

Since the program was announced in 2009, more than 105,000 Florida homeowners, including 46,300 in South Florida, have received permanent mortgage modifications through the program.

But then Krasker realized homeowners would have to make the difficult decision of whether to pursue a loan modification under the threat of missing the tax deadline.

“If they want to continue forward with the modification and take the risk, we tell them that that’s what it is at this point, a risk,” Krasker said.”We hope the (tax break) will be extended, but as of today, it hasn’t.”

The dilemma

While federal loan modification plans have been extended through 2015, a law that waives taxes on forgiven debt expires Jan. 1, 2014. That means a homeowner who holds out for a loan modification, but is unsuccessful, risks having to short sale their home and owing tens of thousands of dollars in taxes on the forgiven debt.