NBA Blog

Every once in a while while scouring the Summer League rosters, I see long lost college stars that never quite made to the NBA.  Then, once in a blue moon, I discover something far more interesting, players that I actually played well against while growing up in San Antonio.  This always makes me feel good, in an I-need-something-because-I-never-really-achieved-the-success-I-was-hoping-for-and-now-feel-aged-and-diminished-athleticly type of way.  This feeling began when I had the opportunity to watch Devin Brown succeed as a Spur.  Brown was a star in the San Antonio high school sports scene when I was entering my junior year in high school.  We had the opportunity to play West Campus at our house that year.  Brown showed up wearing the Horace Grant blue rec-specs, and we immediately wrote him off.  We also had a 6′9″ center who was hoping to garner some area recognition by shutting Brown down.  Well, Devin went for something like 40 points, at least that’s how I remember it.  I guarded Devin for about 1 minute and 33 seconds, and he did not score on me.  It’s pathetic, I know, but at this point, I’ll take whatever recognition I can get. 

Two summers ago, I was watching some Summer League games and I discovered a player that I played many games against in high school.  His name was Steven Barber and he was playing for the New York Knicks.  I watched that game intently, and Barber played very well.  In fact, he played well enough to earn a preseason roster spot with the Knicks.  He did not make the roster, and I failed to pay too much attention to what he was doing.  The story does not end there however.  Earlier this morning, when I should have been working, I was checking out the 2007 Pepsi Summer League rosters.  During my search, I was happy to see that Steven Barber was once again on the NBA radar.  He is currently on the Orlando Magic summer league roster.  He did not play in the first game (check the box score), but I will be watching the Magic box scores in the hopes that Barber will get some run. 

You see, I went to a high school that was in the same district as Barber’s high school, and we were in the same class year.  Therefore, I played against Steven two times per year.  His high school was much more talented than ours, and they always killed us in basketball.  During our freshman year, we were both the leading scorers for our teams.  He was the point guard, he was probably 5′5″ at the time, and I was our power forward.  They ran a 2-3 zone against us, which always suprised me, because they easily could have manned up on us.  (It did not matter, they beat us by 30 every time).  However, I was able to find all kinds of holes in their zone at the high post, and averaged 23 against them.  (I can only verify this, because when I was cleaning things out of my old room at my parents’ house, I found an old scrap book of newspaper clippings and other sports stuff that my dad kept for me).  We also met up in AAU games during the summer.  There were guys who were just as talented as Steven, both on his high school teams and his AAU teams, but for one reason or another, they disappeared off the radar.  Obviously, my game never fully developed (neither did my height, I think I grew one inch in high school) and I went on to be another anonymous Division III athlete (football and baseball), while Steven went on to be a star at UT-Arlington.  (Read more here).  It just feels good to know that some people that I played against have been able to continue playing and doing what they love to do.  Trust me, I would rather be pulling 1,000 jumpers a day than sitting at a desk. 

Recently, he has been bouncing around leagues (playing briefly in the new ABA, the USBL, and the NBDL last year), looking for a home and an opportunity to continue to play the game we all love.  I can only hope that he enjoys every second of his journey, and the people here at nbahoops.blog.com (me) will be rooting for him and keeping a watchful eye on his career.

I took some time this weekend to watch some NBA Summer League Games, which was quite enjoyable.  True, these games are guard-dominated, and 95% of the players will be playing in Europe or the D-League, but I just enjoy watching basketball.  Here are some thoughts:

• Kevin Durant’s silky-smooth offensive game looks just as good when he shoots 5-17 as it does when he shoots 12-17.
• Rudy Gay may be poised to make the leap this year, because all the skills are there.  He doesn’t show much intensity, he just makes everything look easy and fun.  His demeanor reminds me of Carmello Anthony when ‘Melo flicks the switch on.
• The Memphis Grizzlies are going to shock some teams early by running and gunning. 
• The Celtics may actually have been lucky to trade for Ray Allen instead of Shawn Marion, because it looks like they found the bootleg version of Marion in Brandon Wallace.  Wallace is 6′10″ and oozes super-athlete out of his pores.  His body size and length even closely resembles Marion.  If he can play solid ball for the Celtics in his limited minutes this year, he could be a dominant rebounder at the small forward/power forward positions. 
• Gerald Green, on the other hand, still takes too many TERRIBLE shots.
• I really hope that Daniel Gibson did not seriously injure his ankle against Team China.  Gibson looked extremely confident in the first half of that game, and should be ready to start at the point for the Cavs next season.
• Shannon Brown is an athletic freak.  I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do when Larry Hughes goes down for an extended stretch of time this season.
• I would like to apologize to Team China for saying that the Houston Rockets’ uniforms look like theirs.  That was just wrong, the Rockets’ uniforms look MUCH worse.
• Speaking of Team China, Yi Jianlian looks pretty darn good against D-Leaguers.  He’s not dominating them like 5′6″ trainers or folding chairs, but Yi is definetly putting up a pretty good showing thus far.
• Trying to be a defensive force in a Summer League game while D-League-in-training officials are calling the game has not helped Greg Oden.  However, there have been faint glimpses of his monstrous ability, like his three point play on an offensive rebound in his first game.
• If I’m a Portland Trailblazers fan right now, I’m giddy.  The twosome of LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden looks really impressive.  That team is loaded with young talent at every position.  At point guard, they have Sergio Rodriguez and Jarret Jack.  At shooting guard they have Brandon Roy.  At small forward, they have Martell Webster and Travis Outlaw.  At power forward, they have LaMarcus Aldridge and Josh McRoberts, and they’ve got Greg Oden at center.  Then they have five other players developing overseas.  In the words of my old friend Mox, ouches.

In other news, fairwell to Dan Patrick.  Patrick will be leaving ESPN Radio, and his final broadcast will be August 17. 

Alright, alright.  Let me clarify.  I am not attacking Kevin Garnett.  In fact, I openly root for Garnett, except when playing the Spurs.  Nobody shows more intensity and heart on the court (with the exception of possibly Allen Iverson whom I also root for).  However, I do believe that Tim Duncan is better. 

Here is a look at the two players stats for their careers:

Player A

Player B

Now what if I told you that Player B also won four NBA titles, and also won three NBA Finals MVP’s during his career, would that be something that interests you? 

Yikes, those numbers are very, very similar.  But, I could hit you up with statistics for guys like Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, and Moses Malone, and they would probably be very similar.  Is K.G. unique; very.  Does he have talent oozing out of his pores; absolutely.  However, Tim Duncan is so fundamentally flawless at every aspect of the game.  He has anchored the best defense in the NBA for 10 years, and the Spurs have been the best franchise in all professional sports combined during that same time frame.  Sure, David Robinson was around for almost half of Tim’s career, but the Spurs never faltered even an iota after Robinson retired.  Instead, Rasho Nesterovic was able to play alongside Tim Duncan and occasionally look useful.  By year two, the Spurs were Timmy’s team, and everybody knew it.  He gets consistently double-teamed and hounded, but puts up the same stat line every year. 

Also, Tim Duncan has never missed the playoffs during his career, and K.G. has done it in consecutive seasons.  Sure, his team was awful, but so were the Lakers.  Do you think Kobe is missing the playoffs?  No sir. 

That always intimidating middle-infielder, Neifi Perez, has been busted for juicing.  He has to sit out 25 games now.  Obviously, the ‘roids have been helping Nef out.  Check out his career numbers. 

If Perez was taking illegal performance enhancers, doesn’t this sort of support my theory of ’blame one, blame all’ when it comes to steroids.  Barry Bonds continues to take his beating, yet far too many players get the benefit of the doubt, which is, for lack of a better word, crap.   If guys hitting .172 and seldom seeig the field are on juice during baseball’s toughest drug-testing period, how many guys were openly popping pills, rubbing creams, and injecting juice when nobody was being tested and everybody was pining for homeruns?  It’s outrageous. 

Oh, and speaking of performance-enhancing supplements, the Tour de France is set to get under way.  I think this is steroids’ (and other performance enhancers’) best time of year.  The Tour de France gets under way.  MLB is in full swing, and some players might need that little ‘extra boost’ for the Homerun Derby, or to get through the ‘dog days of summer’. 

I fear that I am becoming somewhat jaded, but at least I have the greatest power forward of all time’s future teammates tipping off as we speak.  NBA Summer League actions has begun with the Spurs facing the 76ers. 

Alright, so immediately after I posted my story about Tim Duncan being the greatest power forward of all time, there were numerous attacks demanding I look at the facts.  They all requested that I place Kevin Garnett ahead of Tim Duncan.  Just ain’t happening.  Sorry.  Too bad.  I don’t care how many times you say that Tim has had better support around him.  Anyway, I will go ahead and counter some of their arguments for you.

One person had the gall to say that Tim’s supporting cast was better, because he had Hall of Famer David Robinson alongside of him for two championships.  You will never, EVER hear me say anything negative about The Admiral, who I believe is the greatest human being to ever play professional sports.  However, David was not even a shell of himself during his final season, which was championship number two.  Check out his stats that season.  Then, that person went on to use the name Rasho Nesterovic, which completely discounted his opinion.  Hello, the Spurs signed Rasho from Minnesota (go here to refresh your memory).  He was playing alongside Kevin Garnett first where he had his best statistical season, and Rasho lost his job to Nazr Mohammed during championship number 3.  Yes, that is the same Nazr Mohammed who started 33 games for the Pistons this season.  The point being, Tim took Rasho a heck of a lot farther than K.G. was able to do.  In my opinion, Rasho was worthless in both locations.  Meanwhile, Nazr Mohammed has been worthless in Atlanta, Detroit, and New York.  The only time he was relevant and useful was during his late season play after being dealt to the Spurs during 2005.  Other than that, he’s been a stiff.  I think that production had something to do with the guy on the other end of the post with him. 

Also, during the first title season, Tim was the only All Star.  The rest of his starting five consisted of severly UNDERRATED Avery Johnson, the rapidly aging Mario Elie, Sean Elliott on dialysis (seriously because of his kidney failure, yet he played his tail off every game of the postseason), and David Robinson who was having serious back problems by that time. 

During the second title season, Tony Parker was still figuring it out, and even spent the majority of the finals series on the bench being replaced by Speedy Claxton.  Manu Ginobili was still figuring the NBA out, and Stephen Jackson, when not losing his mind, was the second most important player on that roster.  Oh yeah, go ahead and check out Tim’s stat line in the closeout game.

During title number three (2005), Tim once again had a monster game in game 7.  This was his most frustrating NBA finals, and arguably, Manu Ginobili could have been the Finals MVP.  Instead, Tim got Finals MVP number three to go along with his three titles.  This team, however, began to show the evolution of the Spurs, especially when they ran through the Mavericks and the Suns, outscoring their running-and-gunning opponents as well as beating them up defensively.  And who can forget Robert Horry’s 21-point performance?

During this last title, which by my count is four, the Spurs continued their push towards a higher octane offense, despite the incessant labeling of ‘team vanilla’ by the media.  Once again, that makes four titles in ten years.  The first one came during Tim’s second season.  Each of these titles have had different key players, except for these last two where the Spurs have relied on the three-headed monster of Tim-Tony-Manu.  The 1999 title team and the 2003 title team were completely different rosters, with the only returning players being David Robinson, Tim Duncan, and Steve Kerr.  Yep, you read that right.  If you really need more information than this, I’ll let USA Today break it down for you as well.

Is Tim as entertaining as Kevin Garnett?  Hell no.  I once watched K.G. get all in Steve Nash’s grits as Nash tried to break him down off the dribble on the defensive end.  All Garnett did was man him up, beat Nash to every spot, and then clap in Nash’s face as Steve got frustrated.  That was during a first-round playoff series against Dallas.  The problem, Minnesota lost.  That is exactly what they’ve done every year in the postseason since K.G. became their guy (with the exception of the first year of the Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell experiment).  Has K.G. had a lot of help from the front office?  No.  In fact, that front office has been, in my opinion, the worst in basketball over the last six years.  I know that such a statement pisses off Billy Knight, Billy King, and Elgin Baylor.  However, this was a franchise that had players pining to play alongside Garnett, unlike Atlanta.  K.G. was also willing to openly accept a potential star, unlike Philly, who had to ship out potential stars like Larry Hughes and Jerry Stackhouse during the early Iverson years.  And Elgin Baylor actually fleeced Kevin McHale in the Cassell-Jaric swap.  Unbelievable, when Elgin, the veteran of the lottery process, makes you look dumb as a general manager, you know you are in over your head.

The only problem, Kevin Garnett, the supposed greatest power forward of all time, has missed three consecutive postseasons.  Three.  There is no way that happens when over half of the NBA teams get into the postseason.  Therein lies the problem.  As it stands right now, with Duncan’s four titles and K.G.’s one foray into the second round of the playoffs, this argument is somewhat (repeat, somewhat) like comparing Tracy McGrady to Kobe Bryant.  (By the way, Tracy is the other uber-talented star to never play in a second round).  Much to my chagrin (and Tracy’s), Kobe has three rings while T-Mac can’t get out of the first round.  Has Kobe had a better supporting cast? Um, yeah, until recently, yet without Shaq, Kobe has gone just as far as T-Mac has gone (with Yao). 

Their regular season statistics are very close, with Tim edging out K.G. in field goal %.  But, I will break it down accordingly for everyone, because I am the person who believes that winning is the most important factor of them all.

Tim                                                           K.G.
4 titles                                                     0 titles
2 regular season M.V.P.’s                        1 regular season M.V.P.’s
3 Finals M.V.P.’s                                       0 Finals M.V.P.’s
4-0 in NBA Finals                                      0 NBA Finals

By the way, Tim has been higher in voting for regular season MVP and Defensive Player of the Year for the duration of his career.  Even when nobody is talking about him, just like this past regular season, he ends up finishing in the top-3 in both categories.  Just thought I would throw that in there for good measure. 

I have been shouting this from the mountaintops for a long time, Tim Duncan is the G.O.A.T (Greatest Of All Time) when talking about power forwards.  Considering the fact that Timmy has won four titles in 10 years, and his franchise has been the BEST across all of the major sports for that same period of time, I think that is a pretty compelling argument.  I would get into greater detail, but I need to get some work done.  Instead, I’ll let the people at realgm.com do it for me.  It is a solid article, and you should go here to check it out for yourself.

Timmy,  LL Cool J has nothing on you.

If you are like me, you are in full NBA mode right now.  The NFL season (and fantasy football is too far away), the MLB All Star rosters have already been set, and there is still some dead time until the game.  However, the NBA is in full off-season mode.  The Finals just ended.  I realize some of you probably did not know that, judging from the ratings.  The NBA Draft just happened, and the first rookie contract has been signed (Oden).  Free agency has kicked off, and the first major free agent has switched teams.  It has been released that Rashard Lewis has agreed to join the Orlando Magic this season for an estimated 5-year, $75 million deal.  To get this deal done, the Magic have renounced their rights to Darko Millicic, making him an unrestricted free agent.  I am intrigued to see who goes after him now.

For those of you still yearning to watch some hoops games, the NBA Vegas Summer League is set to tip off in a few days, and the Summer League rosters are beginning to trickle in.  For more information, and updates throughout the day, go here.  As usual, the Spurs are dragging their feet to post their roster.  You can already assume that Marcus Williams, James White, and Jackie Butler will be there.  The rest of the active roster will not, after all, they are the oldest team in the NBA.   Yet, I can’t help but wonder if the Spurs don’t make a push for Beno to play in order to increase his trade value.  He is in the final year of a contract, and there are too many teams in dire need for some point guard help, for Beno not to move on.  Luis Scola and Tiago Splitter have no reason to come over and play, because they continue to show what they can do against top competition in the Euroleagues.  I just wish Mahinmi had not gotten hurt.  I was really looking forward to seeing his development.  He’s a tremendous athlete for his size.

I scoured the rosters of the other teams and found a NBA HOOPS Blog favorite, Justin Williams.  You may remember some of my previous posts discussing the former Wyoming shot blocker.  Williams finally started to get minutes at the end of the season last year, and in the final 10 games of the season, he averaged a pretty impressive 9.4 points per game, 7.1 rebounds per game, and 1.0 blocks per game.  He was only getting about 20-24 minutes at that point as well.  Those figures would cause ESPN.com’s John Hollinger to jump out of his skin when getting into per-48 minute averages.  For the season, Williams only played 12.8 minutes per night, but still shot 61% from the field and put up 5.0 points per game and 4.4 rebounds per game.  The kid only played at Wyoming for three seasons, and I am not sure if he even played in high school.  At 6′9″, 211 lbs., the Kings may have something very special if they can be patient.  Hopefully, they won’t be patient enough to allow Williams to develop some more, and will let him walk away.  If you want to check out more on Williams, go to his realgm.com page here.

I will be back with more news later.

Well, we are less than two days into the free agent moratorium, and several players have already netted themselves some nice pocket change. 

• Jason Kapono turned one stellar free agent season into a hefty payday.  It is rumored that Kapono will ink a 4 year, $24 million deal after the moratorium is lifted.  I guess that means that Morris Peterson (and his penicillin) will be playing elsewhere next season.
• Luke Walton will remain a Laker for an estimated $30 million
• Fabulous Oberto will continue to wear black and silver, but the length of his new deal has not been disclosed.

Hey, I did not say that it was exciting stuff yet, this is only the beginning.  However, in the next few days, you can expect to see Chauncey Billups, Mo Williams, and Vince Carter all agree to deals with their current teams.  Also, continue to scour the newswire, because I expect Kevin Garnett to be a Warrior by the end of the week.  I think Minnesota will cave for Patrick O’Bryant instead of Andris Biedrins, as long as the other pieces are still included in the deal.  Jermaine O’Neal will probably be moving to New Jersey as well.  If the Nets can get O’Neal and be able to unload the soon-to-be always injured Richard Jefferson and Nenad Kristic’s surgically repaired knee, that would be a steal.  O’Neal will be able to anchor that defense and contribute offensively when Vince Carter starts hoisting 27-footers to avoid any contact. 

In other news, Barry Bonds will get the opportunity to start for the National League in the upcoming All Star Game in San Francisco.  I personally am glad to hear this news.  Black cloud or not, Barry Bonds will soon be the all-time homerun record holder.  Sure, he did it in an era where steroids were more important to baseball players than hard cups were, but at this point, I really don’t care.  There are far too many players that I honestly believe took steroids, yet were never tested or found positive.  At this point, I’m acting under the impression that all players during this era took steroids, or none of them did.  Unfortunately, ‘Quantum Leap’ was cancelled a long time ago, so we won’t get Scott Bakula to go back in time to find out which guys took steroids. 

I will just rattle off some names of players (off the top of my head) that I think took steroids.  **Be warned, I have no way of verifying this information.  This is just one man’s ignorant opinion based on chin size, and I spent no more than 7 minutes thinking of names.**

• Barry Bonds
• Jason Giambi
• Jeremy Giambi
• Juan Gonzalez
• Ivan Rodriguez
• Mark McGwire
• Roger Clemens
• Eric Gagne
• Miguel Tejada
• Rafael Palmiero
• Ken Caminetti
• Dean Palmer
• Darren Daulton
• Dave Hollins
• Bud Selig (just checking to see if you were paying attention)
• Albert Belle
• Jason Grimsley
• Guillermo Mota
• J.C. Romero
• Armando Benitez
• Jared Wright, and
• Chris Berman

Boomer Berman had to take steroids, nobody has ballooned like Boomer over the past few years (try 15 years) yet continues to deliver material like it was his first day in the office in 1979.  You cannot keep that pace.  Even Beeno Cook faltered.  I would have also included Keith Jackson, but he was never associated with baseball, and was basically the same size for thirty years.