NBA Blog

I’ve been out of commission for about a week.  For that, I am sorry.  However, per usual, I have a plethora of excuses.  I recently put in my notice that I will no longer be an litigator working primarily in insurance defense cases.  That’s right, I will not be working for the ‘man’ (or ‘those big, bad insurance companies) anymore.  Nope.  Unfortunately though, I will not be going into journalism, nor have my postings drawn the attention of NBA franchises to the point that I am making the move to a front office gig.  Instead, I will be going into the transactional side of legal work.  I’ll work primarily in real estate deals, which should benefit me and the lady friend a great deal financially.

Also, I returned from my bachelor party in Las Vegas on Sunday night, and you could say that I am still recuperating.  No, I will not share ANY stories with you guys.  I will advise that spending a night at Club Tryst (and going VIP with a table and “bottles”) is highly advisable.  Also, spending 10 hours poolside at the Palms on a Saturday with Weeman from Jackass and the Apple computer commercial guy (with a bucket of the beverages of your choice) is highly advisable, but your skin will hate you for the next 5-7 days (especially if you have that Casper the Friendly Ghost complexion). 

Oh, and there is that little thing called a wedding that we are planning.  I’m down to three weeks of bachelorhood.  It is a sad, sad time.  However, one of my groomsmen has guaranteed that there will be a car with the engine running and handles of choice beverages waiting outside the church if need be.  (He’s the guy who set me up with the lady-friend, long story, so I doubt he will follow-through). 

One story I will share from my weekend is the fact that I had the opportunity to fly next to the new head coach of the Sacramento Kings, Reggie Theus.  Great guy, because he actually answered every question that the in-flight friend in front of us wrote down for him, but because he just sat there and talked to us.  It looked like he enjoyed it as much as we did.  He was a little impressed with the hoops knowledge yours truly dropped on him.

(Quick sidebar) Anybody who knows me will verify that most of the knowledge I tend to drop on this site comes completely off the top of my head.  Unless I hit you with a list of stats, like in the Kobe season stats rant or the Timmy/KG comparison pages, I’m throwing things out without any research.  Reg was pretty impressed that I was asking him about his days with the Bulls, Heat, and Kings both in Kansas City and Sacto.  (By the way, look for the powder blue throwbacks for the Kings this season, and do not expect many eyesore gold uniform sightings.  I begged him for those two things).  I also hit him up with some quick knowledge about his roster, specifically NBA HOOPS favorite, Justin Williams; his days at UNLV under Tark, announcing NBA games, and much more.  Return to story:

I do not want to misquote Reggie, nor do I want to turn this into an interview session that he did not know about, so I will just give you a couple of positive quotes about some of the things we talked about.  Let’s just call this the ‘Cliff Notes’ version of my flight.  (Keep in mind, these are not EXACT quotes, rather condensed versions).

Reggie on:

-NBA HOOPS favorite, Justin Williams: “He’s an athletic freak.  An absolute freak.  He just cannot shoot or score yet.  He has to learn that I won’t yank him out for doing everything else, like rebounding, hustling and blocking shots.”

-playing in Italy: “It was tough, because, at the time they always pinned the losses on the American players.  If we lost it was my fault.  I was averaging 30 a game and leading our team in assists, but it was never enough, even if the Italian guys were only putting up 9 points a night.  After one season, I asked them to buy me out, because I didn’t play 13 NBA seasons to be the scapegoat all the time.”

-the eyesore gold Kings jerseys: “I’ve heard that they were bad from a lot of people.  I don’t think they won a game in those things last year, so don’t expect to see them very often.”

-on the suggestion to go throwback powder blues: “I like that idea.  Wear the blues with the names under the numbers.  That would be pretty cool.”

-on announcing NBA games: “It’s the greatest job in the world.  I felt like I was robbing them.  I’m going to watch the game anyway, and they were paying me to talk about it.  I loved it.”

-on why college coaches struggle at the NBA level: “In college, the head coach controls everything and can manipulate or will a player to do what the coach wants.  You cannot do that at the NBA level, those guys (players) will not go for that.  You will lose them that way.”

-on Spencer Hawes: “He has tremendous feet.  It is really impressive.  He will struggle some early, because he is so young and raw, but his footwork is amazing.”

-on Ron Artest: “Nobody realizes how big he really is.  He’s like 260 lbs. of solid muscle.  He’s a tree out there. … He’s got some things going on, and I know that at some point during the season, he will have his issues, but that is to be expected.”

-on college life as a basketball star at UNLV: “If I told you everything that went on, I’d have to kill you.”

Quick hits:

• I am excited about the new era of basketball in Boston.  Watching Garnett’s passing ability with a real shooter in Ray Allen will be great.  No longer will he be kicking the ball out to Marko Jaric or Trenton Hassell.  Now he will be feeding dimes to Ray Allen, only the prettiest jumper in the NBA. 
• Too many people are saying that Boston lost it’s depth by dealing five players to Minnesota.  I don’t see that.  Theo Ratliff was not going to see any minutes this year, and neither was Bassy Telfair.  If anything, they lost two key components in Ryan Gomes and Al Jefferson and one erratic scorer in Gerald Green.  Ray Allen was already going to eat up the minutes for Green and Gomes will be replaced by Leon Powe, who will give them the exact same style of hard-nosed, glue guy hustle.  Now, Rondo will be forced to develop his game, which is a good thing.  Watch for him to make a jump to a Second Team All Defensive player this year.  And there will plenty of vets looking to hook up with Boston now.  P.J. Brown should sign with them soon.
• Switching gears: The Braves should lock down at least the Wild Card spot in the N.L. now that they added Mark Teixiera to their lineup.  McCann will see a ton of pitches hitting behind the switch-hitting first baseman, which is a great thing.  And the Braves added the one thing their offense was missing, production from the first base position.  Was giving up Saltalamaccia a lot? Yes, but he is probably better suited for the A.L. anyway, so he can catch some and play a lot of DH.  He certainly was not going to see a lot of innings behind McCann.  Also, Dotel will give them some great set-up production, like he did in Houston as Billy Wagner’s set-up man.  He belongs in that role, because he is too much of a head case to close games.

Enjoy the weekend, because A-Rod and Bonds will both reach their milestones very soon.

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. 

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. 

• For 364 days out of the year, San Antonio is my favorite team.  But on draft night, I am going with Portland.  Paul Allen and Kevin Pritchard have been thoroughly entertaining over the past two seasons.  They go about the draft in a manner that can best be described as frantic.  Seriously, they cannot sit still during the draft.  It is like watching an eight-year-old with ADHD who just downed 12 jolt colas, 4 red bulls, and 27 packs of sour patch kids.  They cannot be stopped.  I believe the final tally was 11 trades in two consecutive drafts.  It has to be some kind of record. 
• Portland did a great job last night by finally cleaning house.  All of the relics of the Jail Blazers are finally gone, and they have a tremendous young core of players to start over with.  Frye, Rodriguez, Jack, McRoberts, and Fernandez can all be solid NBA players, while Roy, Aldridge, and Oden will be superstars.  Nate McMillan will have a lot of fun toying with his rotation, because of the versatility of Fernandez, McRoberts and Roy.  They’ll go extremely big, but still be able to get up and down the court.  It will be great to have the Rose Garden rocking again.
• Phoenix sold another pick last night.  I just don’t get it.  They realize that they are allowed to use those things, right?  This year they sold Rudy Fernandez to Portland.  Last year, they sold Sergio Rodgriguez to Portland.  Rodriguez easily could have been their back-up point guard.  Two years ago they sold Nate Robinson.  Last year they also passed on Rajon Rondo.  I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if team Colangelo were still running the show.  Then again, if team Colangelo were still involved, I’m pretty sure Kevin Garnett would be wearing the PHX right now, because he would have shipped Amare’s lazy, no-defense, slow rotation, no practice, selfish rear-end to Minnesota for the chance to win at least two titles while Nash still has something in the tank.
• Houston now has three point guards who shoot first, two shooting guards, two injury-prone centers, and no small forwards or power forwards.  At least they drafted Aaron Brooks and Carl Landry about 15 picks too early.  That was borderline retarded. 
• Isiah continued to impress by trading for headcases with long-term contracts.  But he always gets the best player in the deal.  I just don’t see the Eddy Curry-Zach Randolph-Stephon Marbury trio ending well.  Get ready for some fireworks.
• Get ready for a mega-blockbuster deal.  Golden State has been trying to get Kevin Garnett, and by dealing Jason Richardson last night, they picked up a $10 million trade exception.  That means they would only have to come up with roughly $12 million in contracts to land Garnett.  I wonder what type of package would be necessary to get him.  Do you think Brandan Wright, Al Harrington, Monta Ellis the exception and two future firsts would get it done? 
• Another possibility for Golden State is to make a run at Kobe Bryant, because Mitch Kupchak and the Buss family certainly did not help themselves last night.  They drafted a point guard who is not NBA ready, just like last season, even though they don’t need a point guard for their current head coach.  In the words of Scooby-Doo, “Ruht-roh!”  Kobe is definitely gone, and soon.