not so great expectations

well the season is underway and hs brought with it the weirdness that we can expect from the nba. the warriors, bulls, wizards, AND heat have combined for as many wins as the new orleans hornets. now, chris paul is pretty nice and shaq is five shades of washed up, but come ON. this time of year is typically odd though; the bulls literally always suck to open the season and every year there are articles talking about how they're quitting on skiles, or they're in some kind of mysterious decline. please relax america. the bulls will be fine. after the all-star break there will be a million and one articles about how the bulls have turned it around, how they're the hottest team in the league, scott skiles is a genius &c. not to say that i support skiles in any way, shape, or form; i think he's a nazi asshole that has no idea how to run an offense or even to hire someone that does know how to run an offense. that being said, the man can flat out coach defense like it's nobody's business. and that shit is valuable in this league.

(p.s. watch out for tom thibodeau, the lead celtics assistant to get a job next year. by all accounts he's the one behind both the suffocating D the rockets had this year AND the celtics dominance on the defensive end this year.)

speaking of the celtics, they're pretty much obscene. kg is playing like the mvp that we all know he should be yearly. honestly, he kind of scares the shit out of me. he's like a convict let out right into amsterdam or something with $1 million in his bank account. he probably sits at home giggling maniacly rubbing his hands together while the five hookers he's hired are doing blow from the mountain he has covering his dining room table. i realize that i've turned kg into scarface, but at this point he's about five wins in a row away from entering a state of nirvana so profound that he refuses to leave his bed. so my point is the celtics should start sucking soon or else he's going to be way too blissed out to even play basketball. or maybe he just drunk dials kevin mchale all the time and taunts him.

it's kind of gratifying to see a hyped up team of superstars come together so sublimely, especially in boston. there are serious questions in my mind as to whether the celtics or pats will be the first to lose. but seriously, it's good to be able to hate the celtics again is my main concern. combine that with a possible lakers resurgence and you have a pretty solid matchup down the road. more about the lakers tomorrow.

FREE KOBE

first of all, you can stop holding your breath for more team previews. they're not happening. the spurs are going to win it all, the celtics will capture our imagination with the prospect of what a bunch of really well compensated people can do when combined with slightly less well compensated people and a borderline incompetent coach.

"she don't believe in shooting stars but she believe in shoes and cars."
that line applies to kobe pretty perfectly. in this metaphor, he is the nonspecific "she" and "shoes and cars" are wins and championships. but you knew that already. honestly, the lakers are kind of fucked beyond all repair as far as i can see. they aren't terrifically good at defense and they seriously fell apart down the stretch once they stopped playing 80% of their games at home and people started getting injured. accepted: the injuries could have something to do with all the bed-shitting that went on later in the season. not accepted: that they were any better than a 45-win team.

so kobe is trapped in this kind of untenable situation with an absolutely fucked decision making hierarchy (apparently mitch kupchak was ready to pull the trigger to get j-kidd but JIM buss, the son of JERRY buss who is apparently soft in the head regarding andrew bynum [jim, not jerry] blocked the deal from going through because of the aforementioned mancrush. not to say that bynum won't become a fantastic nba center, but if getting the second best pg in basketball is your option and it doubles as a way to keep the best player in the lig happy, then you have to kind of do that.) he's being a little petulant with his trade demands, &c. but i think it's a safe bet that he won't actively tank like certain players/teams to get traded but he might. the point is that the last banner has been hung in LA for probably a long time and he's woken up to that fact, especially since the last few drafts have been potential-focused. crittenton and farmar and bynum will all be good pros and turiaf already is one, but those are players that require patience to pan out.

kobe wants to win NOW, preferably in chicago where he can show people that FUCK JORDAN and he's the best ever. i hope he does. i hope he gets traded to a really great situation and wins championships for the rest of his career. it would be a travesty to throw away the rest of his career on a perpetually average team that's built by nincompoops. the lakes are all set to be a very average team for the next decade unless bynum becomes a monster--WHICH COULD HAPPEN given a few more years. but since kobe wants to win now, he should go ahead. or the lakers should trade for andre iguodala and let him become exactly scottie pippen.

actually, fuck kobe. he should stick around through the tough times too. the lakers stood by him when he "raped" a girl, he should stick around for a few seasons until bynum sees his potential realized. shit, maybe they can get lucky with crittenton, or radmanovic could turn into a good player in phil's offense, or they can magically get andrei kirilenko (who's a better fit for this team than odom anyways) for lamar odom, and then they would be real live contenders. just because lebron had a videogames season against some subpar competition he wants to jump ship? shit kobe, ever heard of a challenge? honestly, you can PUNCH STEVE KERR LIKE MJ DID and that shit will be ok. you're that good, and maybe you need to knock down sasha vujacic so he can start hitting jumpers or just bounce back to europe.

i love kobe, i love watching him play, and i hope he can work out his shit and stick around to watch the lakes become good again. but if he can't, then bite a dick and get out of my life. i'll still watch all his games though.

Orlando Magic team preview

the orlando magic made THE high profile acquisition of the offseason when they paid what some would consider silly money to rashard lewis. he gives some scoring punch to a team that was sorely lacking perimeter offense before the signing. but the magic counteracted that one positive move with a plethora of offseason silliness that could negate the effectiveness of their addition entirely. want some evidence? just check out espn's proposed depth chart for your orlando magic:

1. jameer nelson: no problem there. a bit of a shoot-first point guard that seems to have an issue actually seeing his open teammates and hitting them with the rock, but he's a solid nba player.
2. hedo turkoglu: now, let's ignore the fact that he's 6'10" for a second and look at his game. he likes to spot up and shoot, is a poor rebounder for his size, doesn't play good defense, and can't bang in the low post. well, that would be fine if the magic didn't sign a slightly better version of him to a $110 million contract. add into that the fact that he's 6'10" and he can't even keep up with small forwards and if the magic really start him at sg there are going to be serious defensive issues. now, normally a team would just look down its depth chart and find someone else suitable, but their numbers 2-4 options are keyon dooling--who sucks--jj redick--who might not suck, but didn't do ANYTHING when he played last year--and trevor ariza--who is much more suited to playing sf. now, their best option seems to be redick, but are they really prepared to have a total of zero people that play perimiter defense in their starting lineup?
3. rashard lewis: he's a terrific shooter that can't rebound or play defense to save his life. he was just signed to one of the richest contracts in nba history. the thing that makes the most sense is to play him at the 4, get a couple of jumping jacks who can hit threes for the 2 and 3 and run until somebody passes out. i get the feeling the magic won't do that because their point guard can't for one, and because their management sucks for two.
4. dwight howard: he's quite simply a beast. pretty much uncontainable on the blocks when he can showcase his strength and also possessed of bounce for literal days--observe his dunk contest sticker dunk and also the picture of him putting his chin at rim level. he's not really a guy you can throw the ball into just yet, but given a few more years or a more creative point guard/head coach and there's no reason to think he can't be the young, healthy amare.
5. adonal foyle: league leader in thoughtful poetry, horrendous contracts, and overall darkness. there's no way he should be starting for an nba team. but then the mavs went to the finals with a tag team of diop and dampier so i guess anything is possible.

i know people are all hot-and-bothered about stan van gundy being the head coach, but he was working with championship level talent in miami and wasn't doing all that great. quite simply, they will not be able to overcome their conspicuous lack of anybody that can even pretend to play the 2 and will probably find themselves on the outside of the playoffs looking in once again.

Philadelphia 76ers team preview

well now that AI is gone the real healing can begin. it's weird that in the summer after they traded the face of the franchise to make a move towards younger, better players they made no real concerted effort to bring people in to help the rebuilding effort. now, call me crazy, but andre miller is not the ideal player around which to build your team. or even to have on your team when you're rebuilding.

he's a nice player; a point that can push the rock in transition and hit the open man and who doesn't dominate the ball like his predecessor, but he's old or getting there. how much longer will he be able to maintain even his present level of effectiveness? the smart money is on about 1-2 more years before he starts to hit a serious wall when he reaches about age 32 or 33.

iggy, or the second AI, is not exactly the type of person that i want to build my empire around either. he's a good finisher with a moderately effective offensive game that's also a lockdown defender. really nice player that could be fantastic in a few years, but he's the type of person you throw next to steve nash and jason kidd and watch him morph into richard jefferson but better, not the guy you throw out there and expect him to get buckets for you nightly. sure, he'll do it for a while, but he's more of a complimentary than a franchise player. ironically, iverson could have been a good mate for him, but ivey grew up so much without anyone else viable on offense that he ignored what he had.

at this point, the upside for iggy is that he turns into scottie pippen. by that i mean that's his high cieling that he would have to practically take a helicopter to, but that's who he could become. maybe a pairing with kobe makes some degree of sense, but unless the lakers trade bynum and their next 1,000,000 first rounders i don't see anything like that happening.

as is, the 6ers will putter along at the bottom half of the atlantic and maybe score some high draft picks in the next few years, but with billy king running the show i have a feeling we'll see an extension along the lines of willie greens' before we see the 76ers win another atlantic division championship. more so than any other team, i think they're just boned.

Phoenix Suns team preview

this is going to be hard, since pmac is perhaps the world's biggest suns fan. but let me say that until the suns acquire a LOT more depth--and stop relying so much on their top 7--there is not an nba championship on their horizon. understand that saying that is drawing a little piece out of my soul; the suns were part of the kindling that combined to create the fire that is my passion for the association. steve nash was a revelation to all of us when he first stepped on the court for PHX and continues to be whenever he tosses a wraparound pass that hits STAT in the breadbasket.

before we get too carried away with how awesome the suns are--and they're awesome and cool and fun and i love watching them--they didn't do shit to improve themselves this offseason. sure, grant hill and alando tucker are nice players but how many games will hill play? 30? 40? 50? unless he seriously bucks a trend and keeps his knees and ankles healthy for the entire season, then the suns will again be in the position of relying on very few players to produce a lot. their rotation shakes down to: amare, diaw, marion, nash, raja, leandrinho, hill, and maybe some combination of tucker, skinner, or dj strawberry if he pulls his shit together.

basically their championship hopes rest on the fact that MAYBE marcus banks finds the ability to spell nash for long stretches of time and MAYBE alando tucker turns into someone that can play 25 minutes a game to rest hill for the playoffs and MAYBE diaw regains his 2005-6 form and can give them a viable option off the bench for their front court and MAYBE they avoid the injury bug for another season. now that's a lot of maybes, and even if everything falls into place for them and d'antoni can work a 9-man rotation without stepping on anyone's toes and maintaining effectiveness for the entire season then they have a shot.

i almost feel like they would be better off sacrificing some wins for greater playoff aptitude. if they can bring everyone into the playoffs rested and healthy, wouldn't they be better off winning only 50 games and coming in as the fourth seed? nobody in the pacific division will even smell 50 wins unless kobe discovers the technology necessary to clone himself so he can play all five spots on the floor or boom dizzle stays healthy long enough for the warriors to run and gun their way there. that being said, why not sacrifice a few games so the chief characters have the legs for the ones that count?

the spurs operate on a similar principle; they always start slow because they regulate minutes and pop is willing to work deep deep into his bench even if it is not playing particularly well. it costs them some regular season games to be sure, but those banners hang forever and they do not list regular season record on them.

my thinking is the suns cop 60 wins again, run into a buzzsaw spurs team in the western conference finals and make the series close and entertaining, but ultimately fall short again. at some point, either sarver is going to have to pay the luxury tax or steve kerr will have to do some seriously shady trades to pull them over the hump. as it is, they need about 1-2 more quality players and d'antoni has to commit to playing them even at the expense of a few wins in december.

Portland Trail Blazers team preview

the greg oden saga could turn out to make portland into a superpower if he recovers fully. picture this: if they finish with the worst record in the western conference (which is very possible since they lost their best player from last year for channing frye, who is almost exactly the same player as lamarcus aldrige, minus about 15% effectiveness)--and barring the timberwolves nobody can claim to challenge them for potential to absolutely suck for the entire season--then they could end up with a top-5 pick to pair with oden, aldrige, brandon roy, and whomever else. yes, you heard me right.

o.j. mayo or derrick rose or some other sickeningly good player could be playing with that group. and that, my friends, equals multiple western conference championships down the road so long as they're not coached by a total monkey (or del harris who might make the monkey look pretty damn good.)

(random del harris side note: his kid used to play in the same rec league i was in except a few years younger than me. and the kids mom used to coach the team and del would always be sitting on the parents side of the gym watching the team. this was when he was unemployed by the lakers or any other organization, and about two years after winning coach of the year. and i always wondered: why not take over your kid's team? the other kids would get to say they got coached by the fucking coach of the year at about 8 years of age and you could prove that you weren't such a chode after all. but then that might have led to some seriously damaged self-confidence should your team ever lose a game. but then again, the five minute substitution rules might have suited del because, hey, that's what he did in the NBA anyways. also, mitch kupchak is pretty much always watching his kid play basketball too at the same rec center.)

but as for this year, the blazers are almost completely boned in the behind. where is the offense going to come from on this team? last year they relied on tossing the ball into crazy zach randolph on the low block. and while his sanity has been questioned (my favorite example of this is when in a glowing espn the magazine article, his high school coach said something to the effect of: "any day that i open the paper and i don't read that zach is in jail i thank god" really a ringing endorsement if you axe me) his ability to score in the low block never has. pretty much they could be guarandamnteed that he would at the very least draw a double team and toss it out to roy who would knock down a jumper or whatever. now, they have no legit post threat and no real perimiter scoring outside of roy. don't give me any guff about aldrige or frye as one or the other will have to be matched up on a center who will absolutely manhandle them on both ends of the floor and neither had much of a back to the basket game either.

as it is, maybe maybe maybe martell webster or travis outlaw will step up to give some scoring punch but given their past, we can consider that highly unlikely. also: they were among the hardest team to watch last season and this season they're also devoid of any compelling reason to turn in save to watch nate mcmillan cry into his hands as they lose 18-straight.

they literally personify "wait till next year." and oh, what a next year it will be.

Wayne and Santana In '08...I Can't Feel My Face

Sacramento Kings team preview

the kings are highlighted by one wildly overrated player, two mildly overrated players, and one insanely underrated player. you can choose from this list:

1. mike bibby


2. ron artest


3. brad miller


4. kevin martin

i guess everyone realizes how ridiculously bad brad miller has gotten over these past few years; he used to be a passing wizard with a decent shooting touch and a very succesful technical post game. he was, however, hamstrung by his lack of athleticism and general whiteness. the kings have kind of replicated his skills--or lack thereof--by nabbing aaron gray, another slow white dude that has all the hops of a bulldog.

kevin martin, on the other hand, scores for literal days despite the goofiest looking j this side of the matrix. he shoots a silly percentage, doesn't dominate the ball, and is almost impossible to double team because he's so quick once he gets his paws on it. he's exactly the type of player people love when they're talking about a second option because he can score without taking the high volume of shots that someone like flip murray or earl boykins needs.

that's really valuable because of the nominal top-2 options on the kings. the ron artest-mike bibby tandem could be the single most overrated in basketball. until people realize that bibby was basically a creation of rick adelman and benefitted by having a sickeningly good supporting cast, he will continue to confuse defenders only with his ethnicity and not with any kind of basketball moves. (in a serious note, what the hell is he exactly? his dad is kind of black. kind of.)

ron ron, who was the subject of a pretty admiring post over here a while back, has devolved into a kind of talented sinkhole where he doesn't realize that he might not want to take awful, contested shots every time down the court. maybe if he stuck to his strengths--defending every position and knocking down jumpers when walmart (that's what we're calling kevin martin since kmart has been taken by kenyon) and mike "black?" bibby aren't getting to the basket.

shit, if theus can get everyone to do that, they could have the ingredients necessary for a solid team that barely misses the playoffs. maybe if he does that and squeezes a good season out of the miller/gray whiteness tandem they could sneak into the 8th spot but beyond that i don't know. also, he's imposing a curfew. yeah, right.

San Antonio Spurs team preview

i used to really hate vanilla ice cream. it was bland and stupid and white, and it wasn't chocolate goddamnit. eventually--after i discovered the wonders of pie--vanilla ice cream grew on me like a creeper vine on a wooden trellis. pie and vanilla ice cream are delicious together; pie and chocolate or strawberry or rocky road? fuck that. it's gross, and you know what i mean.

now, ask yourselves why i would start a team preview with a talk about vanilla ice cream? because it's the spurs, that's why. the most boring team possibly ever. although let it be said that i do like myself some tony parker on occaision, mainly because he's my all-time favorite point guard in nba 2k7. other than him, what do you say?

this is a roster not designed to lend itself to superlatives.

tim duncan, the undisputed leader, is legendary for the fact that he's consistent on a level that's absolutely sickening. i'm not kidding. next time i see a 20/10/3 season from tim duncan i think i will empty the contents of my lunch into the nearest trash can or other receptacle. i'm joking, but only kind of.

the basic premise of the spurs as it has once been described is that they assemble a team of three good-great players and fill out the rest of the roster with people willing to run through a brick wall to win. that is an incredibly accurate portrait of the spurs as i know them, and explains why flight white has toiled away on the d-league team, unable to showcase his inSANE dunking skills to the largest audience imaginable.

but because flight isn't on the roster, the spurs will keep winning. there are no players that could reasonably called laconic on their roster. every single spur lives and dies by the bounce of the round ball. none of them have shoe deals, etc. etc. with the possible exception of tony parker, who is married to someone who will probably one day bang their teenaged gardener while tony's away at work.

the spurs will probably win the west again unless they somehow take a giant dump in the bed this year. bo-ring, but some people like it. if i could only find the damn pie.

prediction 60-22, t-1st in southwest division

Seattle SuperSonics team preview

this might be mistitled by the end of the next season. i'm kind of mixed about whether or not i give a shit that the sonics move to oklahoma (probably not.) but the handling of the potential move by supersonics ownership is shadier than a giant umbrella designed to block out the sun. honestly, i cannot fathom the thought process that would incite any person in power to suggest that the motivation for buying the team in the first place was moving it. that's harebrained along the lines of videotaping your former defensive coordinators signals to gain an advantage when you just spent the entire offseason making your team so you don't have to do that shit.

let's focus on the positve: kevin durant, ya dig? pmac got on somebody else's sidekick to specifically tell me that he's "straight lanky." i can think of no better adjective to describe the ethereal kevin durant. he literally seems like a ghost spider crawling around the court, scoring from all sections. imagine a 6'9" spider with serious scoring ability and there you have kevin durant. i dare you to have a better explanation for him than that.

no he is not tmac+kg. he has tmac's weird intensity that he maintains despite the fact that he's basically at the whim of a zephyr that flies into the stadium. he reminds me a little bit of young kobe only way better at age in that he's just this waifish kid that fronts like he can score, etc. with the big boys. like kobe, i'm sure that arrogance--because what is it other than arrogance inspires that kind of confidence--is completely and totally justified. but as a result don't expect him to be putting too many banners up wherever the sonics are playing; players like him are notoriously hard to win with. kobe could be seen as the best example of that player type, and yes he does have those 3 championships, he won them when he was playing with the best big man in the league at that time.

weirdly these sonics seem a little like a natal version of the bulls that won so many championships. obviously neither the stars nor the supporting cast are there yet, but kd is an ultragifted scorer, jeff green is a "winner" (whatever that means), and they even have the big ron harper guard in delonte west. all they're missing is phil jackson and about 5 years of maturity for kd and jg.

all of their oozing potential will not translate into any performance at all this year, unfortunately. so expect a lot of long faces in and around seattle while durant finds his way into the lig. maybe a ROY is in store for him though, as he figures to be their number 1 scoring threat this season.

prediction 34-48, 4th in northwest division

Toronto Raptors season preview

let me say before i say anything else that sam mitchell looks like a black muslim leader of the fait (priest? minister? imam?) at this point, he should just change his name to sam x and get the damn thing over with. but he probably won't. just another daily frustration for lamar blogom.
despite the fact that they're lead by a person who appears to be about 30 years late to a black panthers rally, the raps are the most international team in the nba probably (i was too lazy to actually count the number of players from other countries.) suffice to say: they hail from all over the globe, plus they play in a city that is not in america.

trivia time: toronto is in a country called "canada." they talk with goofy accents there, say "eh" a lot, and their currency is something called the "loon."

the raptors are a top-flight offensive team despite or more probably because of the fact that they're mainly composed of european players. by mainly i mean at least 40%, which qualifies as a lot. their top 2 players are americans: bosh and ford, but all the rest are probably not welcome in certain parts of the south. come to think of it, the raptors are probably the KKKs most wanted franchise. it's a good thing that there's no team in alabama.

the raps play what is apparently an exciting brand of basketball higlighted by unselfish play and some pretty damn good passes. i would direct your attention to andrea bargnani's artful between the legs alley-oop bounce pass to chris bosh--which bosh botched--as evidence of that fact. that may have been the most confusing sentence of all time, and for that i am unapologetic. parse it yourself or just search for andrea bargnani pass on youtube and i'm sure your eyes will be opened like you just touched the obelisk.

bottom line is that the raps will probably be able to win the atlantic again despite the retooled celtics. we can pencil them in for another 45-win season on the strength of a bunch of euros and a player who literally looks like a raptor himself. i dare you to say that chris bosh is not positively reptillian in appearance, demeanor, and post moves. if chris bosh on the block does not scream gila monster to you, you have issues. just kidding. kind of.

prediction 45-37, first in atlantic division

Utah Jazz team preview

the jazz were a bit of a suprise last year if you only consider their two most recent iterations and forget the grandmaster that is jerry sloan.
frankly, he looks like he was hit in the face with a folding chair at a 45 degree angle; his nose perfectly continues the slant of his forehead in an almost cartoonish way. also, he's a bit of a racist asshole in the same way that all old ball coaches are. i don't mean racist in the way that he hates black people, because come on, it's not like he can avoid them in his line of work. i mean racist like if you come to practice wearing a gold chain...

just don't come to jerry sloan's practice wearing a gold chain, aight?

bottom line, he knows how to make a basketball team win some damn games. even when his supposed "best player" (the awesomely nicknamed AK47) is shitting the bed like a 96-year-old never nervous pervis he still squeezes a 51 win season out of his team. not as though the rest of the team is a bunch of slouches--boozer has overcome his negative karma from pulling the rug from under the cavs blind owner, memo okhur has let his wife show him the way to clutch greatness, and deron williams is staking a claim as the next great power guard (baron davis, sit down.)

but maybe that collection doesn't win 51 games in any other hands than jerry sloan's gnarled old ones. say what you will about him, he knows how to coach basketball.

that's why they could be headed to a better season than their last. forget all the other western conference teams, the jazz have a legit chance to add 3-4 wins to their record, which none of the others can claim. in a season where most of the teams are idling or in reverse, the jazz could be moving forward simply because of the logical progression of their talent. deron williams will only get better with age, same goes for ronnie brewer who will hopefully take the 2 guard spot for his own.

pretty much every other team in the conference has stood still, and none of them boast the promising youngsters that the jazz do. especially after they lose derek fisher, who was secretly dead weight as a shooter that can't really shoot the rock at all.

mark them down to keep the 4 seed, especially with kirilenko having a possible rebound campaign and maybe morris almond stepping up as this year's under-the-radar rook.

prediction 53-29, first in northwest division

Washington Wizards team preview

the wiz are home to the third most LB player and two ultratalented forwards gifted both at scoring and rebounding the basketball. however, they have around three people on the entire roster able to play good defense. off the top of my head: deshawn stephenson, caron butler, and maybe maybe etan thomas or brendan haywood depending on whether or not they ate their wheaties.

that lack of defense is the number one thing holding them back from postseason glory, even though their effortless approach to that half of the game could be construed as part of their larger design. less energy spent on defense by gil & co. means more time for them to run the "princeton offense." for the record, i don't care if eddie jordan is supposedly the grand wizard of the princeton offense, but what the wiz do in game has almost no relation to the cavalcade of backdoor passes that is the *true* princeton offense.

despite their poor defense, the wizards can count on a solid 70 ppg from their core of zero, caron, and 'twan. that dependence on three main scorers cost them pretty dearly last season when both gil and caron butler went out with injuries that forced twan into becoming a one man team. despite the fact that he was literally their only threat on offense, he still managed to get buckets against a supposedly excellent defensive cavs team. just goes to show you. something, but i'm not entirely sure what. even with hibachi and caron butler sidelined for much of the second half of the season, the wiz still only finished three games behind miami. if the big three can stay healthy for the entire season, there's no doubt that they will seal the southeast division crown and end miami's streak for a good few years or so.

awesome player: besides gil is definitely andray blatche. he has had legal and personal troubles in the past but he could have a breakout campaign if he focuses on basketball. 6'11" small forwards don't come along every day, especially young ones with dripping potential. some say he's the SF version of andrew bynum. some being me. i say that. and it's true. he'll be good some day, perhaps in the mold of gerald wallace, when he gets a consistent dose of playing time from a team committed to seeing how he fares if he's tossed out into the big wide world.

key: working voodoo magic to keep caron, gilbert, and antwan healthy for the entire season.

realistically they are not title contenders, but with enough craziness out east who knows? they could represent their conference in the finals come june.

prediction: 45-37, first in southeast division

CRISTAL ANNIVERSARY

because traditional anniversary gifts only go up to 60 years, i had to create my own special gift to give all ten of you loyal readers. guess what? IT'S A BLOG POST!

you can drop the balloons now.

for the 100th post spectacular (yes there are 100 according to blogger, and no i have not done the research myself) i had it in my head to do a kind of greatest hits, in which i would pull top-flight and also really awful quotes and predictions from the previous 99 posts (which admittedly include one post that's entirely video and one post that's entirely pictures of chris bosh next to raptors--which also doubles as the only post made by the ethereal pmac.) HOWEVER, that would be a lot of work, and something that i want somebody else to do for me. so: anyone that wants to dig through the lamar blogom back catalogue and find some gems and disasters is welcome to do so. and i will post your findings giving you full or no credit.

also, as we reach the 100th post i'd like to place a call out for tee designs. if you have any skill at all with drawing things or know somebody that does, drop me a line of some kind and we'll talk.

and as a third item, tomorrow will begin the semi-official countdown to october 30th during which i will profile every single national basketball association team. even the celtics again! rejoice.

the most lamar blogom nba players, with accompanying paragraphs:

10. eddie griffin

now that he's gone he's cemented this spot possibly for posterity. his aura and ability will be missed sorely in the association. i wanted desperately to see him succeed at basketball. to see eddie griffin rollicking down the lane on a steve nash- or jason kidd- or even chris paul-led break would have been a joy to see, especially considering that in doing so he would have beaten a lifetime of serious psychological problems. yeah, i know he was on the nets. and i wish he was on my hometown lakers so i could have insane fights with the people bashing him which would result in me never talking to the troubled eddie griffin bashers.

9. leandro barbosa

he is a one-stop shop for all your scoring needs. blessed with a deadly outside shot and intense quickness, he is one of my favorite players to watch--provided he's not playing against the hometown lakers. whenever anything happens and he is on the court, he can affect the game just with his speed. if there is a defensive rebound, you can count on him being the first one down the floor with his vaguely hunched-over gait. the way he scores, in such a naturalistic way based ONLY on his speed and shooting ability as opposed to the virtuosity of kobe bean or melo anthony or agent zero is a pretty sight to behold. even though he can't make the suns run like his white running mate can, he can score in bunches. (except when kobe is locking him down.)

8. stephon marbury

WELL he didn't used to be one of the most lamar blogom players. but as has probably been said in countless teen movies: one summer can definitely change everything. let me take that bacl; i have written one fairly angry post defending him in the wake of some neophytes attending a summer camp at northwestern bashing him. but when he starts doing borderline crazy interviews during which he almost answers his cell phone, he has a spot on my list. combine that with $15 shoes THAT HE WEARS ON THE COURT and a newfound win-or-die attitude: "i shoot to win because i shoot to win," that should result in at least a 45-win team when combined with z-bo and some other offensive threats. i look forward to how his newfound freewheeling attitude will translate to the court. will he become the best pg in the nba, like he once claimed?

7. josh smith

j-smoove is seriously awesome. he has bounce for literally days. athleticism for weeks. and also he's really cool to play with in nba 2k7. if you think that doesn't translate into somebody being more lamar blogom, you just don't know lamar blogom. he's really really really hard to see play because let's face it: the hawks just are not on national tv. and also he plays the lakers maybe twice per year so it's not like he's even on local tv. so my pretty much only exposure to j-smoove is through the xbox 360. but he's so awesome to play with in video form that i have a perhaps unhealthily high idea of his abilities. also: he was the starting pf on the first lamar blogom team. well, the only lamar blogom team. so there's that.

6. dwight howard

now if you thought j-smoove had bounce, you have not seen this manchild in action. he can jump more than any 7-footer that i have seen play live basketball, with the possibly exception of ryan hollins who can apparently dunk off of two feet from the damn free throw line. there's sometime rawly appealing about his game. he does not have a wee bit of polish. literally if he was any skinnier he would be a total bust along the lines of stromile swift. shit, he might be the utopian vision of what stro swift could have been with like 100 extra pounds of pure horse muscle. i think that i'm actually going to hate him once he acquires some subtlety to the way he plays basketball. or maybe it could be a kind of fatherly affection; i've seen my little baby all growed up and now he's dominating fools both with his power and with his technique.

5. baron davis

there is literally nothing on the basketball court that he cannot do. he can score it inside and out, dunk on andrei kirilenko with a vengeance that leaves beatrix kiddo looking like a limp-wristed teenybopper fawning over john mayer. his bullet-fedora'd championing of the high octane warriors through the playoff made him a personal hero of mine and a large percentage of nba fans. i also love him for his limitations. his physical health is in constant doubt every time he puts sneaker to hardwood. shit, he couldn't even practice during the playoff run. but when he's on the court and not crippling himself with a propensity for 3 chucking he can ball, straight up and down. even if he's not really a pure point, he can score among the best of them and also handle a team fairly competently. nellieball freaks unite.

4. steve nash

goddamn. even though i resent him every time he plays against the lakers, which is quite a lot, he is a maestro on the basketball court. to this day, one of my favorite performances of all time is his absolute dismantling of the cavs on national television. literally every time he ran down the court--no longer brushing his traditional bangs out of his eyes--something fairly magical was about to happen. whether he would shake amare free for a sickening, back breaking dunk or finding matrix in the corner for a wide-open 3, he did so with an artistic flair. he has a freewheeling style with no fear of turning over the rock and so makes passes that don't even seem remotely logical when they are first generated. however, upon their completion, they are some of the most beautiful things you will see on the basketball court.

3. gilbert AgentZero arenas

agent zero is stephon marbury and baron davis combined and taken to dizzying heights. everything that i've said about them applies doubly to the erstwhile hibachi. he makes outlandish predictions, storms away from game winning shots midflight scowling at the opposing bench, and takes money from his teammates in perhaps unreasonable shooting contests. even during a "serious" event like the 3-point shootout, he's still playing the clown and shooting threes with one damn hand. he's a gifted scorer that can even kind of distribute the rock on occasion if he wants to as evidenced by his teammates' scoring averages. he's probably the second best scorer in the league behind the second player on the list:

2. kobe bean bryant

what can i say about kobe that hasn't already been said about zeus? he's a god among men, can throw lightning bolts, and has a history of troubling sexual behavior. zeus turned himself into a goose, kobe banged a white girl in a colorado hotel. he was the subject of the first ever lamar blogom post, which actually came before the official inception of lamar blogom. in essence, he could be described as responsible for the creation of this blog. i long for the day when he can be paired with a player that will accentuate his talents and bring him once again to the glory that is the larry o'brien trophy. he might never reach those hallowed halls again, but lord willin by the time he retires he will have at least 2 mvps, a few more finals appearances, and the recognition of everyone as one of the top 3 most gifted scorers ever to play basketball.

1. lamar odom

well, he's the namesake. so maybe he should be disqualified. but that's not how i roll. he literally embodies everything about this blog. he is multitalented: he can score it, pass it, rebound it, and--judging by his earlier career--smoke it too. i love him because he has never been on a true winner. i love him because he might never have that opportunity. and i love him because he has the potential to be a truly good player. he was on pace to become an all-star in the incredibly crowded western conference forward rotation. then he messed up his shoulder and the lakers season went into the toilet. people forget this, but he could have made the lakers into a semi-special team could he and every other injured player stayed healthy. there's always next season.

bonus feature: chocolate thunder

lamar blogom wonders...

why is it that none of the teams i like can defend a goddamn pick and roll?

even as team usa rolls over mexico in a beating about 1/2 as dominant as expected, they display a frustrating--and continuing--weakness for one of the simplest and yet almost (apparently) impossible plays to guard: the pick and the roll. one would think that with a team full of hyperathletic strong men capable of killing with a stare alone that preventing a team composed of exactly 0 nba players (the notorious eduardo najera sat this one out) from running basically wild with a simple play would be easy.

not so apparently. it's fine that they coasted after a fairly obscene first quarter (92% on 2-pointers) but come ON. no way in any form of afterlife should mexico be able to drop 3 digits on the best american team in recent memory. it's imperative (and when i say this i mean that i would like it to happen since--come on--team usa is going to continue to strangle the competition up to and including the final game and earn a trip to beijing in 2008 which will hopefully result in a gold medal because mike k is not afraid of playing his young, athletic players like larry brown apparently was wayyy back in 2004) that they learn to keep their damn foot on the gas, at least for the first half. the second quarter should have been a time when the bigger, stronger, faster americans stepped on the neck of their mexican adversaries, not allowed themselves to be outscored by the mexicans.

it's a minor complaint. but minor complaints like leaving shooters open, inability to defend the pick and roll, and the continuing absence of any type of decent post-up game could come back to haunt america in the future.

p.s. i know that right now team usa doesn't really need a great post game from any of its players. but right now they're playing against street trash compared to the top-flight competition they'll get at the olympic level. no way will spain or france or greece be beaten without a reliable inside american scoring threat. yes, i realize that kobe is never cold in the sense that other players are cold. yes, i realize that they have carmelo and lebron should kobe break himself. and yes, i realize that there are more shooters on this team than there are coaches (almost.) but none of that will matter when they face a solid defensive team willing to chase them off the 3-point line and into some more difficult shots. either horseboy or STAT will have to step up and provide an inside game that isn't just fast-break bangtime if the americans want to win gold in beijing.

p.p.s. this is what eduardo najera would have looked like had he played against the americans. slightly different, but with the same idea.

eddie griffin rest in peace

the man who was once caught watching porno whilst driving has now endured a second, much more serious incident involving a car. griffin, 25, was killed last week when his car and a train collided.
griffin was one of the great enigmas of the league. extremely athletic, with a good deal of length (not in a gay way, not that there's anything wrong with that,) and a liquid outside jumper. he never put his great physical gifts, which include a perternatural ability to block shots and rebound like the lanky nubian that he could very well be. he's one of the select few nba players that look just like egyptian princes because of their facial hair. gerald wallace is another person to share this distinction.
however, we will never get to see his potential fulfilled. with the right coach he could have become a pretty special talent. big guys with an outside shot and the ability and commitment to do the dirty work down low do not come around that often. my only wish is that he had found himself in a position to succeed, with a top-flight nba coach and a lot of playing time to call his own.

we got keys coming from minnesota (?!)

well it finally happened. the big ticket winds up in the home of the big dig, the hick from french lick, and the sports guy. he perhaps joins the situation of his destiny.
unlike in minny, he doesn't have to score every possession, isn't expected to have the offense run through him, and isn't the ONLY crunch time option. that's why this *could* (and those are some HUGE asterisks on that word) be the best situation for him to be in. i think he would have been better served going to the lakers, but you could then accuse me of homerism so...
the case for the lakers goes: kg is the best beta dog in the history of the lig. he's a phenomenal rebounder, low post defender, etc etc. kobe meanwhile is the definition of an alpha dog. like kg, kobe wants and needs and lives to stomp on the neck of his opponents. however, unlike kg he has the capacity to do so solely with his scoring prowess. if you doubt that shit for a second, watch some tape of his 65-point performance against the blazers trail. both kobe and garnett bring serious intensity to the table, but kobe is garnett's polar opposite on the basketball court. he doesn't even have to smell the key to score, while garnett despite his midrange prowess is most effective when tied to it.
ray ray and prince paul could provide a similar counterpoint to kg's effectiveness. COULD being the operative word, just as i indicated before. but unlike kobe they are no longer unstoppable scorers that strike fear into the opposing team's heart by merely slipping on a uniform. ray still has a sweet outside jumper that even double ankle surgery shouldn't be able to tarnish. pierce also has a semi-nice jumper AND has shown flashes of being able to get into the lane at will. all three would climb through pig innards covered in feces for a shot at a title, and they just might have to unless the celts can grab up a quality pg on the cheap. rajon rondo is meh just due to lack of shooting and passing and general experience but if they got their hands on even a brevin knight type they could be guaranteed a spot in the finals. whether or not they get bent over the scorers table is another matter entirely.

final prediction: 55-37

ref-er-eez

honestly i was stuck between apathy and confusion when i first found out about this donaghy scandal. donaghate if you will (and i will).

i didn't know what to think, and i didn't care that much at all about it. it's a little bit comforting if you ask me--judging by your presence on lamar blogom i would say you are asking me. it lets me know that the refs aren't ALL incompetent. in fact, they're the exact opposite, in one case. donaghy did this shit for YEARS before he got caught, and guess why?

he was competent. better at his job than most of us would give him credit for probably. whenever most people watch a basketball game they care about the outcome of, the first or at least one of the first things bemoaned is the lack of quality officiating.

well, there are kind of two ways to look at donaghate as it relates to this officiating quality gap.

1. most refs ARE SO BAD at their jobs that WE CAN'T EVEN TELL WHEN ONE OF THEM IS FIXING GAMES. not exactly fixing, but you know what i mean. "tampering with the outcome of" or the score of or the poitns of. whatever you want to say.
2. donaghy was SO SMART. that he was ABLE TO FIX GAMES FOR YEARS WITHOUT ANYONE FINDING OUT.

shit, the nba only found out because of an fbi investigation into the mob. that's depressing. for all of stern and stu jackson's crowing about how tightly they monitor their refs, they can't even see that one of the refs is altering basketball games with intent to make money?

that is probably the scariest part of the situation.

however, this is also kind of comforting. maybe the refs aren't as bad as we think. maybe they ARE being paid off to influence the outcome of games. i don't know about you, but when i was a child around 9 i made a sign reading "how much did they pay you?" to take to a lakers game. i guess 9-yr-old me was right in a very delayed semi-perverse sense.

kids do say the darndest things. and sometimes they're right.

after a long hiatus

i am back. after 2 months (minus 10 days) i am back in this bitch like jordan. still wearing the old 2-3, but back nonetheless.

so what better way to get back on the blog-wagon (clever use of language!) than to take some quickie looks at shit going down around the league.

DARKO FREED (AGAIN)
orlando honestly i think made a huge mistake with this darko fiasco. they traded kelvin cato (trash) and a first round pick (useful) for a promising european big man who had been toiling on the bench for a championship team. that makes sense; darko was the #2 pick in the draft 4 short years ago. and he's STILL younger than some of the people drafted in this year's draft (al thornton stand up).

but the magic never played him either. or at least never in a way that set darko up to succeed. they needed to commit to playing him 40 minutes a night and LIVING with his mental mistakes, of which there were many but still, so he could have the opportunity develop into a tangible low-post asset. as it was, he was still a shot blocking m-fer to the Nth degree and could score somewhat. there still was the unfulfilled promise of rebounding, which he did at an apparently atrocious rate.

darko has another shot to bust out of his self- and other-imposed chaining. i hope he's about to be on some king kong shit and bust out of his chains to chase the elusive lady of fulfilled potential (the analogy kind of falls apart after that--i can't see a 7-foot serb climbing the empire state building only to be shot down by sopwith camels and other biplanes.) starring alongside another euro could be the perfect opportunity. both pau and darko face the knock of being "soft." however, they both have interestingly opposite games. pau will and can be and has always been a scorer of all-star proportions. darko, on the other hand, is a defensive force. well, could be a defensive force. he blocks a lot of shots. let's just say that.

(note: i'm not going to try to handle the foolishness that was the rashard lewis contract. it's been well-covered by other outlets, perhaps best by john hollinger.)

SEA-TAC RIDES AGAIN?!
the supersonics completed what might have been the fastest-ever rebuilding process. by my count, it took about 20 minutes. think of all the things you can do in 20 minutes! they include:

1. watching a sitcom (minus two minutes)
2. run 3 (or so) miles
3. watch the first 20 minutes of "austin powers"

adding durant and green and unloading ray allen's double-ankle-surgery ass for one moderately useful player and a semi-expiring contract was a stroke of really good thinking by r.c. buford protege sam presti. also, resisting the temptation to pay shard his money that he was getting from team disney was a huge step in the right direction. i would have been down to see the sonics become like the hawks in that they played 3 SFs at once, but this time all the forwards have shooting strokes. HOWEVER, that shit wasn't worth the approximately $150 million.

they might not be great next year, but COUNT on durant and jeff green doing some shit in the near future.

missing like the fucking o'bannons

this playoff bullshit with all my teams getting knocked out in the first two rounds by some serious madvillainy that i was simply unprepared for. but if you thought for one solitary second that there wouldn't drop some shit on the lottery you were sadly mistaken. or happily depending on the perspective.

seriously i love the lottery; nowhere else in sports do the powers that be take such a serious piss on what happened in the year before. and what is more american than saying "fuck all that past bull; we're looking towards the future. CITY ON A HILL BITCHES."? nothing that's what.

when portland get's the top spot and seattle get's #2 that makes me excited because shit who woulda thunk oden and durant would land themselves in the midst of some crunchy hippy starbux sipping mofuckas? honestly i was so into the possibility that STATlanta would be obligated to draft k durant because he's still there that i borderline giggled with glee at their potential future lineups.

the thing is that these picks should be in the other order. portland is blessed with 2 excellent post players with lamarcus aldridge and zach randolph and seatac has athletic swingmen coming out its damn ears should it resign 'shard. which they should and they should have oden too because that would push them towards perfection.

also, portland would take one small step for mankind toward contention if they added a premier wing scorer like say kevin "spiderman" durant. sure they already have brandon roy kind of filling shit up from the perimiter but if you can add future tmac you take that damn chance because shit--you're going to do some shit.

your playoffs stink

my nba fandom is seriously in the at-risk category. if my fandom were a species it would be: endangered.

the warriors getting bounced was bad enough, although i can kind of rest easier at night knowing that they were done in by a team captained by the kind of hard-nosed visionary that deserves to have won more than zero championships in his career. i'm even willing to look the other way as every single replay showed carlos boozer shoving warriors in the back as he went for rebounds.

THAT'S OK BY ME.

as long as the players themselves are deciding the series, shit i can tolerate the disney-movie-villainy that the jazz call playoff basketball. the warriors WERE like an all-black disney movie, with matt barnes being the prodigy that nellie must save from himself. etc. i'm pretty disappointed in myself that i never saw the parallel sooner but c'est la vie.

on the other hand, the suns were done in by stupidity in the league office. yes, i'm aware that leaving the bench mandates a one-game suspension but jesus h: it's the playoffs. if anything, suspend them for the first game of the regular season or fine the shit out of them but don't take amare stoudemire out of the biggest series of the playoffs. STAT could have saved us from this hellish fate: four teams we can't help but rooting against battling it out for eventual supremacy.

i guess i have to root for the jazz and cavs, but in all probability we're looking at detroit and san antonio taking turns hosting the nba finals. just shoot me.

you think i got all these rings by smiling?

i'm here to say one thing and one thing only: y'all got it all wrong.

in all of our pants-creaming excitement about the basketball devolution, we forgot some shit. what we forgot, and i include myself in this "we" catergory, is that a team full of real hard dudes can shut down some flashy shit just by looking at people wrong. take the second round (no really, i insist).

a couple of really genuinely fun teams to watch, well 1.5 if you're like me and you only enjoy the suns because you always have and it feels wrong to root against them, are getting manhandled but two teams that are full of the type of people that PLAYOFF BASKETBALL are made out of. the warriors and the suns may have captured some of the essence of those showtime lakers, and the warriors even have a black point guard, but neither one of those teams has the balls to duplicate the success of those bygone years.

actually i should retract my statement: the warriors are crazy enough to do whatever they want on the basketball court (except shoot free throws. my theory is that they're bored at the line because they can't dunk it so they miss on purpose to piss off david stern.) but the suns are seriously some snitchin bitches.

note to the suns: this is fucking playoff basketball. you can't be bitching and moaning every time bowen throws an elbow. i never thought i would be defending the spurs, but the suns better just man up and lay the smack down if they even hope to get by these guys. the spurs have some serious old man muscles along with a ton of playoff acumen, and what that translates to so far is a willingness to do WHATEVER it takes to win. if whatever it takes is kneeing nash in the groin, so be it, they'll do it. even though nash has somewhat toughened his image, i just don't see anyone on the suns but raja bell willing to honestly kill someone just to get at a loose ball. and even in raja, that happens only rarely. maybe that lack of intensity helps them get through the regular season, but to win in the playoffs you need to be kind of mentally unbalanced.

nash keeps it too regular for them to be taken seriously.

no fun league

seriously it's time to change the abbreviated name of the nba to the nfl. (no fun league get it? i'm so clever.)

these playoffs, with the noted and notable exception of the warriors--who i fear may be going down in flames after this latest near miss against utah-- are boooooooooring. even the normally exciting suns seem to have a going through the paces feel to them. maybe it's the new "intense" steve nash, but there just isn't the same positive energy around the suns that there used to be. banning diaw to the bench probably affected their feng shui in more ways then d'antoni could have ever suspected, but their pick and roll game is just not doing it for me.

i do have some excuse; they played my favorite team in the league during the first round and are playing a spurs team that is incredibly adept at shifting gears into whatever they feel like. honestly the suns are like a nervous student driver and the spurs have their own gas and brake pedal. this is ridiculous. suns: get out and run for chrissakes before i ball up socks and start chucking them at the tv at random intervals.

the entire point of the suns before this season was that they didn't obsess over execution on offense. they flowed freely and enabled nash to make some insanely lucid and acrobatic decisions passing the ball, which in turn allowed STAT+matrix+et. al. to finish shit at the rim HARD. now, we see them running picks and rolls and the spurs defend them by the book and nash gets his jumpers and there isn't any more thunder. keep in mind as i'm writing this that EVERYTHING I'M SAYING COULD BE A CREDIT TO THE SPURS.

seriously, maybe i'm missing them ole suns just because the spurs have them tied up in the trunk of the car and are going over speed bumps. as i mentioned above the spurs are adept at making people play by their style, so this is perhaps all about that. i sure hope so, and i hope the suns and warriors both advance so we can have the most entertaining nba finals ever. (yeah, the east sucks so i'm pretending it doesn't exist until lebron has at least 1 more awesome game.)

you warriors don't show me nothin'

let the air out of me like a deflated tire. i have to admit that these warriors have turned me into a slavering fanboy like i'm dressing up to see george takei speak.

baron's bullet fedora, nellie coming to a press conference beer in hand, matt barnes' copious tatoos, i love pretty much everything about the warriors. and now, they teeter on the brink of collapse.

in every series, and i said this last time, there is a turning point. it happened last year when the lakers could have closed out the suns, but didn't. now the warriors need need need to seal the deal when it gets back to oaktown or shit could get ugly. but the warriors have the best fans in the game, and draw the most people ever to basketball games. there's strength in numbers like CAN YOU COUNT, SUCKAS? and it seems to me that if any team can close out a superior team at home, these warriors are the ones to do it.

even touched but i'm also concerned: the mavericks survived a sick shooting night by those warriors and won a pretty emotional game. don't even get me started on the refereeing, which included some monstrously shady calls at the end of the game. i think the whistle blew before barrrrrrrrondevean george, and that shit was NOT a foul, no matter the definition. that that was his sixth is pure garbage and the referees should be ashamed that they took away golden state's shot at victory because they were quick with a whistle. yes, i know that it was an intentional foul situation, but they have to know that baron has 5, and that he's not going to foul someone. refereeing is a tough job, BUT GET SOME KNOWLEDGE OF THE GAME.

i'm not even bothering with writing about the east: it seems like it should be exciting, but really the only thing kind of holding my attention is sam mitchell's fashion choices. it just feels like he's a moslem/black panther coaching an nba team from the sidelines. i bet that makes lawrence frank nervous.

oh warriors, come out and pla-ay

i'm in a glass case of emotion. the bad man just punted baxter.

the warriors took it to the mavericks on some serious WHO'S THE ONE SEED NOW, BITCH? shit. seriously, the mavericks looked RATTLED to even be on the court with the warriors.

observe: stackhouse airballing 3s!
see: jason terry getting stripped then falling on his ass!
watch: mickael pietrus going apeshit, and almost putting stackhouse on what would have been the guaranteed poster of the playoffs!

this series is a serious referendum on the state of basketball. if you didn't already stand up and take notice when the warriors finished the season streaking like frank the tank, it's about damn time you did.

first they take 1 in dallas, then self-destruct in game 2, take game 3 in a rocking home gym, and game 4 made all that shit look silly. in every series there is a turning point. for the mavs it probably came when avery johnson decided to start dirk at center in game 1. he made the mistake of bending to the will of the warriors. you have to understand that as soon as you play the uptempo game with a team designed to play uptempo, YOU HAVE NO CHANCE OF WINNING.

that's how the lakers were able to take the suns to 7 last year, that's why they're getting effectively swept this year. the playoffs are all about will imposition. a team simply cannot win if it plays to it's competition: the heat beat the pistons in part last year because detroit tried to run its offense through tay because he had d-wade on him. ride with the horse that brung ya should be the mantra of every succesful playoff coach.

another reason the warriors are winning is they have some serious interchangability. it seriously matters not who is guarding whom when the warriors play defense. everyone is between 6-4 and 6-7 and quick as fuuuu, so the mavs simply cannot break people down off the dribble. their best player is a slow-footed, 84-inch jumpshooter who relies on drives, dishes, and single coverage to make his living. well guess what dirk? they have an intimidating-looking russian and are totally prepared to double team you whenever you have the ball.

in all of this talk about how cleon's crew is neutralizing the mavericks defensively, let's not forget their sick break, lead by barrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrron! (everyone get on your jim jones hats and do the fadeaway) davis. seriously when this dude decides to get down to serious b-ballin, shot-callin there is not a more unstoppable scorer from the pg position. nash comes close, but he doesn't quite have the competitive fury that davis conjures. when nash gets upset, it's cute, but when baron gets mad, hit the deck because shots might be fired. legit the entire warriors team could be packing gats in their warmups and no-one would be suprised.

let's see you handle that, mavs.

it seems oddly appropriate

that the bulls are the ones to knock off the heat. apparently tired of hearing how the heat were a "dangerous" team that people should "keep an eye on," skiles n co. dispatched the heat with a reckless abandon we all thought would be reserved to the cavs-wiz and pistons-magic debacles. the bulls and heat are two of my least favorite teams, especially since tyrus thomas and dorell wright are the only players on either squad with any type of flavor.

(anyone who says dwyane wade has flavor needs to get their head checked. he's the blandest vanilla.)


the heat were the typical nba team of the 90s/early 2000s--one superstar, a supporting "star," and a lot of crappy role players who float listlessly around the court until they're asked to do something vaguely important, like wash dwyane's car, or get shaq donuts, or lube up riley's hair. the bulls on the other hand are a college team for chrissakes. they're team is a glorified roster of all-americans and "proven winners" with big bad ben wallace thrown in for shits and giggles. the only appreciable member of the team that never did anything re: final fours or championships is p.j. brown, whose presence continues to mystify me. maybe he's an expiring contract? or perhaps skiles felt that having one person who couldn't score to save his life on the court at once wasn't enough, so he decided to roll with a second? that's probably it--p.j. brown is there just to add degree of difficulty to the bulls' conquests.

none of the bulls with the noted and notable exception of tyrus thomas have the sort of fiery athleticism that people commonly associate with the association. even luol deng, who seems like the second best candidate for the designation of athletic, is curiously ground-bound and dependent on his freakish arms to retain value. what does that translate to? boring basketball. sorry, but i'm not down to watch a team run their fancy-pants version of what is basically the weave for 20 seconds and then take a jumper. that just doesn't appeal to me.

even phoenix last year, which had almost zero in the way of reliable interior scoring, played and moved so fast, with such a masterful architect at its head, that they were tolerable to watch. but they also had the matrix providing some sick slams on occasion, and he gets far more run that tt could hope for.

the bulls play such a slow tempo, predicated mainly on their defense and someone, anyone, getting hot, that they're basically unbearable to watch. their coming series against the pistons will, objectively, suck.

you bring out the worst in me

it's not exactly uncommon for a blogger to be a suns nut-rider. i am no exception to that rule. for like 90% of the season (the other 10% being when they play my lakers [LOS ANGELES STAND UP]) i am a huge suns fan. shit, pmac who is the spirit animal of this here blog has been a fan of the suns since the starbury dark ages. i'm saying we roll deep, and i'm saying we remember when, and i have some cred to go along with it.

the suns are a bit of a paradox in that they're generally credited with bringing forth from some primordial soup the vision of an nba where a team can be a team, where it isn't stevie franchise trying to physically pound the life out of the basketball for 20 seconds and then jacking up an ill-advised 3, where a foppish whitey can be league mvp because shit the dude can ball. however, the suns are really a throwback to an era called the 1980s, an era where everyone did coke, miami vice was the biggest show on tv, and magic johnson slept with every woman in hollywood. now, we have perscription drugs, csi:, and don imus saying nappy headed hoes. whatever.

as i guess is my point in the previous paragraph, the suns are not a complex team. they don't try to run the princeton offense, nor do they tango with the triangle. instead, it's a steady diet of picks, rolls, pops, drives, dishes, threes, dunks, etc. etc. ad infinitum. these plays aren't exactly rocket science folks. (or ROCKETS science. pun patrol is on duty.) the way they seem to win is by exploiting the worst tendencies of the teams they are playing against. take the deconstruction currently playing on my tv (sorry TNT, ain't no drama here. go back to the closer.) the lakers couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. which believe you me, they are doing. and the suns exploit this tendency by tossing all kinds of people at a kobe bryant resolutely opposed to driving to the basket. it's not that he isn't distributing, it's that nobody on his team can make an open jumper.

the suns also know that a lot of the lakers are--to be charitable--rockheads. observe as nash's eyes light up from HALF COURT. you read that right ladies and gentlemen. and he hits marion streaking to the basket as kwame and lamar look on dumbfounded. maybe pregame bongrips are bad ideas.

it's not that the suns don't have bad tendencies themselves, but they are so efficient at striking where the opposition is weakest that opponents are hard-pressed to seek out weaknesses of the suns. its awfully hard to punch a boxer that's beating the shit out of you.

***

and, just because, tyrus thomas killing it.

that horse on your chest might as well be a target

okay let's all be honest. who REALLY picked the warriors to pimp slap the mavs in game one of their soon-to-be seminal first round playoff matchup. no, you didn't pick them and stop lying and saying you did.

now the mavs were last seasons great white hope to some degree, proof that nubasketball (which is really just old basketball from the 1980s before pat riley wrecked it in the mid-90s) could exist and a win a championship for god's sake. now, they're something more along the lines of a semi-dynasty. good every year, with a fiery coach who preaches discipline and defense and a big german superstar whose game is based more on frost efficiency than any kind of otherworldly talent. (dirk is the anti-kobe. you heard it here first.)

so what, i'm supposed to care about these people? they aren't compelling--even their x-factors are proven commodities. i don't think josh howards YESSUH BOSS I'LL DO ANYTHING TO PLAY game has any kind of real appeal except to those who prefer the pliant submission of college ball. that's my main problem with the mavericks. they're far too pliant for their own good. ever anouncer makes a big deal about how they can "play any style" but blah blah blah. isn't the point of being good making teams bow down and respect what you're about to do?

that is why i less than three the warriors. they, and by they i mean nellie, force you to play their way by trotting out big al harrington as center and crazy stephen jackson as pf. it's also worth noting that the blackest coach in the league, well the coach with the team that plays the blackest, is a jowly white guy with a old-timey haircut. i'm lovin it.

the warriors make you play like they want to play, and if you don't do that, then they'll run you off the court. it is that imposition of will that makes them a dangerous team. for that reason also, the mavericks will never win a championship. you can't be the definining team of a season if you yourself have no definition.

re-up gang

looks like we got a rematch like "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE."

second most entertaining of last year's first round series is back like jordan, and the other ain't even got a shot at happening. in case there's wonder in your eyes the former is lakers-suns and the second is cavs-wiz. it might be true that cavs-wiz has a shot at reocurring due to seeding but come on; ain't like gilly is about to drop any more 50-foot bombs to send shit into overtime. unless he decides to cop 3s from the bench, which believe me he could do. pesky out-of-bounds rules.

but the suns and lakes. two opposite teams that are yet very very similar.

the lakers are KOBEKOBEKOBEKOBE as well all know. they run shit through him, if he ain't working they ain't working, period. the suns are a well-oiled machine on offense, basically scoring at will with a variety of talented performers capable of scoring in a variety of ways. also, their team is athletic enough to be talented on the defensive end; when the game slows down they can reasonably expect to stop teams on a few possessions. at least in theory.

the suns are w/o doubt the better bball team BUT HERE'S THE THING: the lakers could steal the show. they almost did it last year but fell juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust short of the ultimate prize. yeah i know the suns have amare now but the lakes seem to have some sort of crazy mystery tonic for which the suns have yet to develop an antidote. if the lakes can be patient on the offensive end and knock down their shots, there is very little reason why they can't stretch an admittedly godlike suns team to seven games or even knock em down before that. remember that in last years series it took a subliminal performance by tim thomas even to stretch the series to seven games.

yes the lakers will have to play damn near perfect ball, ball they haven't shown they're capable of playing in a long while, but it's a possibility. phil jackson is a gotdamn genius and there is no way he's going to let his team go softly into the night. we talkin about ending the season with a bang, not with a whimper, t.s. eliot be damned.

the ruler's back

something i'm not seeing reported is king james' serious resurgence. all y'all hating on him for mailing it in the first half of the season (and yes i think i was one of them) need to seriously reconsider your shit and start prosleytizing seriously for tha king. seriously he's been ripping the league up on some 6'8" oscar robertson shit since the asg. believe that.

in other new re: love for things surging in the second half how 'bout them raptors? maybe they're not the suns of the north or the east or whatever the fuck region you want to put them in but they're fun fun fun until your daddy takes your t-bird away. t.j. and jose calderon are seriously good pgs, maybe the best tandem in the league (leandrinho and monTAY ain't pgs no matter how much the suns and warriors wishcast them into that role). from what i hear since we can't get no raptors games in LA is that the raps are seriously fun to watch and seriously good on offense. even w/o jorge garbajosa and w/ a hobbled andrea bargnani (YEAH HIS NAME'S ANDREA WANT TO DO SHIT ABOUT IT?) they're challenging for the 2 seed and seem like they could be on the fast track to eastern conference success.

the east is kind of an old-timey conference (well a throwback to the 90s at least) in that 1/2 of the *good* teams are basically their stars and then NO-ONE. 'bron and wade-shaq both define their teams in a way matched only by kobe and nash out west. and no, i don't think the cavs would be shit in the west, let alone the #3 seed or whatever they are. they're basically the lakers and we know how the kobe show is going so far.

but even though the lakes suck this year they could be seriously dangerous if they stay healthy and add someone through the draft or free agency this year. or if andrew bynum makes a similar leap and vladdy daddy remembers how to play basketball.

OUT.

rock my world

the houston rockets have certainly had a long journey since they were last in serious contention for the nba title this late in the season. that's right SERIOUS CONTENTION. i ain't talking about the one (if that)-and-done rox of the stevie franchise era. i'm talking about serious, been bangin since my li'l n**** rob got killed for his barkleys, shit.

the rockets, although they may only be a five seed with no hope of catching any of the top 4 teams, let alone the other two texas teams. but while the top 3 are enmenshed in a serious battle like gandalf and the balrog falling through that mountain, the rockets just lay in the cut, waiting for the suns, spurs, and mavs to beat the ish out of each other in the first few rounds so they can come in with yao and tmac's sleepy-ass eye.

the thing about the rox is that they're not the team one might expect. yao and tmac are obviously both offensive LOADS to the point where tmac was once in best-player-in-the-league discussion with kobe and yao, if he stays healthy, is THE dominant post player in the nba. believe that. if you're about to quibble with either of those statements remember that tmac took the shitbag magic to the playoffs multiple times and once drove the pistons to the brink of elimination until tay prince busted out of his shell. also, shaq is decrepit at this point and the big german is not a post player per se, deigning to venture into that world of the large only when small bodies come his way.

the rockets are not a team defined by their superstars in those respects, as so many teams are. in some regards they are similar to an nfl squad in that they are their coach's team. jvg has to garner some love for coach of the year after he took this ragtag bunch of dudes and made them the best defensive team in the league. i would look up that stat, but i'm lay-z. they still play GOOD offense, just not at the juggernaught level one might expect given their two stars.

remember: offense wins games but defense wins championships. i'm not saying the rockets are about to win a title. (ALTHOUGH remember the 2003 pistons squad. and they had way less talent on offense.) they are capable of making some serious noise come playoff time.

odenomics

we can all agree on two things this march madness:

1. greg oden will be the first person selected in the draft.
2. kevin durant was sans doubt the best player in college basketball this year.

this is not a commentary on "will kevin durant or greg oden be a better pro" or some shit like that. in fact i don't even know what the hell this is. this post has been aborted once due to exhaustion so now i'll again take up the sword of bloggership and promise not to resheath it until i'm done with this current quest.

people are really really sold on oden as the number one pick. in fact, kevin durant would have had to become a kind of hybrid between pete maravich and david robinson with a little bit of kevin garnett and tracy mcgrady thrown in for teams to begin to fathom challenging oden's stranglehold on the top spot. hell, even when oden played one handed and was honestly pretty much JUST above average and not the OH SWEET JESUS THE BIG BLACK MAN IS COMING TO SWAT OUR BALLS force that many expected he would be in the pro game nobody batted an eyebrow even as durant was doing shit that amde you wonder just what the hell it is that they put in that new jersey water. dude has spider man powers and probably will make a generation of prospects WISH they grew up in a state contaminated with toxic waste, just so they could get a taste of the shit that gave kd those skills in that body.

well anyways tourney time rolls around and durant half shits the bed and is half screwed by tim floyd bending rick barnes over the scorers table and doing him like barnes is in on a child molestation charge. one would think that once oden's hand has healed, and now that he's shooting FTs with his right ffs, he'd finally stop acting like a bitch and start getting his grown man on. not to be.

the trouble with oden, and the thing that gives him silly potential, is that the man has no idea how to play the angles on a basketball court. i mean watch him, seriously watch him, and you will see a behemoth of a man struggle with a kwame-like fervor over how to get his ass in proper position to block shots. there's a reason he's been in foul trouble the whole damn shebangabang; and that reason is that even in the mockery that is college basketball you can't just blast off and expect results. the best shot blockers, of which andre kirilenko is a fab example, know how to get themselves into position to swat a shot and not get called for a foul. oden just does not understand how to do that.

another issue i have is that while he's good around the bucket, he takes way too many contested shots. good post players take few contested shots, choosing instead for a sick spinoff and slam. watch some shaq tapes from before he became a fat asshole and look at how often he leaves defenders looking silly or just plain outmanned because that man had superior post moves. or akeem olajuwon. either one of those two. or pretty much any great center. sure, i think oden will be a fine player, just maybe not the superstar people expect.

we could be seeing mj/sam bowie on the microscopic scale, but durant will be better in the league.

of course, keep in mind that this is coming from the man who thought bron would flame out.

meet the new boss (same as the old boss)

d'antoni hath spawned hisself an army. whether it's the gs warriors runnin with nelly like DRAMA I'M BACK or the crazed dungeon-family-exuberance of the melo-iverson nuggets or the raptors tryna front like they know whats up, there is a serious revolution, or i guess devolution technically happening in the league today.

everywhere you look teams trying to get smaller, quicker, better shooting. that ain't bad, in fact it's pretty dern sweet when you think about it. it makes the league on the whole more watchable; when even the shit teams are playing a breakneck speed and killing themselves just to stay alive.

take the warriors for example. what they have is a roster full of tweeners-- matt barnes, monta ellis (stuck between point and shooting guards), mickael pietrus, and basically a host of others my sloth is preventing me from looking up. but the point is that they survive in a way that same roster never could have 5 or 10 years ago. when shaq was still in full effect, and guys like akeem and the admiral were patrolling the paint, no way do you get away with "hey, andris biedrins is my center is that ok?" but in this new-old nba where clutching and grasping is illegal, and any contact is looked upon with an audible intake of breath and a whistle quicker than you can say "that's not really a foul but they will probably call it one anyways" those teams can and do succeed.

they are not the suns because no-one but the suns can be the suns. their talent is off the charts not only in terms of personnel but also in terms of coaching. i guess this will sound kind of like a love letter, but they are probably the most or second most talented team in the league depending on where you put the mavericks. i mean nash is nash, matrix is matrix, amare is a beastly god, and even diaw is sensational in his own french way. it is that collection of talent along with the roll-the-ball-out-and-see-what-steve-does style d'antoni is so comfortable adopting that makes the suns the team that gets me out of my seat, hootin and hollerin like a fool the most out of any team besides kobe. yes, i just said kobe was a team DEAL WIT IT. nash to amare on the screen roll is pure floetry, especially when amare brings the thunder. and no matter how predictable it is that he's going to flush it like "i make it rain on them hoes" i still got my hyphie (original spelling courtesy keak da sneak) shoes on.

but the newbies also bring it like nobodies business. basically the nuggets are the blackest team in the league, and also the best fighting team now that ivey joined their hallowed ranks. they're also seriously putting shit together too. peep iverson and melo both deferring to each other and stepping up simultaneously. if it continues to work, it could form the single most bizarre symbiosis this league has ever ever ever seen. the most comparable people are kobe and shaq, but that doesn't even do this shit justice. basically the 2nd and 3rd most talented pure scorers in the league are playing on the same squad. and this somehow works. FURIOS GEORGE REPPIN IT OLD SCHOOL.

nellyball ain't too shabby neither. he's even got bd, who's usually vd (yeah, punning in this bitch) to chances of winning shit, buying into his scheme. not knocking fools down with statistical output, but at the same time giving it all his creaky frame will allow him. with baron, it ain't about stats young gun. maybe he's starting to recognize that, but that's seriously good. we see him move from HMM I'M OVER HALF COURT TIME FOR A 3 LATE to cool down monta, we setting this bitch up, run a play before our very eyes and we should drop jaws in wonder. he's basically mirroring the evolution of the league with his play. before he was a 3 jacking dunk dropping swag machine, now he's, as i said before, a serious dude willing to put serious time into making this team shit work.

Why I Can't Root For the Lakers

this is a first, a guest post on lamar blogom. not talking about pmac's little chris bosh is a dinosaur comparison, although that was apt. this is a true blue honest to god guest post by Dennis Danziger, english teacher at palisades charter high school and publisher-editor of mad as hell club, which can be found online at www.madashellclub.net .

Here's the deal, not about Lamar in particular, but about the Lakers and the Laker fans and why I can't root for them even though I've lived here for 25 years and love bball.

Laker fans seem to care more about who's sitting courtside that who's playing on the court.

In moved here in the early 80s, I attended my first NBA Championship Game. Lakers vs. Sixers at the Forum. Kareem vs. Dr. J. Does it get any better than that?

I'm sitting about 20 rows behind the Laker bench, the game's on and I can't help but notice that lots of people, not two or three, but dozens are focused anywhere but on the court. They're looking left, looking right, not to see who's setting picks, but who's in the stands.

Then the buzz, "Where's Jack?" Oops. Jack wasn't in his seat, no where to be found, and people were actually concerned about that than they were that the Lakers were behind.

That's the moment I realized I could never root for the Lakers. The Clippers, sure, the Lakers never.

Eventually Jack settled into his courtside seat and the people around me relaxed and watched the game, when they weren't oogling and gossiping about Jack or Diane Cannon or the stars du'jour who had courtside or near courtside seats.

The other moment that solidified by anti-Laker feeling was a few years back. I remember when the Lakers had won back-to-back championships it seemed as if every third car was proudly waving a Laker flag. But the moment they lost, the car flags came down. Never to be seen again.

This sort of fan behavior would never happen in a real city like NYC, Boston, Chicago or DC.

what you know about mvp candidates?

clearly not as much as this man, averaging a cool 57.5 points over his last two games. lamar blogom was in full effect at friday's game, believe that.

(as a little post script to our presence there, i would like to submit a person for review as the biggest douchebag ever. he came at halftime and started chanting m-v-p immediately upon sitting down. he turned out to be tolerable because of kobe.)

at this point kobe cannot be quantified by normal means. i guess if i remembered mj in his prime i would call his performance jordan-esque, but i didn't so this is my baseline for "get on my back i'm taking you there" performances. at the end of friday's game with the lakers down nearing the end of the 4th i started to get a sinking feeling; it's usually at those points in games when kobe takes over, or tries to, and the lakes more often that not find themselves losers despite of kobe's attempts at heroics. his heroism usually means attempting damn near impossible shots and rimming them out, but on this occasion it manifested itself as several "forgot about dre" threes, including the tying one in zach randolph's fat face and another spinning away from a double team.

kobe is the last true scorer left in the game, with even the tireless iverson choosing to make nods towards deferring to his younger running mate as the season wears on. kobe is also a throwback to an earlier era, an era in which you did not like your opponents. in fact, you hated them with all your heart and would rather die than see anyone you were up against stride off the court flush with victory. kobe is unique in that he possesses the killer instinct most people only dream about; he will rip out your jugular if it means a shot at victory. and that desire to win can be misconstrued.

he is the utlimate alpha dog. if we accept kevin garnett as the ultimate second banana, always willing to defer, always seeking to make his team better, kobe cannot and will not accept the fact that anyone could ever ever ever be better than he is. that attitude probably doomed his relationship with shaq, but it also gives him a fighting chance in his post-shaq career. he is simply not content to fade into the twilight as a great scorer that cannot win a game of team basketball, even after he's proved himself as pretty much everything possible.

there are 3 banners hanging up in staples in large part because of him, and it is very possible that with a little luck and little personnel moving skill there could be a few more in the rafters before he hangs up his sneakers for good.

round and round and round we go

notes before we begin: i am aware of the mavs suns thrilla in big D that happened tonight, but i only caught the 2nd and 3rd quarters because i was busy getting boards and buckets for the pimentos of the palisades recreation league. PMAC who has long existed only in the shadowy background of lamar blogom as a co-contributor will be contributing a post i'm told is entitled "do the heisman that ho." we should all be excited.

well it started when mj posted up in his austin powers inspired red crushed velvet jacket and told the five media members of charlotte that bernie is his dawg, but that dawg ain't got no bite. or maybe it started when james dolan made the confusing (to say the least) decision to get all reup gang with isiah thomas' contract. i already dropped knowledge on that. well anyways the carousel spun on over to ill-waukee and found terry stotts sitting at his desk like "what do you want from me all my dudes are injured?" as you can probably tell, the carousel was having none of it.

anyways so they hired someone with an unpronouncable last name in which K is prominently involved. LOOKS LIKE WE GOT OURSELVES ANOTHER ONE. maybe this one will have the good sense not to piss me off by coaching duke and tossing gilbert off his roster.

(by the way how much you pay for the pay-per-view showing of gilly playing against the blue devils. i'm prepared to drop $200 if he lives up to expectations. i demand, however, that he play with the long beach state team and that snoop dogg and dick vitale are announcing. snoop would be doing play by play, and at least one time in the game, vitale would have to rep the LBC. just saying.)

actually i take back that the new coach k's name is unpronounceable it's Krystkowiak which ain't so bad as far as these things go. i'll still be saying his name with a scowl unless the bucks turn into some ill shit when everyone is back and healthy and running. the bucks have the potential to be a fine team in the eastern conference. if they can stay healthy, which is a big gotdamn if these days, they have the potential to be a sick squad on offense. there was a reason everyone and their bro (incl. i think me) was ripping the raps for their trade for tj ford, and that is that c villy is so silly when he's healthy.

but they do have to play some defense to win some b ball games. and while winning is sometimes not as high on the lamar blogom priority list as some might like, winning is essential for the bucks because they don't have a single player that makes watching them redeeming in its own right. i guess redd can be fun at times--when he's draining jumpers in front of at least 2 defenseless defenders to be totally specific--but they don't have someone like j.r. smith or j smoove or even shaun livingston--someone that can delight and confound within seconds of each other. every player on their roster is a model of self-actualization, which basically makes them the young spurs, without any defense or a dominating underrated post player. that's right, i said that shit.

in order to become watchable i suggest they do 1 of 3 things--

1. start playing defense
2. draft someone electrifying
3. play at a blindingly fast clip

really any one of those 3 would be fine. OUT.