Basketball New Years Resolution

Early season NBA part 2

Thanks to 5 games on Christmas, NBATV, and an early season free trial of NBA league pass, I've had the chance to see a few games.

LAKERS - below average athletically. An aging Kobe, banged up shoulder from Gasol, and a number of other guys will some miles on their tires. Maybe a 7 or 8 seed in the West but even that could be tough to do. Just don't like the makeup of their team around Kobe. Also seeing too much old Cavs offense. Superstar with the ball and 4 watching.

BOSTON - very different from the past few years. They are 0-2 but lost 2 close games to playoff teams on the road, MINUS Paul Pierce. KG is yet another year older and just isn't what he used to be. Losing Jeff Green will hurt this year. He's got young legs and can score. Ray Allen still looks 25, so he will still will be affective. This Boston team is not a threat to win it all. Should still be a 6 or 7 seed in the East ( if Pierce comes back and stays healthy )

MAVERICKS - hard to replace what they gave up in the offseason. They'll be fine as far as getting shots but really going to miss some defensive pieces. Also picked up a few aging veterans ( Vince Carter).

TIMBERWOLVES - people are excited but at the end of the day,  still 0-2. Rubio has been slightly above his Euro averages at 6 ppg and has 10 assists and 3 turnovers. Most of his damage has been in transition and Barea handled it a lot in game 1. Not exactly game changing yet. I hope they can be fun to watch, but I'm not buying playoff tickets at this point.

HEAT - appear to be on a mission. Love the draft pick Norris Cole from Cleveland State. He came up huge in game 2 vs. Boston.

DeAndre Jordan - last season he scored 500+ points, every single one was from the paint. Only guy in the association to do that last year.

In other news.... our team comes back the 29th and we get back after it again. This is a big week for us in recruiting and with our current team. I will try to update more in the future.

The Team, The Team, The Team

The following was a column written in "The Advocate"

When the media’s preseason All-Southeastern Conference team was released way back in July, LSU had one player on the first team: Morris Claiborne.

Alabama had eight first-teamers, Georgia three. Even Kentucky had two, and an investigation revealed they weren’t wandering basketball players, either.

In the vote for who would end up winning the SEC, Alabama was an overwhelming favorite. Not surprising since most of the media attending the SEC Media Days in Birmingham is based in Alabama, but objectively most people looked at the team the Crimson Tide had returning and the fact LSU had to play there Nov. 5 and figured that would be the telling moment.

The Tigers, despite their lack of obvious superstar talent, earned the second-most first-place votes. It proved to be a telling statistic.

“Everyone was saying we don’t have anybody on the all-conference team, whereas somebody thinks we have a pretty good team,” LSU coach Les Miles said.

Back when Miles’ mentor, Bo Schembechler, was head coach at Michigan, he made a stirring preseason speech one year, a speech that certainly has to still resonate within Miles.

“No man, no coach is more important than the team,” Bo said. “The team, the team, the team.”

The team above all. The team’s goals. The team that can be greater than the sum of its individual parts.

As the season went on, surely this LSU team had its superstars. Claiborne became everybody’s All-American. Tyrann Mathieu became the Honey Badger, and despite a midseason swoon rode his indelible nickname and incomparable talent for making big plays to a seat in New York as a Heisman Trophy finalist.

But overall, it has been LSU’s depth that has led the Tigers to 13-0 and a berth in the BCS National Championship Game. Players like Mathieu and Mo certainly have had their critical moments, and individual playmakers abound. But it’s LSU’s ability to grind teams down, come at them with waves of players of similarly high-grade talent, that has been the Tigers’ biggest asset this season as they defeated everyone on a schedule that included eight ranked foes.

“This team has found exactly what they’ve needed to do to win,” Miles said. “They took on all comers.”

Certainly by this point on a team this good, it was to be expected that some players would get individual honors.

But you have to imagine this is exactly the kind of team Miles enjoys coaching – and the kind of team that ultimately would have earned Schembechler’s approval.

“I guess what I’d rather have is a guy who has a feel of having his teammates’ back, where if somebody makes a mistake or is out of position or fundamentally doesn’t make a play, that guy has his back and makes that play,” Miles said.

“Just for me is not enough. I want to do it for the other people in this room. That is necessary for any team that achieves significantly.”

The team. The team, the team, the team.

Random NBA Thoughts

As NBA training camps open up and college basketball is in full swing, I'm going to share some random thoughts on a wide variety of things.  Here we go....

Shane Battier to the Miami Heat.  Love this move.  He's always been a good spot up shooter, especially in the corners, and is a versatile defender.  With Wade, LeBron and Battier, the Heat have 3 switchables.  They can play multiple positions and most importantly DEFEND multiple positions.  Everyone looks at positions offensively and guys want to play on the wing ("I'm a 3 man coach") but it comes back to WHO CAN YOU DEFEND.  Here is a great, but lengthy, article from the NY Times (Feb. 13, 2009) about Shane Battier and what he brings to a team that doesn't show up on a stat sheet.  No Stats All Star

CP3 to the Clippers.  The Clippers will now be a hot ticket in opposing arenas.  They will be one the more entertaining and high flying teams in the league.  Chris Paul is a RUN and REWARD point guard.  If you RUN, he'll get you the ROCK.  Also one of the classiest, most competitive guys you'll see in the league.  My one question for CP3.  He used Clippers, great organization, and tradition in the same sentence.  Has he met Clippers owner Donald Sterling yet?  See This Article from ESPN the Magazine

Bonzi Wells to the Timberwolves.  The guy hasn't played since 2008.  Was a member of the Jailblazers.  Brought in to display "veteran toughness" ???  Not sure on this one.  Chalk this up to another head scratcher from David Kahn.  Wikipedia on Bonzi Wells
      
        Bonzi however did have his share of on and off the court incidents. During his tenure with   the Blazers, Bonzi was suspended for two games for publicly cursing at his coach after being taken out of a game. Bonzi was also fined in a separate incident for making an obscene gesture to a fan in a loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. When asked by a media reporter about the incident, he said, "I black out sometimes". Wells was suspended one game without pay and fined $10,000 for intentionally striking and verbally abusing an official in 2000. Bonzi and teammate Erick Barkley in 2001 were cited for criminal trespass after they refused to follow the order of an officer to leave the scene of a fight near a downtown nightclub

Not a good acquisition in my opinion.  Very talented, 10 YEARS AGO maybe a good addition, not now.  Sorry Kahn man.

Metta World Peace, formerly Ron Artest at Lakers Media Day:

You can't make this stuff up.  One of the best Ron Ron videos yet.

Dwight Howard: At this point, incredibly talented but a clown.  All his talk is taking away from his freakish athleticism and what he does on the court.  Be known for what you do on the court Dwight, not all the junk off the court and in the press.

James Fraschilla Trick Shots:  James, the son of ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla and a walk on at Oklahoma, had some spare time after finals.

More to come....

Do What You Know, Know What You Do

A passage from Hall of Famer Pete and it was taken from the book "A Good Man: The Pete Newell Story by Bruce Jenkins."  Coach Newell was referencing a conversation he had with Bob Knight regarding his motion offense.


“He set up that motion offense right on the floor of our living room. We have the chairs out, everything spread out all over the place. It was almost like a court and Florence was right there with us. The thing was, Bobby understood that offense and he believes in it. What you do, you’ve got to know. Too often a coach will accept the tenets of another successful coach and go against what he’s seen and known himself. You might appreciate Bobby’s offense, but you don’t have the first clue how to teach it, how to break it down, how to put it together. But because Bobby Knight did it, by God you’ll try it. Some guys don’t realize that a few lectures and a blackboard won’t win them the championship.”