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Tag: John Wall
The NBA Draft takes place on Thursday night from Madison Square Garden. Like virtually everything else in the world these days the draft is interesting at least in part because you can bet on it. Bodog and 5Dimes are both among several books that are offering a full range of NBA Draft props. Here’s a look at some of the more interesting ones:
A lot of players chosen in the NBA Draft each year aren’t expected to hit the ground running. Teams that pick them know that it will take a year or two for them to grow up physically, learn the pro game, and adjust to the mental and physical demands of the new league. Each year, though, there are guys that are valuable contributing players to their teams pretty much right out of the gate. Stephen Curry fits that bill from last year, and Brandon Jennings and Tyreke Evans really did – they were arguably the best players on their teams. Here’s a look at six guys who could be useful for their new teams right from the start:
Continue reading “2010 NBA Draft – Players With Biggest Impacts”
Wow, Cleveland is bad. So, so, so bad. Brady Quinn isn’t the answer. Is there an answer?
It was interesting watching the debut of John Wall in Kentucky tonight. It was pretty obvious why people are so excited about him – there is a lot of talent there. He turned it over too much, and he and fellow super-frosh Eric Bledsoe are going to have to learn to share the back court better, but he played well, and he scored the winning basket at the end of the game. He’s going to be a good one. That being said, that was one scary game from Kentucky. Miami of Ohio is a decent team with a very nice incoming freshman class, but they clearly aren’t of the caliber of Kentucky, and they were 17.5 point underdogs. Despite that, they were the better team for much of the game, and could very easily have pulled it out. Miami led for more of the game, and for much of the game they seemed to want it more. Kentucky simply needs to be much, much better to play with the big boys. They have a few easy game to work out the kinks, but a deadly four day stretch at the beginning of December in which they play UNC and UConn looms. They need to be much better than they were tonight if they want to survive that duo of potential disaster.
It is not a good time to be a referee. Or at least a bad referee. We have seen bad calls happen at at least the same rate as usual, but league’s are doing something about it. First, the SEC announced this week that they have suspended the crew that made the bone-headed mystery calls against Arkansas in the Florida game. Now, MLB has changed their policy for selecting the World Series umpire crew. Typically they include at least one ump making his World Series debut so that they can add to the total of experienced World Series umps in the league. The large number of very poor calls in the playoffs so far, though, has forced them to get nervous about the situation and attempt to ensure the best refereeing they can get. To do that they are reportedly going to establish a crew made up mostly of crew chiefs, and entirely of veteran, experienced umpires. That won’t mean that there won’t be problems, but it is nice to see the league take things seriously and try to do something about it – at least until they can get a workable instant replay system in place.
It is not a good time to be a referee. Or at least a bad referee. We have seen bad calls happen at at least the same rate as usual, but league’s are doing something about it. First, the SEC announced this week that they have suspended the crew that made the bone-headed mystery calls against Arkansas in the Florida game. Now, MLB has changed their policy for selecting the World Series umpire crew. Typically they include at least one ump making his World Series debut so that they can add to the total of experienced World Series umps in the league. The large number of very poor calls in the playoffs so far, though, has forced them to get nervous about the situation and attempt to ensure the best refereeing they can get. To do that they are reportedly going to establish a crew made up mostly of crew chiefs, and entirely of veteran, experienced umpires. That won’t mean that there won’t be problems, but it is nice to see the league take things seriously and try to do something about it – at least until they can get a workable instant replay system in place.
I find myself writing about Kentucky basketball way more than any single program deserves in the offseason, but so much of what is going on there is just so compelling that I can’t help it. It’s rare that a team goes through such a complete overhaul in an offseason, never mind an iconic program like this one. The program found itself in the news three different times yesterday, for three totally unrelated reasons:
It’s not particularly surprising that LeBron James was named MVP today – he certainly deserved it. What was surprising, though, is the margin by which he won it. There are 121 first place votes cast, and James picked up 109 of them. He’s the youngest player since Moses Malone in 1979 to win the award, and the third youngest ever. Cleveland coach Mike Brown was also named coach of the year last month, and that raises a surprising stat – this is just the fourth time that a team has had the MVP, top coach and the best record in the league in the same year. Just one of those teams, the 1996 Bulls, has gone on to win the title.
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