With four teams left in the NBA finals the first game of the NBA championship series is about three weeks away. Both the Eastern and Western Conference Finals are going into game three. So far the teams with home court advantage are up 2-0, and the championship series is likely to be between the Lakers and the Celtics.
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Steve Nash had a bruised eye which will hopefully heal by Sunday, but the Suns as a whole will have a difficult time coming back from an 0-2 deficit against the Lakers for the Western Conference Title. In Game Two the Lakers came out strongly and evidently the 7.5 point favorites which the odds makers pinned them. The Suns gave up a 36 point first quarter, and even though the Suns tightened their game, the Lakers ran away with it in the fourth quarter. The Lakers travel to Phoenix for Game Three of the Western Conference Finals Series.
Miami, Chicago, New York, or Cleveland? Where will LeBron James, end up for the 2010 – 2011 season? The Cavaliers’ team leading small forward will become a free agent on July first.
The veteran small forward going into his seventh year of NBA basketball with over 15,000 career points is rumored to be looking for a new home. This news comes bundled with talk of Cavaliers coach Mike Brown not returning next season.
Continue reading “Lebron James Odds On Where the King Lands Next Year”
The NBA playoffs have bee full of great stories. The Celtics have gone back in time by a couple of years. The Suns finally got the Spurs’ monkey off their backs. The Lakers are looking like the Lakers. Performance the most impressive showing so far, though, is by the Orlando Magic. Not only have they swept both of their opponents, but they won their four second round games by a stunning combined total of 101 points. That shouldn’t be possible in the playoffs, and certainly not in the second round. The Magic are now riding a 14 game winning streak, and the only time they didn’t cover the spread over that stretch was in the first game of the playoffs, and they only missed by one point. Oddsmakers haven’t been shy with setting numbers, but Orlando just doesn’t care.
I really don’t understand the appeal of Tim Tebow. He’s a nice player and all, and he was a very successful college quarterback, but I don’t know why that is turning into a love affair with NFL fans unlike any other. The guy was a marginal first round pick who is only third on the Denver depth chart, and he’s far from a lock to be a long term NFL starter, never mind a star. Despite all of that, he led all players in NFL sales in April. That’s not just rookies, but everyone – including Donovan McNabb in new threads. Sam Bradford is a better player with a much brighter future, but his jersey only ranked ninth in the league. People are strange.
LeBron James is gong to get a title this year if he has to win it single-handedly. His efforts in the fourth quarter tonight couldn’t have been any more impressive. The pesky Bulls were tied heading into the fourth quarter, and they were causing real problems for the Cavs. They were only up by three points seven minutes later when LeBron took over. He amassed 15 points in the next six minutes to give his team the lead for good and to remind the Bulls who is boss. It was an impressive spectacle, though not a surprising one given what he is capable of. Also impressive in the game was Joakim Noah. He sounded ridiculous before the game talking trash about Cleveland, but he really backed it up with his play – 25 points and 13 rebounds.
Continue reading “Basketball, Basketball, and More Basketball”
The NBA as a league is often ridiculous, but they have reached a whole new low with their latest move. Dell Curry is a broadcaster for the Charlotte Bobcats so he is able to vote for the league’s awards. He’s also the father of Stephen Curry, the likely second place finisher in the Rookie of the Year balloting. Because of the latter, the league has stripped Curry of his ROY vote this year while still letting him vote on the other categories. By doing that the league says that they are ensuring impartiality and saving him from a potentially damaging situation, but what they are really doing is saying that they don’t have any faith in Curry’s professionalism. I would have no problem if Curry decided to give up his vote himself – though I certainly don’t think that he needs to – but I think it’s insulting and ridiculous that the league felt that they needed to do it for him. Besides, by doing this they are suggesting that Curry is the only one who could potentially have any bias, and that’s just ridiculous. If they are going to take away this vote then they should also take away the votes of anyone from Memphis because they will be biased towards Tyreke Evans, and take away the vote of anyone who ever played for Milwaukee because they have been biased towards Brandon Jennings. Bias is absolutely and completely a part of voting for every single award there is – if not then every winner would be virtually unanimous. Besides, they are planning on giving the vote to someone else who covers the Bobcats. Do you honestly believe that that person won’t be at least a little biased towards Curry since they see his father every day? If you do you are naive. By isolating this one situation the NBA has made a joke of the whole thing. Why doesn’t the league focus on more pressing issues like making their perennially awful teams competitive or tightening up the playoff schedule so that teams don’t have five days off between games instead of sticking their nose in something ridiculous and meaningless like this?
There is a whole lot going on out there today, so we’ll quickly touch on a bunch of them:
1. Roger Federer – Federer closed strong last night to make the semi-finals of the Australian Open. Win or lose, it is the 23rd consecutive Grand Slam he has made at least the semi’s in. Just think about how stunning that is for a second – there are only four Grand Slams a year, so for almost six years in a row Federer has finished at least in the top four of the hardest, deepest tournaments in the year. That’s on three different types of surfaces as well, and they are spread out over eight months. I dare you to name another current athlete that has been that consistently dominant for that long. There isn’t one.
Yesterday we made team predictions in the NBA. Today it’s time for the players:
MVP: Kobe Bryant. Last year Kobe got a taste of what it’s like winning a title on his own. His team has the potential to be even better this year, and he knows that he’s not going to get a lot of better chances than he has this year to add another one. That’s a serious motivation, and nobody responds to motivation better than Kobe. As an added bonus, Bryant doesn’t have the distraction of looming free agency hanging over him like some of the other contenders for this award have.
Before we get too far into the season I had better weigh in with some predictions and prognostications. I’ll look at teams today and individuals tomorrow:
Western Champion: Lakers. I think that the Artest experiment is going to work, and that will make this team tough to beat. If Andrew Bynum can stay healthy he’ll have a good year and another anther dimension to this team. The window isn’t going to stay open forever in L.A. and Kobe and everyone else knows it, so they will look to take advantage of their strength while they can.
Western runner-up: San Antonio. Richard Jefferson should fit here like a glove.
Biggest Western surprise: Golden State. I don’t think that they are a playoff team, but I also don’t think that they will be the doormats that most seem to think that they will be.
Hardest team to read: Portland. I like so much of what they have, but I have never bought the Greg Oden hype, and I’m just not sure how far this team can go as it is. I want to think that they are a 50-55 win team, but I feel like they might disappoint as well.
Western cellar dweller: Sacramento. If there is anything to like about this team then I can’t think of what it is. Tyreke Evans is going to be good, but he can’t do it alone.
Most improved Western team: Clippers. I am going to fall into this trap. Blake Griffin will be a big help when he is healthy, Baron Davis can’t be as bad as he was last year, and Eric Gordon is ready to be a star.
Eastern Champion: Boston. Like the Lakers, Boston knows that their window is closing. I think that the addition of Rasheed Wallace is brilliant, and that this team will be exceptionally hard to score on. I love the tone they set early by going into Cleveland and leaving with a big win.
Eastern runner-up: Orlando. I don’t buy into the Shaq experiment in Cleveland, and I think that Vince Carter makes the Magic a different and mostly better team. Dwight Howard is older and wiser now, and he is good enough to carry this team on his back – especially with a healthy Jameer Nelson at his side.
Biggest Eastern surprise: Toronto. I don’t think that their opening win over the Cavs was a fluke. It’s time for Andreas Bargnani to prove himself, and Jay Triano is the coach to help him do that. Adding Turkoglu was a master-stroke, and Demar DeRozan will contribute as the season goes along. Chris Bosh will be a focused player while the team is winning, and the loss of Jermaine O’Neal and Shawn Marion is addition by subtraction. This is definitely a playoff team, and I think they have an outside shot of hosting a playoff series.
Hardest team to read: Detroit. They were lousy last year but the stories you hear about the chaos that Michael Curry caused are pretty compelling. With a new coach and an updated roster it’s hard to get a sense of how much better this team can and will be.
Eastern cellar dweller: Charlotte. There is a chance that they could get their act together a bit, but I’m not betting on it.
Most improved Eastern team: Chicago. The obvious first answer is Toronto, but we have already covered them. Last year the Bulls squeaked into the playoffs and then gave the Celtics a big scare.This year they certainly won’t need to squeak in. Last year Derrick Rose was rookie of the year. This year he becomes a superstar.
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