Archive for October, 2009

For I believe just the second year in a row, Staples Center was host to a mini pre-season tourney.  On Saturday, in the first round the Clips beat the Jazz, and the Lakes beat the Bobcats (who if I recall, they were oddly enough the only team with an undefeated record against the Lakers).  This set up the oh-so-huge finals of Lakers vs Clips (with the ‘Cats & Jazz playing in the “B” bracket). Okay, so this was definitely a pre-season game, particularly with coaches being overly cautious by holding out slightly dinged up players who would’ve played if it [...]

What’s going on elsewhere?  Here we present All The Links That Are Fit To Print. …or just some random ones from the rest of the FanSided network and others. Howard The Dunk presents 11 Reasons The Magic Will NOT Win The Championship. As well as 11 Reasons The Magic WILL.  According to inside rumors, their next article will be “I Don’t Have A Split Personality, And Neither Do I.” Lake Show Life takes a look at the Lakers’ coaching staff. Blue Man Group is frustrated by Stephen Jackson’s effect on their beloved Golden State Warriors and says they’re Past the [...]

For those who don’t remember, last year after the Rockets defeated the Portland Trailblazers in the playoffs, Ron Artest was interviewed about their upcoming series against the Lakers.  Artest claimed that Brandon Roy was better than Kobe, and re-iterated it when asked to clarify.  He then went off and said actually the best player he ever saw was some guy from his neighborhood growing up who was killed by like having the leg of a table jammed through his heart or something.  Truly bizarre stuff. Now that Artest has joined the Lakers, his song about Kobe has vastly changed.  In [...]

Okay, okay, I know, I’ve been slacking.  It’s now taken me so long to finish up writing about the last game that the Clips already played another game last night.  Thus before I continue from Part I, lemme briefly talk about last night’s game: As much as the previous contest seemed like a regular season game, last night’s game was completely the opposite.  The Spurs sat Tony Parker, Manu played 19 minutes, and Duncan & Richard Jefferson each went for only 16.  Instead they gave minutes to players like Malik Hairston, Marcus Haislip (if you mumble don’t those two names [...]

No surprises here, but it’s nice to hear it was officially done.  Today the Clips exercised their third-year contract option on Eric Gordon and the fourth-year option on Al Thornton.

I went to the Clips’ game last night and, man, what a game it was!  Even though the bottom levels were almost completely empty, up in the rafters where I was, you could feel the excitement & electricity.  Oh, and before we go on, what’s up with the Staples Center attendants being so strict about letting people down low when it’s all empty there?  Wouldn’t the Clips themselves have gotten more of a kick if we all came down and completely filled up the lower rungs?  That’s what used to happen when I’d go to games at Madison Square Garden.  [...]

Okay, I know many moons ago I said the free Clipper keychain giveaway would happen shortly, and well, it didn’t.  But now it will.  The keychains come from WholesaleKeychain.com, who sent me one of the Clipper keychains.  I was impressed that it was a real, solid thing and not some flimsy junk.  I’ve had my keys on it since I got it, and if you reached into my pocket you’d find it right now.  Unless you reached in the wrong direction, you pervs.  Anyway, it’s officially licensed by the NBA, so it’s got their logo on the back too.  It [...]

When I wrote My If-The-Playoffs-Were-Now Rankings I realized I also talked a lot about where I thought teams would end up, so I figured maybe I should make that list.  It’s fun to debate how hard teams will come out of the gate, but isn’t it more important to think about how they will fare by the end of the season? First off, lemme clarify that these end of the season rankings are called power rankings because it’s not what teams’ end-of-the-season records will be but rather how strong they will be going into the playoffs.  Meaning like last year [...]

This ain’t about the Clips, or even about NBA ball.  Instead there’s an impressive introspective analysis by a professional journeyman ball player who has to go wherever he can find a job.  Below is just an excerpt, but it’s worth clicking on the TrueHoop article about Coleman Collins, Living in Germany:. It’s hard though. Sometimes I feel like I split myself in pieces when I move somewhere, and when I move away I always leave him behind. So there’s a New York me and an Atlanta me. An Indiana me and an Stuttgart me, infinite me’s with mirrors in front [...]

The LA Times had an article today on DeAndre Jordan working to improve free-throw shooting.  I didn’t realize quite how awful he was last year.  Apparently he shot 38.5% from the free-throw line.  Yeesh.  So what’d he do? [Jordan] got his 6-foot-11 self into the gym in the summer. And stayed in the gym. “I’m working on my free throws. A lot, a lot,” Jordan said. “At the beginning of the summer, I had to make 10 in a row after I worked out to actually leave. The first couple of days it was tough. I would be here, like, [...]