Mavericks

But when will it fall off? I say next Tuesday when the Clippers go to Texas and face the Dallas Mavericks and the Houston Rockets the night after.  I hope I’m proven wrong though but the Mavs are the rich bully kids on the playground whose dad hired a basketball coach for them.  While the Rockets are the quiet ones that are usually not on the radar but always surprises the other kids when asked to show his skills on the court.  It is up for the long time losers (the Clippers) to finally show the kids at recess that [...]

Kaman for Howard and Thomas could make sense for both teams.

After stinking it up in the previous game, Baron came back last night determined to make amends.  Unfortunately, the rest of the Clippers came out determined to play crappy defense and do their best imitation of last year’s pitiful team.  Memphis, who earlier this week had only won one game but had lost eight, shot an astounding 54% against your LA Clippers.  Offensively, the Clippers were fine, they shot 47.6% which should be enough to win most games.  Their three-point shooting is still off, as they shot only 20% for the long ball.  The free-throw shooting was a pitiful 61% [...]

We now continue with my examination of my fantasy basketball draft.  In case you missed ‘em, here are the earlier bits: Part I, Part II & Part III.  I seem to babbling more and more, so this time we’re down to an analysis of only one round.  Anyway, same rules/caveats as usual: -Players with a “(K)” next to their name were Keepers so they pretty much won’t be discussed ‘cuz they’re usually darn good. -These comments are based on how I felt at the time of our draft.  Meaning no one knew Brandon Jennings would score 55 points & be [...]

Atlanta – Their D wasn’t quite up to snuff in the pre-season.  Jamal Crawford needs to find his way.  And I’m not sure this team has the drive to take it to the next level. Boston – ‘Sheed’s crazy to think they could win 72+ games.  No way Doc would be dumb enough to run his starters that hard.  He’s realized it’s a marathon & not a sprint, so I expect Doc to rest his old guys as much as possible.  Still not convinced that KG will be his old self rather than his elderly self.  With that and lingering [...]

Okay, some people just call ‘em Power Rankings or Team Rankings, but I ain’t some people.  I’m just one people.  Er, person.  Anyway, the reason I’ve phrased it as such is ‘cuz I definitely think some teams will take a bit to round in shape (like how the Spurs regularly gear up in the second half of the season), versus others will come out & steadily play the same throughout the season.  And of course there obviously will be injuries and trades throughout the season, so who knows how things will end up?  Thus this is just my view of [...]

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times today where Bob Thate, former shooting coach for the Nets, compares the tennis serve to shooting free throws in basketball: He views free-throw shooters and servers as practitioners of essentially the same art — one more positivist than impressionist, its strokes predicated on rhythm and routine. “There’s a great correlation,” he said Monday night from Dallas, where he was summoned by the point guard Jason Kidd to deliver a weeklong free-throw tutorial. “You’re not going up and down the court or side to side, you’re standing at the line and 10,000 [...]

Today ESPN.com did a series of articles on the big free-agent bonanza expected for next summer, asking their panel of 52 experts specifically where top players LeBron, Wade, Bosh, & Stoudamire each will end up.  The majority said LeBron & Wade will probably stay where they are, with NY & Chicago as their secondary possibilities.  Bosh however only got 3 voters who thought he’d stay in Toronto, with the largest chunk of voters thinking he’d go to either NY or Miami.  Lastly, Amare’s largest vote total was for NY (13 votes) followed by remaining in Phoenix (10). Now everyone’s been [...]

As a born & bred NYC boy and a huge fan of “Mad Men,” I enjoyed Kevin Arnovitz’s TrueHoop article on the recent episode that involved a company wanting to tear down the then-Penn Station for what at the time would be a “new” Madison Square Garden.  He writes: The original Pennsylvania Station was eventually demolished, and rail traffic was sent underground, beneath the arena we now know as MSG. More than forty years after Madison Square Garden was opened above the new, dingy Penn Station, we regard it as basketball’s holiest site — a place whose mystique inspires basketball [...]

This is for those who haven’t been checking Part I and Part II of my post on the remaining roster spots available (Note: I’ve been updating those posts constantly as soon as new signings occur).  With the sucky economy, many teams will likely keep the league mandated minimum of 13 players on their roster this year.  22 of the 30 teams in the league have already hit that mark.  Six of those teams have 14 players.  Five other teams have 15 players.  However, since some teams, like the Nuggets, Magic & Trailblazers, all need at least two players to hit [...]